Leviticus 20

Leviticus 20:1-27

Leviticus 20:1-27(d) The Punishments for the Sins Enumerated in Leviticus 18:1-30; Leviticus 19:1-37 are Set Forth in Leviticus 20:1-27 What are sins in Leviticus 18:1-30; Leviticus 19:1-37 are crimes in Leviticus 20:1-27, and merit punishment as well as call for sacrifice. The great lesson is that no one can sin with impunity; that every sin merits its punishment. Consequently we have the expressions “ cut off,” “ set his face against,” “ blood upon him,” “ death,” “ fire.” The punishment may be individual (Leviticus 20:6); social and family (Leviticus 20:5); or national (Leviticus 20:18-24). There are practical lessons regarding punishment which one may learn from this chapter. First. Punishment does not seem to have been meted out with the primary purpose of the reformation of the offender. The punishments were to be considered as penalties for wrong-doing. Surely the execution of the death penalty, so often pronounced in this chapter, could not have been for the moral reformation of the offender. This thought should be of great interest to those who are perplexed with regard to the execution of the death penalty today because it precludes the reformation of the offender. It is interesting in this connection to note what the laws of the great King say (Numbers 35:30-33).

The probable primary purpose of these punishments was to satisfy an outraged justice. They were a manifest penalty for the open defiance of the laws of a holy God. Again and again the crime is given as the reason for the penalty (cf. “ because,” Leviticus 20:3, etc.). Second, these penalties were for the protection of morality among men. The laws of this chapter, being the laws of God, are not to be looked upon as cruel. In all the penalties executed, the fatherly eye of God is on the poor, the orphan, the stranger, and the afflicted. God is gracious and kind, but He will by no means clear the guilty.