1And YHWH spoke to Moses, saying,
2“And to the children of Israel you shall say: Any man from the children of Israel and from the alien who resides in Israel who will give any of his seed to the Molech shall be put to death. The people of the land shall batter him with stone.
20:2. Molech. See the comment on 18:21. The evidence appears to me to favor the understanding of Molech as the term for the practice of human sacrifice, and not as the name of a god to whom such sacrifices were made. The reference in v. 3 here, “to make my holy place impure and to desecrate my holy name,” sounds as if it is forbidding making human sacrifices at the Temple, to YHWH. This is further evidence that the mention of Molech here refers to the practice, not to a god.
20:2. batter him with stone. Stone him to death.
3And I shall set my face against that man, and I shall cut him off from among his people because he gave any of his seed for the Molech so as to make my holy place impure and to desecrate my holy name.
4And if the people of the land will hide their eyes from that man when he gives any of his seed for the Molech, not to put him to death,
5then I shall set my face at that man and at his family, and I shall cut off him and all who whore after him, to whore after the Molech, from among their people.
6And the person who will turn to ghosts and to spirits of acquaintances to whore after them: I shall set my face against that person and cut him off from among his people.
7“And you shall make yourselves holy, and you shall be holy, because I am YHWH, your God.
8And you shall observe my laws and do them. I am YHWH, who makes you holy.
9“Because any man who will curse his father and his mother shall be put to death. He has cursed his father and his mother: his blood is on him!
10“And a man who will commit adultery with a man’s wife—who will commit adultery with his neighbor’s wife!—shall be put to death: the adulterer and the adulteress.
11And a man who will lie with his father’s wife, he has exposed his father’s nudity: the two of them shall be put to death. Their blood is on them.
12And a man who will lie with his daughter-in-law: the two of them shall be put to death. They have done an aberration. Their blood is on them.
20:12. a man who will lie with his daughter-in-law. That is precisely what Judah (unknowingly) does with Tamar (knowingly) in Genesis 38. But she is not punished. On the contrary, Judah acknowledges that she is right; and their union maintains the family line, from which David and the royal family of Israel will be descended. What this law in Moses’ age establishes is that the Judah-and-Tamar event is no longer permissible, just as some other acts of the patriarchal days become forbidden in the laws given to Moses.
13And a man who will lie with a male like lying with a woman: the two of them have done an offensive thing. They shall be put to death. Their blood is on them.
20:13. an offensive thing. See the comment on Lev 18:22.
14And a man who will take a woman and her mother: it is a perversion. You shall burn him and them in fire, so there will not be perversion among you.
15And a man who will have his intercourse with an animal shall be put to death. And you shall kill the animal.
16And a woman who will go up to any animal to mate with it: you shall kill the woman and the animal. They shall be put to death. Their blood is on them.
20:16. mate. It is the same word that is used earlier (Lev 19:19) to describe mating animals of two different species.
17And a man who will take his sister, his father’s daughter or his mother’s daughter, and see her nudity, and she will see his nudity, it is shame; and they will be cut off in the eyes of the children of their people. He has exposed his sister’s nudity. He shall bear his crime.
20:17. they will be cut off in the eyes of the children of their people.... He shall bear his crime. Why are the brother and sister not killed as in the preceding cases? Perhaps the case of sex between a brother and sister is regarded as more specifically internal (same family, same generation) than any other. And perhaps an observed history of genetic weaknesses in the offspring of sibling unions led Israel to see this offense as carrying its own punishment. The words “He shall bear his crime” mean that the punishment is to come from God, as I discussed earlier, and this fits with the idea that this is outside the jurisdiction of human courts.
18And a man who will lie with a menstruating woman and will expose her nudity: he has uncovered her source, and she has exposed the source of her blood. And the two of them will be cut off from among their people.
19And you shall not expose the nudity of your mother’s sister or your father’s sister, because one has thus uncovered his close relative. They shall bear their crime.
20And a man who will lie with his aunt: he has exposed his uncle’s nudity. They shall bear their sin. They shall die childless.
21And a man who will take his brother’s wife: it is an impurity. He has exposed his brother’s nudity. They will be childless.
22“And you shall observe all my laws and all my judgments and do them, and the land to which I am bringing you to live in it will not vomit you out.
23And you shall not go by the laws of the nation that I am ejecting from in front of you, because they have done all of these, and I am disgusted with them.
24And I have said to you: You shall possess their land, and I shall give it to you to possess it, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am YHWH, your God, who has distinguished you from the peoples,
20:24. distinguished. The word “distinguished” in English may connote a sense of higher status over others, but that is not at all applicable here. God is distinguishing Israel from other nations just as God distinguishes light from darkness and distinguishes sea from dry land in Genesis 1. It is a matter of separating and making distinctions among things, not a matter of hierarchies.
25and you shall distinguish between the pure animal and the impure, and between the impure bird and the pure, and you shall not make yourselves detestable by an animal or by a bird or by anything that creeps on the ground that I have distinguished as impure for you.
26And you shall be holy to me because I, YHWH, am holy, and I have distinguished you from the peoples to be mine.
20:26. I have distinguished you from the peoples to be mine. On the meaning of this for the people of Israel, see the preceding comment and the comments on Exod 19:5 and Deut 7:6.
27“And a man or woman: if there will be among them a ghost or a spirit of an acquaintance, they shall be put to death. They shall batter them with stone. Their blood is on them.”
