(Leviticus 20:1 - 20:27)
Jehovah gave Moses further instructions for the people of Israel: "Any Israelite or foreigner residing amongst them who delivers any of his children to be a sacrifice to the god Moloch must be executed. The people of the community should stone such persons to death. I myself will reject them and no longer regard them as my people, because, by sacrificing their children to Moloch, they have disgraced my Tabernacle and profaned my holy name. And if the people of Israel turn a blind eye to them when they sacrifice their children to Moloch and fail to execute them, then I myself will reject them and their families and no longer regard them as my people; this will happen to all who emulate them by prostituting themselves in the worship of Moloch.
"While those who prostitute themselves by putting their faith in mediums and necromancers, I will reject them as well and no longer regard them as my people.
"Set yourself apart by being holy, because I, Jehovah, am holy. Honor my statutes and put them into practice, for it is Jehovah who can make you holy.
"Anyone who curses his father or mother should be put to death, because to curse one's parents is a capital offense.
"If a man commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, both the adulterer and the adulteress should be put to death.
"If a man has sexual relations with a wife belonging to his father, he has dishonored his father: both the man and the woman are to be put to death, for this is a capital offense.
"If a man has sexual relations with his daughter-in-law, he has committed a perverse act, a capital offense; both must be put to death.
"If a man has sexual relations with another man as one would with a woman, he and the other man have committed a despicable act and a capital offense; both men should be put to death.
"If a man has sexual relations with both a woman and her mother, he has committed a depraved act. He and the women should be burned to death in order that no such depravity exist among you.
"If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he should be put to death and the animal killed.
"If a woman offers herself for sexual relations with an animal, both the woman and the animal should be killed. This is a capital offense and both must be put to death.
"If a man marries his sister, the daughter of either his father or his mother, and they have sexual relations, it is disgrace. They should be banished from the community. The man has violated his sister and will be punished for his act.
"If a man has sexual relations with a woman who is menstruating, he has exposed the source of her blood flow and she has allowed it. Both should be banished from the community.
"Do not have sexual relations with your aunt, the sister of either your mother or your father, for that would dishonor a family member. Both are guilty and will be punished.
"If a man has sexual relations with his uncle's wife, he has disgraced his uncle. Both the man and the woman will be punished and will die childless.
"Similarly, if a man has sexual relations with his brother's wife, it is an impure act, for he has disgraced his brother. Both the man and his sister-in-law will be childless.
"You must honor my laws and statutes and put them into practice or else the land I am bringing you to will expel you like vomit. Do not follow the ways of the people I will be driving out before you, for it is because they commit these aforesaid acts that I revile them. But to you I have made this promise, 'You may take possession of their land because I have given it to you as a legacy -- a land flowing with milk and honey.' I am Jehovah your god, who has made a distinction between you and other nations.
"You must, therefore, make a distinction between ritually pure and impure animals and birds. And do not defile yourself by eating crawling bugs, for these I have set apart as being ritually impure for you.
"You must be holy, for I, Jehovah, am holy and I have set you apart from all peoples to be my own.
"A man or a woman who works as a medium or a necromancer is committing a capital offense and must be put to death by stoning."
Notes
1. We have more references to Moloch, the Canaanite god which the Israelites could not have even heard of it since they had not reached Canaan, nor would they for forty years. But Jehovah is nothing if not prepared for the future and prospective transgressions to punish. One wonders how interested the Israelites would be in hearing counsels about how they should act in the Promised Land when that land was so far away in time and distance. And there are so many admonitions against the worship of other gods, one wonders why the Israelites were so prone to stray from their religious commitments. Was Jehovah and his worship so unattractive and unsatisfying to them?
2. We have two statements concerning mediums and necromancers, those who communicate with spirits and those who communicate with the dead. Firstly they are to be rejected, maybe banished. In a second statement, that seems to have been tacked on like an addendum, the mediums and necromancers are now to be stoned to death. This is unequivocal, unlike the statement concerning witches in Exodus. It is clear that the priests of Jehovah needed to stamp out the competition that mediums and necromancers presented. The Jehovan priesthood was as ruthless as the priestly caste of Egypt in guarding their prerogatives and oppressing, if not exterminating their rivals.
