Leviticus 18

Leviticus 18:2

Am] As I am your Soveraigne Lord, I command you these things out of absolute authority, and as I am God most holy, I declare unto you that you can have no Communion with me committing these following misdeeds.

Leviticus 18:5

If a man] According to the first Covenant of God with man, at the first creation, this may be understood of the perfect observing of Gods Law, which had the promise of eternall life annexed: But because man by sin, hath deprived himself of the power of attaining to this perfect obedience, this must be understood of the disciplinary, and externall accomplishment of the Law, which hath also its temporall reward: O according to the Covenant of grace of the new internall, and spirituall obedience, created in the faithfull, by the gift of the holy Ghost, which hath the promises of this, and the future life: 1 Timothy 4:8.

Leviticus 18:6

To uncover] To violate with any act, or in any manner, the chastity, or respect due to the bloud.

Leviticus 18:7

Of thy father] These words are spoken to the daughter, and the next words to the son.

Leviticus 18:8

Thy Fathers wife] Thy mother in Law It is] Thy father and she, by the vertue of matrimony are all one flesh: and therefore the prohibition of carnall copulation is in the same degree as that of fathers and mothers with their children, and so interchangeably: see Ezech. 22. 10.

Leviticus 18:9

The daughter] By another wife Of thy mother] By another husband She be borne] Either lawfully begotten, or a bastard. According to others it meaneth, sister by the same father and mother, or sister only by the mother.

Leviticus 18:10

Is thine own] They ought to be to thee as thine own children.

Leviticus 18:11

Thou shalt not uncover] This verse seemeth to be added for an exposition of the ninth verse, for marrying with the mother in Laws daughter, is forbidden, when both have one and the self same father, but not when they have two fathers.

Leviticus 18:12

She is] She is in a degree of consanguinity, forbidden by all Laws, and even abhorred by nature it selfe.

Leviticus 18:14

Thou shalt not approach] This is an expostion of the precedent clause: see upon v. 8 Thine aunt] Neerenesse of affinity hath as much force, to forbid joyning in marriage, in certaine degrees, as the neerenesse of consanguinity.

Leviticus 18:17

For they are] Between thy wife and them there is the degree of consanguinity descending by a direct line, therefore in the degree of affinity is also forbidden in infinitum.

Leviticus 18:18

shalt thou take] Such a conjunction is incestuous, verse 16. seeing there is the same reason for the sisters husband, as for the brothers wife: but here is also added the reason of the inconvenience, it being a kinde of confusion, to make two sisters rivals to one another, to produce continuall strifes and jealousies, as an example may be seene in Jacobs marriages, which in those first ages were tolerated To vexe her] The Italian hath it, To be her rivall] The Hebrew word is her adversary, 1. Sam. 1. 6.

Leviticus 18:21

Molech] An idoll of the Ammonites, which seemeth to be the same as Milcom, 1 Kings. 11. 5. 7. and the Pagans Saturne, in honour of whom the idolaters caused their children to passe through the fire of his sacrifices: either by some manner of expiation and dedication, or by really slaying of them, see 2 Kings 3:27. Psalms 106:37-38. Isaiah 57:5 Neither shalt thou prophane] Let not the glorious title, of being Gods children and people which you beare, bee contaminated by such a commixture of idolatry.

Leviticus 18:25

Vomiteth out] The Land is over-burthened therewith, as with a thing most abominable, and is no longer able to beare them: see Jer. 9. 19. and 10. 18. Micah 2:10.