Commentari biblici

Leviticus 20:2. The people — Here follow the punishments of the crimes forbidden in the former chapters.

Leviticus 20:3. I will set my face against that man — Deal with him as an enemy, and make him a monument of my justice. To defile my sanctuary — Because the sanctuary was defiled by gross abominations committed in that city or land where God’s sanctuary was: or because by these actions they declared to all men that they esteemed the sanctuary and service of God abominable and vile, by preferring such odious idolatry before it. And to profane my name — Partly by despising it themselves, partly by disgracing it to others, and giving them occasion to blaspheme it, and to abhor the true religion.

Leviticus 20:4. Hide their eyes — Wink at his fault, and forbear to accuse and punish him.

Leviticus 20:6. To go a whoring — To seek counsel or help from them.

Leviticus 20:8. Who sanctify you — Who separate you from all nations, and from their impurities and idolatries, to be a peculiar people to myself; and who give you my grace to keep my statutes.

Leviticus 20:9. Curseth — This is not here meant of every perverse expression, but of bitter reproaches or imprecations. His blood shall be upon him — He is guilty of his own death: he deserves to die for so unnatural a crime.

Leviticus 20:10. The adulterer and adulteress shall surely be put to death —Adultery, however lightly it may be accounted of by men who are lost to all sense of virtue and honour, has not only under the Mosaic economy, but by several other civilized nations; been reckoned a capital wickedness. By the ancient laws of Solon the husband was authorized to kill the adulterer and adulteress, if he found them in the fact; or if he did not choose to proceed to that severity, he might put out their eyes. Among the Egyptians too, adulterers were punished with the utmost severity. If a woman were enticed to commit adultery, her nose was slit, and the man received a thousand blows with rods. To the same purpose, by the Roman laws, the adulterer might be put to death if he were taken in the act. Considering the heinous nature and fatal consequences of this vice, we need not wonder much, if, in well-regulated states, it has been punishable with death. By our laws a man shall lose his life by robbing another of a few shillings; but what proportion is there between robbing a man of a sum of money, and invading his property in what he often cherishes more tenderly than ease, plenty, honour, and even life itself?

Leviticus 20:12. Confusion — By perverting the order which God hath appointed, and making the same offspring both his own child and his grand-child.