3. Parental disrespect can be a capital offense. It is not clear what is required here to merit a death sentence, a formal curse, or merely words that are disdainful or contemptuous. Could a harsh word to your old man, a bit of sass to your mother, or some back talk in a family argument cause you to end up prematurely joining your ancestors? Children do have to be kept in line and their natural rebelliousness curbed. The death penalty for offenders would have seemed an effective solution. One wonders, though, if an Israelite cursed a Moloch-worshiping, Sabbath-violating, pork-eating father, would he be sentenced to death? At any rate, this represents the ultimate in family values. Traditional, static cultures, those that eschew change, reject outside influences, and aspire to retain a fixed social order -- the Hebrew people would fit this -- are usually very family oriented with strong parental authority, with children, even grown-up ones, subservient to their parents.
4. In regard to sexual crimes we have the death penalty for some, banishment for others, although there isn't a clear schedule laid out showing the relative seriousness of the offenses. Apparently the worse thing a man can do, sexually, is to have relations with both a woman and her daughter. The punishment for it is being burned, worse, one assumes, than being stoned or merely put to death. Why is this? Is there some back story concerning this we don't know about? Interestingly, aunt and sister-in-law incest is punished not by human agency, but by the curse of being childless, which Jehovah will presumably carry out. This is a departure from what otherwise is a fairly modern legal philosophy -- these are crimes, if you commit this particular crime, this is your punishment, and that punishment is exacted by political or religious authorities. Here we fall back into the primitive concept of taboo -- you do a certain thing displeasing to the gods and you will be punished by the gods, with ill luck, illness, etc., but always retribution of numinous rather than human origin.
5. With bestiality, sexual union between a man or a woman and an animal (maybe not that uncommon in sheep country!), the animal is judged guilty along with the human and receives the same punishment. Why did Jehovah believe that animals are free moral agencies? Why would he believe they are cognizant of his laws and capable of following them? He apparently saw the offending animal as complicit and having malicious intent, or else providing an irresistible temptation, not a victim or an unwilling, unknowing participant.
6. The man and the woman involved in a case of sexual misconduct are judged equally guilty. The laws here take no account of extenuating circumstances. The condition of a woman being of lower social stature and under the power of a man who can force her to do anything he wants, does not seem to mitigate her culpability.
7. Jehovah here comes down strongly against incest. The early Hebrews, though, seem to have practiced incest with a vengeance, even before they were exposed to the ways of the sinful Egyptians. And that did so apparently without any divine condemnation. Jehovah, or his earlier incarnation, seems to have had no problem with his favorite, Abraham, being married to his half-sister Sarah. By the laws presented here, Abraham should have been shamed and banished at the very least. Was Abraham not subject to these newly promulgated divine laws? Were these laws not then operative? Are moral laws not absolute and universal, but relativistic, based on whatever Jehovah happens to dictate at any particular time and place, for whatever people he chooses?
8. The sexual practices Jehovah condemns and outlaws are apparently practiced by the Canaanites. It seems very likely, just from evidence presented in the Old Testament, that the early Hebrews living in Canaan did so as well. Now, Jehovah, leading his people out of Egypt and back to Canaan does not want them to fall back into their old ways. That is a major theme of his pronouncements and the primary rationale for his statutes. With a series of well-defined laws and draconian punishments, he hopes to uplift the moral character of his people. So the narrative suggests. Jehovah, however, if he is a god, a spirit being, or a human from an advanced terrestrial or extraterrestrial civilization, does, sadly, seem to present the world view of a late first millennium-B.C. human, the attitudes, prejudices, knowledge, and experience of the Hebrew priestly class of that time and nothing more. It convinces one that, if the Jehovah of Moses did exist, then the laws supposedly promulgated by him through Moses were very likely not of his devising, but much later constructs, though possibly based upon regulations Moses may have authored and passed off as divinely inspired (something that almost all ancient lawgivers seemed to have done).
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