Leviticus 18--Unlawful Sexual Relations

Leviticus 18
English Standard Version

Unlawful Sexual Relations
18 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God. 3 You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. 4 You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord your God. 5 You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.

6 “None of you shall approach any one of his close relatives to uncover nakedness. I am the Lord. 7 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness. 8 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife; it is your father's nakedness. 9 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister, your father's daughter or your mother's daughter, whether brought up in the family or in another home. 10 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your son's daughter or of your daughter's daughter, for their nakedness is your own nakedness. 11 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife's daughter, brought up in your father's family, since she is your sister. 12 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's sister; she is your father's relative. 13 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister, for she is your mother's relative. 14 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's brother, that is, you shall not approach his wife; she is your aunt. 15 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law; she is your son's wife, you shall not uncover her nakedness. 16 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother's wife; it is your brother's nakedness. 17 You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and of her daughter, and you shall not take her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter to uncover her nakedness; they are relatives; it is depravity. 18 And you shall not take a woman as a rival wife to her sister, uncovering her nakedness while her sister is still alive.

19 “You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness. 20 And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor's wife and so make yourself unclean with her. 21 You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. 22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. 23 And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion.

​24 “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, 25 and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you 27 (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), 28 lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. 29 For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people. 30 So keep my charge never to practice any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you, and never to make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God.”

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This is probably one of the most loathed passes of Scripture today and portions of it are lifted out of context to make one type of sexual sin seem worse than others.  Still other people try to read into the passage what is not there, and many try to completely discount the passage as something that couldn't possibly be relevant in the 21st century.  Well, nothing in this passage is ever changed, altered or softened anywhere in the Old Testament or New Testament.  In fact, sexual sin of all types mentioned here are condemned in the New Testament as well as the Old Testament, meaning we then would have to set ourselves up as a higher authority than Scripture to pick and choose the parts of the Bible that we believe are true and which we want to obey rather than submitting to the authority of the Word of God (both the Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ who affirmed all of the Old Testament multiple times).

We are told that the people of God should obey these statues forever, walk in them and live by them and to not conform to the statutes of the pagan, ungodly people that live around us (the Canaanites that they were about to be in the land the Israelites were about to enter).  There is no compromise here in these area with God because these laws and statutes are based off of His holiness and unchanging character and nature.

First, a prohibition against looking on the nakedness of any close relative.  We saw this was an issue after the Flood when one of Noah's sons (Ham) saw the nakedness of his father and instead of covering him up told his other brothers about it.  Ham's son Canaan was cursed by Noah (which seems odd since Ham was the one that sinned here, but we see that really all of Ham's descendants became wicked people opposed to the people of God), but the other sons Shem and Japheth walked in backwards with something to cover their father with their eyes averted to not look on his nakedness.  So, this is nothing new--the people have known this was wrong for a very long time.  This prohibition by extension would prohibit sexual relations with any "close" relatives because if you are not supposed to see their nakedness then you shouldn't be able to have sex with them (don't start trying to think of loopholes here, because the context of this passage is definitely about sexual sin, and the Law starts by saying that looking at the nakedness of a woman in whom you are forbidden to have sexual relations with is bad--this sounds not all that different from what Jesus said about looking on a woman with lust and committing adultery in your heart).  The Law then specifically defines who these "close relatives" are that you are not to see naked (since these prohibitions are given mostly to men, the prohibitions are given of a man looking at a woman, but it is probably correct to assume a woman looking at the nakedness of a close male relative is probably also forbidden and we'll see that same-sex relationships are also forbidden later.  No one in any of these family relationships should be looking at each other sexually.)--one's mother, step-mother ' sister, half-sister, step-sister, granddaughter, aunt (whether the direct sibling of your parent or step-parent or an aunt by marriage), daughter-in-law, sister-in-law.  You should not ever have relations with both a mother an her daughter or a mother and her daughter-in-law.  This is sexual depravity like that of the Canaanites (it should be made pretty clear in the section that "uncovering the nakedness" of someone is a euphemism for having sex with them with these specific prohibitions, but I think it also means looking on them with sexual interest and is before any act of sexual intercourse is committed).  Finally in this section God prohibits a man marrying sisters as rival wives (like Jacob did with Leah and Rachel).  The exception here seems to be if you marry a sister of your wife after your wife died.  The Law will speak more specifically to issues of polygamy later--let's just state up-front though that marriages to multiple women was never God's intent and we see that it always ends badly in the Bible.  It is also a sign of rebellion against the order that God has established with one man and one woman in a covenant union of marriage forever that is meant to reflect His eternal covenant with us (in fact, that's the issue with all of these types of sexual sin that we see listed here--they are not just unhealthy and bad for the people, but they pervert the covenant relationship of marriage in a way that damages the gospel message that is meant to be presented there).

A man is forbidden from approaching a woman to have relations with her while she is menstruating (she is "unclean" at this period of time).  A man is not to have sex with his neighbor's wife--this is adultery and coveting something that does not belong to him.  There is to be no child sacrifice--babies were burned in the fire in Molech's belly as a sign of worship to this Canaanite God.  I have to believe that this is not simply a prohibition on infanticide, but also a prohibition on abortion.  Not even the Canaanites had come up with something that evil yet for God to prohibit it, but we will see laws later that talk about if a man strikes a woman and causes a miscarriage that he is guilty of manslaughter or murder.  Same-sex sexual relations are forbidden.  They are only mentioned as male-to-male relations here because they probably did not have the means to have female-to-female sexual relations at that time, but all same-sex sexual acts and relationships are later forbidden in the Bible reinforcing this passage.  Bestiality is also prohibited between men and animals and between women and animals.

One side note here before we continue.  I think the prohibitions here are given to the men because the men are responsible for themselves, their families and their culture as God made Adam responsible for the Garden and the federal head over all creation.  If none of the men engage in sexual sin, then at this time, it would be impossible for the women to engage in sexual sin other than bestiality which they are prohibited from.  Men have always been the ones held accountable by God, though women will not be held faultless by the Law here as God knows that sexual encounters usually include two consenting adults.  We'll see later what happens in the case of rape and that God miraculously provided a way to identify if a woman had been raped or if she had sex consensually.

We wrap up this section with God calling His people to sexual purity because it is a reflection of His character, nature and holiness.  They are not to be sexually impure like the Canaanites (much of their sexual sin is also wrapped up in their worship of their false gods, so we'll see the ideas of sexual immorality and idolatry closely connected throughout the entire Bible).  God promises that if they start to engage in these practices that that Land will become unclean and they will be "vomited out" of it (exiled and taken into captivity).  These laws are for the native, the foreigner and the sojourner (the person "just passing through").  These acts are all called abominations to the Lord and anyone who commits these sins is to be cut off from the people, and we'll see that most of these sins will come with the death penalty attached to them when we get to the book of Deuteronomy.  They are willful rebellion and high-handed sins, but for the sake of the priests here in Leviticus, people committing these sins were to be cut off from the Tabernacle.  People committing such acts were unclean.  God again repeats Himself that they are keep these statutes and commands because He the Lord their God and that is enough reason.  It's kind of God's version of "Because I said so, that's why," but it's deeper than that when we remember His name is I AM WHO I AM, and we realize that these laws are an extension of who He is.