Leviticus 18
DOYLYChap. XIX. ver. 2. — Ye shall be holy: &c.] These words were before used, chap. xi. 44, with respect to forbidden meats, and are now repeated with a peculiar reference to the abominations forbidden in the last chapter; it being a general reason, why they should strictly observe the peculiar laws, by which they were separated from other people, that they were the worshippers of Him, whose most excellent nature surpasses all other beings, in purity and every other perfection. Bp. Patrick.
Leviticus 18:3
- Ye shall fear &c.] Ye shall reverence and respect. Pyle. It was enacted by a law of Solon, that whoever did not make provision for his parents should be treated with infamy and detestation. Marsham observes, that the mother is here put before the father, as, in Exodus, the father was before the mother, to signify that obedience and reverence in general are due alike to both parents. Biblioth. Bibl.
Leviticus 18:5
- — ye shall offer it at your own will.] Freely and of your own choice. Dr. Wells. Or the words may be translated, as in the Greek and Latin versions, “ye shall offer it that it may be acceptable to the Lord,” that is, according to the rules prescribed in the seventh chapter. Bp. Patrick.
Leviticus 18:8
- Therefore every one that eateth it &c.] As Moses specified to the people the laws which he gave them, with several repetitions, the deeper to imprint it on their memory; so especially he did with those laws, in which they were required to be most punctual, as this of eat-
Leviticus 18:9
- — thou shalt not wholly reap] By this command, not only that which dropt accidentally, but even a part of the crop in the corners of the ground was to be left to the poor: thereby, proprietors of land were stirred to acts of good neighbourhood and generosity. Biblioth. Bibl.
Leviticus 18:12
- — neither shalt thou profane &c.] By vain, or common, or needless swearing. Dr. Wells. Either by swearing to what is false, or by rash swearing in common conversation, or by scoffing and speaking reproachfully of religion, or by too frequent, familiar, and irreverent mention of God in ordinary discourse. Dr. S. Clarke.
Leviticus 18:13
- — shall not abide with thee] That is, if demanded or wanted. Abp. Secker.
Leviticus 18:14
- Thou shalt not curse the deaf, &c.] Thou shalt not curse thy neighbour, especially the deaf who cannot bear thee, and complain of thee for so doing; nor “put a stumblingblock in the way of the blind,” who cannot see to avoid it. Dr. Wells.
The base action of reviling or cursing a deaf person is here condemned: but this is not all; the general meaning is, Thou shalt not take the sordid advantage of a man’s incapacity to defend himself, and hurt him either in his body, fortunes, or reputation. To abuse an absent person, to calumniate in secret, to attack another’s reputation in the dark, and in disguise, to defame those who are dead, to hurt in any manner those who are unable to help and redress themselves, all this
Before CHRIST 1490. b Chap. 23. 22. c Ex. 20. 7. Deut. 3. 11. Matt. 5. 24. James 6. 12. d Exodus. 10. 6. e Deut. 24. 14. f Abit. 4. 14. f Deut. 27. 18.
Leviticus 18:25
- — the land itself vomiteth out.] A most eloquent figure, expressing the excessive loathsomeness of their wickedness, which made their own country nauseate them, and throw them out as the stomach does food that offends it. Bp. Patrick. How strong and descriptive is this language! the vices are declared so abominable that the very land was sick of them, and forced to vomit them forth; as the stomach disgorges a deadly poison. Bp. Watson.
Leviticus 18:30
- — whosoever shall commit any of these abominations &c.] Next to “idolatry” the Jewish law seems to have condemned with peculiar emphasis, and punished with peculiar severity, “all kinds of impurity:” every species of incestuous connexion and unnatural crime was punished with death. Besides, not only was forcible violation capital, as by our law, but the violation of the marriage vow. The adulterer and adulteress were condemned to suffer a public and ignominious execution. The same punishment was the consequence, where the female, though not married, was betrothed in marriage. In a word, we perceive the most anxious care to cut off every greater degree of licentiousness, and stigmatise even the least with infamy: yet never did this care degenerate into an extravagant reverence for unnatural austerity and nonastick celibacy. In every rank, from the high priest to the lowest peasant, marriage was encouraged and esteemed honourable: our blessed Lord indeed has declared, that some permissions, relating to marriage, granted to the Jews for the hardness of their hearts, were inconsistent with the more pure and refined morality of the Gospel; yet, notwithstanding this, we perceive in the Jewish law so strong an opposition to the usual licentiousness of Eastern manners, and so decided a superiority in this respect above the legislators and philosophers of the heathen world, and still more above their religious institutions, as tend strongly to prove, that a system so favourable to the interests of virtue, and restraining so powerfully, and yet so judiciously, the excesses of passion; a system, introduced at that early period, in an Eastern climate, and amongst a people accustomed to be irresistibly led by objects of sense, had higher origin than mere human wisdom; and that,
Before CH R I S T 1490. Divers laws and ordinances. Before CHRIST 1490.