Leviticus 18:1-30

 Leviticus 18:1-30

And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, I am the LORD your God.
After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.
Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the LORD your God.
Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the LORD.
None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the LORD.

The nakedness of thy father, or the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover: she is thy mother; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
The nakedness of thy father's wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy father's nakedness.
The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, whether she be born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover.
The nakedness of thy son's daughter, or of thy daughter's daughter, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover: for theirs is thine own nakedness.
The nakedness of thy father's wife's daughter, begotten of thy father, she is thy sister, thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father's sister: she is thy father's near kinswoman.
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother's sister: for she is thy mother's near kinswoman.
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father's brother, thou shalt not approach to his wife: she is thine aunt.
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy daughter in law: she is thy son's wife; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother's wife: it is thy brother's nakedness.
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, neither shalt thou take her son's daughter, or her daughter's daughter, to uncover her nakedness; for they are her near kinswomen: it is wickedness.
Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life time.

Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life time.

Also thou shalt not approach unto a woman to uncover her nakedness, as long as she is put apart for her uncleanness.

Moreover thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour's wife, to defile thyself with her.

And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD.

Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.

Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion.

Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you:

And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.

Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you:

(For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;)

That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you.

For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people.

Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the LORD your God.

a. Egypt was a nation that engaged in incest. I don’t know when contemporary science found this out, but regardless, this is another example of God’s word informing us of it before modern science discovers it.  Here is another case of God and His Word being proven true, that the “doings of the land of Egypt” included incest.

1). National geographic, 9/2009, King Tut’s Family Secrets:  “Pharaonic Egypt was not the only society in history to institutionalize royal incest, which can have political advantages. (See  “The Risks and Rewards of Royal Incest”).  But there can be a dangerous consequence. Married siblings are more likely to pass on twin copies of harmful genes, leaving their children vulnerable to a variety of genetic defects. Tutankhamun's malformed foot may have been one such flaw. We suspect he also had a partially cleft palate, another congenital defect. Perhaps he struggled against others until a severe bout of malaria or a leg broken in an accident added one strain too many to a body that could no longer carry the load. There may be one other poignant testimony to the legacy of royal incest buried with Tutankhamun in his tomb. While the data are still incomplete, our study suggests that one of the mummified fetuses found there is the daughter of Tutankhamun himself, and the other fetus is probably his child as well. So far we have been able to obtain only partial data for the two female mummies from KV21. One of them, KV21A, may well be the infants' mother and thus, Tutankhamun's wife, Ankhesenamun. We know from history that she was the daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, and thus likely her husband's half sister. Another consequence of inbreeding can be children whose genetic defects do not allow them to be brought to term.”

b. The use of the term “uncover the nakedness” is a sexual euphemism.

1). uncover the nakedness [1540 * galah] [Chumash: Jewish tradition, p651. The name given to these illicit relationships is “…uncovering of nakedness”.]

c. An interesting fact about the Levitical passage is it declares illegal the marriages of Abraham and Moses’s father and mother.

1). Leviticus 18:9 The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, whether she be born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover.

a). Abraham was married to his half sister, he married the daughter of his father from another woman.

(1). Genesis 20:11, 12 And Abraham said, Because I thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wife's sake.

And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.

2). This new divine legislation would also outlaw the marriage of Moses’s own parents.

 

a). Leviticus 18:12 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father's sister: she [is] thy father's near kinswoman.

b). Moses’s father married his father’s sister, his aunt.

(1). Exodus 6:20 And Amram took him Jochebed his father's sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses: and the years of the life of Amram were  an hundred and thirty and seven years 

 

d. This new divine legislation was implemented because as the generations continued to be born and die, the effects of sin multiplied the generational defects within men and women. Just as the spiritual effects of sin produced more wickedness in the next generations, the physical defects from sin also multiplied to the point that intermarriage between close relatives made birth defects inevitable, and to prevent that, God in his wisdom gave the commandments forbidding these marriages.  

e. An interesting fact about this passage that I haven’t noticed before is that the use of the Hebrew word for “ordinance” used in describing the “ordinances” of God and the “ordinances” of Canaan are the same Hebrew word.

1). ordinances [2708 * [huqqah][Gesenius: that which is established or defined, law, ordinance, practice, custom, right, privilege.]

a). It looks as if there were laws on the books in Egypt and in the Canaanite nations regarding their incest, their child sacrifice, their homosexuality, their bestiality. They codified their immorality into their legal systems, however crude that was, they legislated their immorality. America is more and more becoming a Canaanite nation. We are codifying our immorality into our legal system, we are legislating our immorality, in particular some of the same things the Canaanite nations did.When Roe v. Wade became the law of the land, we codified child sacrifice into our legal system, just as Cnaan did, When Lawrence v. Texas was decided, it  became the going down the same path. In our efforts to not legislate morality, we are legislating immorality.