Leviticus 20:2

Again thou shalt say to the children of Israel,.... The body of the people by their elders, and the heads of their tribes; for the following laws were binding on them all: whosoever [he be] of the

Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put

Here follow the punishments of the crimes forbidden in the former chapters. The strangers; not only such as were proselytes, but all others, these being gross immoralities, and such as the precepts of Noah reached to, and such as the laws of nature and nations obliged them to. And therefore the toleration of such actions was not only against reason of state, and the interest of the commonwealth of Israel, and dangerous to the infection and destruction of the Israelites by the imitation of such examples, but also against the light of nature and laws of humanity. Unto Molech, or to any other idol; for the reason of the law equally concerns all. See .

Leviticus 20:2 Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever [he be] of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth [any] of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones.Ver. 2. That giveth any of his seed unto Moloch.] Lactantius reports out of "Pescennius Festus," that the Carthaginians being overcome by Agathocles king of Sicily, and fearing lest their slackness in the service of Saturn - who is thought to be the same with Moloch - was the cause, offered unto him for a sacrifice no fewer than four hundred young gentlemen at once.

(2) Again, thou shalt say.—Better, And thou shalt say.Whosoever he be.—Better, What man soever there be, as the Authorised Version renders this phrase in Leviticus 17:3. (See Note on Leviticus 17:8.) That giveth any of his seed unto Molech.—It will be seen that whilst in Leviticus 18:21 the law about Molech worship follows the laws of incest, the reverse is the case here, where it precedes those laws. The people of the land.—That is, the whole community (see Leviticus 4:27), who have selected the judges, and in whose name sentence is passed by the judges, are bound to execute the sentence. Shall stone him with stones.—Lapidation was the first and the severest mode of capital punishment among the Hebrews, the three others being burning, beheading, and strangling. The Jewish canonists have tabulated the following eighteen cases in which death by stoning was inflicted: (1) of a man who has commerce with his own mother (chap 20:11); (2) or with his father’s wife (Leviticus 20:12); (3) or with his daughter-in-law (Leviticus 20:12); (4) or with a betrothed maiden (Deuteronomy 22:23-24); (5) or with a male (Leviticus 20:13); (6) or with a beast (Leviticus 20:15); (7) of a woman who was guilty of lying with a beast (Leviticus 20:16); (8) the blasphemer (Leviticus 24:10-16); (9) the worshipper of idols (Deuteronomy 17:2-5); (10) the one who gives his seed to Molech (Leviticus 20:2); (11) the necromancer; (12) the wizard (Leviticus 20:27); (13) the false prophet (Deuteronomy 13:6); (14) the enticer to idolatry (Deuteronomy 13:11); (15) the witch (Leviticus 20:17); (16) the profaner of the Sabbath (Numbers 15:32-36); (17) he that curses his parent (Leviticus 20:9); and (18) the rebellious son (Deuteronomy 21:18-21). As the Mosaic legislation only directs that the lapidation is to take place without the precincts of the city (Leviticus 24:14; Numbers 15:36), and that the witnesses upon whose evidence the criminal has been sentenced to death are to throw the first stone (Deuteronomy 17:7), the administrators of the law during the second Temple decreed the following mode of carrying out the sentence. On his way from the court of justice to the place of execution a herald preceded the criminal, exclaiming, “So-and-so is being led out to be stoned for this and this crime, and so-and-so are the witnesses; if any one has to say anything that might save him, let him come forward and say it.” Within ten yards of the place of execution he was publicly admonished to confess his sins, within four yards he was stripped naked except a slight covering about his loins. After his hands had been bound, he was led upon a scaffolding about twice the height of a man. Here wine mingled with myrrh was mercifully given him to dull the pain of execution, and from here one of the witnesses pushed him down with great violence so that he fell upon his back.

Verse 2. That giveth any of his seed unto Molech] To what has been said in the note on Leviticus 18:21, we may add, that the rabbins describe this idol, who was probably a representative or emblematical personification of the solar influence, as made of brass, in the form of a man, with the head of an ox; that a fire was kindled in the inside, and the child to be sacrificed to him was put in his arms, and roasted to death. Others say that the idol, which was hollow, was divided into seven compartments within; in one of which they put flour, in the second turtle-doves, in the third a ewe, in the fourth a ram, in the fifth a calf, in the sixth an ox, and in the seventh a child, which, by heating the statue on the outside, were all burnt alive together. I question the whole truth of these statements, whether from Jewish or Christian rabbins. There is no evidence of all this in the sacred writings. And there is but presumptive proof, and that not very strong, that human sacrifices were at all offered to Molech by the Jews. The passing through the fire, so frequently spoken of, might mean no more than a simple rite of consecration to the service of this idol. Probably a kind of ordeal was meant, the persons passing suddenly through the flame of a large fire, by which, though they might be burnt or scorched, yet they were neither killed nor consumed. Or they might have passed between two large fires, as a sort of purification. See Clarke on Leviticus 20:14; and "Leviticus 18:21". Caesar, in his history of the Gallic war, lib. vi., c. 16, mentions a custom of the Druids similar to this. They made an image of wickerwork, inclosed those in it whom they had adjudged to death, and, setting the whole on fire, all were consumed together.

2. Moreover] This introduction shews that the words that follow do not stand in their original context, but are an extract from a body of laws. Leviticus 20:2-3 appear to be inconsistent. In 2 the offender is to be stoned by the people, in 3 he is to be cut off by some kind of divine visitation. Probably we may trace here the juxtaposition of two sources, while for the sake of harmonizing them Leviticus 20:4-5 were added.

Molech, literally, “the King”, called also Moloch, Milcom, and Malcham, was known in later times as “the abomination of the Ammonites” 1 Kings 11:5.

2. Molech — See Leviticus 18:21. Or of the strangers — So cruel were the rites accompanying the worship of this idol that the pagans resident among the Israelites were forbidden to practise it,