A Prophecy of Esau and Jacob

Leviticus 19

¹ And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying,

² “Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them: ‘Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. — ye shall be holy; separated from all the forementioned defilements, and entirely consecrated to God, and obedient to all his laws and statutes.

³ Ye shall fear every man his mother and his father, and keep My Sabbaths: I am the Lord your God. — and keep my Sabbaths; this is expressed in the plural number, because there were various Sabbaths: the seventh day Sabbath, and the seventh year Sabbath, and the jubilee, which was once in seven times seven years; the seventh day Sabbath is chiefly meant;

⁴ Turn ye not unto idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods: I am the Lord your God. — turn ye not unto idols; as the Lord is their God, and there is no other God besides Him, the Israelites must never turn their affections nor address prayers or enquiries to idols.

⁵ “‘And if ye offer a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the Lord, ye shall offer it at your own will. — at your own will; or, according to your own pleasure, a voluntary freewill offering, of their own accord, and not by force, what you think fit; for though this sacrifice, was appreciated, it was left to their choice to determine the particulars.

⁶ It shall be eaten the same day ye offer it, and on the morrow; and if aught remain until the third day, it shall be burned in the fire. — it shall be eaten the same day ye offer it, and on the morrow; the meaning is, that if it could be, it was best to eat it all up the same day it was offered, but if not, the remainder was to be eaten on the morrow, but by no means to be kept any longer;

⁷ And if it be eaten at all on the third day, it is abominable; it shall not be accepted. — it is abominable; it is as any common thing, as if it was no sacrifice; yea, as if it was corrupt and putrefied flesh;

⁸ Therefore every one who eateth it shall bear his iniquity, because he hath profaned the hallowed thing of the Lord; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people. — therefore everyone that eateth it shall bear his iniquity; be chargeable with sin, be pronounced guilty, and endure the punishment, which is cutting off;

⁹ “‘And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. — thou shall not wholly reap the corner of the field; but a part was to be left for the poor.

¹⁰ And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard. Thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the Lord your God. — left for the poor; is the poor Israelite; “the stranger” is properly the foreigner, or a proselyte who could possess no land of his own in the land of Israel.

¹¹ “‘Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another. — neither deal falsely; in any respect defrauding and over reaching in trade and commerce, particularly not being faithful to a trust committed to them;

¹² And ye shall not swear by My name falsely; neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord. — ye shall not swear by my name falsely: this is here added, to show how one sin draws on another, and that when men will lie for their own advantage, they will easily be induced to perjury.

¹³ “‘Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor, neither rob him. The wages of him that is hired shall not remain with thee all night until the morning. — MSG “Don’t exploit your friend or rob him. “Don’t hold back the wages of a hired hand overnight.

¹⁴ Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shalt fear thy God: I am the Lord. — do no hurt to any, because they are unable to avenge themselves. We ought to take heed of doing any thing which may occasion our weak brother to fall;

¹⁴ Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shalt fear thy God: I am the Lord. — thou shalt not curse the deaf; to revile one who cannot hear, and is therefore unable to vindicate himself, is both inexpressibly mean and wicked.

¹⁵ “‘Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment. Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty, but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor.

— ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment; this is said with respect to judges and witnesses; that the one should not bear false witness in a court of judicature to the perversion of justice, and the other should not pronounce an unrighteous sentence, justifying the wicked and condemning the righteous;

¹⁶ “‘Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people; neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbor: I am the Lord. — thou shalt not go up and down as a tale-bearer, or thou shalt not go about slandering; either by bearing a false testimony, whereby his blood is in danger of being shed when innocent; or by being silent, and not hearing a testimony for him, whereby the shedding of his innocent blood might have been prevented;

¹⁷ “‘Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart. Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not let sin come upon him. — you shall not hate your brother in your heart, nor shall you rebuke your brother in any way, lest you bear sin because of him.

¹⁸ Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the Lord. — but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself; sincerely and heartily, as a man loves himself, doing all the good to him as a man does to himself, or would have done to himself;

¹⁹ “‘Ye shall keep My statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle breed with a diverse kind. Thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed; neither shall a garment mingled with linen and wool come upon thee. — thou shall not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind; or “cause them to gender” for cattle do not usually of themselves gender with a diverse kind, unless directed and solicited to it, as a male of one kind with a female of another;

— for instance, an horse with a she ass, or an he ass with a mare, and even creatures that were like one another, yet of different kinds, were not to mix together; as a wolf and a dog, a hound and a fox, goats and roebucks, goats and sheep, a horse and a mule, a mule and an ass, an ass and a wild ass; for though they are like one another, they are of different kinds;

²⁰ “‘And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman who is a bondmaid, betrothed to a husband, and not at all redeemed nor freedom given her, she shall be scourged. They shall not be put to death, because she was not free. — betrothed to an husband; rather, who has been betrothed to a man. The reference appears to be to a bondwoman who has been betrothed to a fellow-servant by her master;

— she shall be scourged; and not he, as the Targum of Jonathan says;

²¹ And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: even a ram for a trespass offering. — he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord; to the priest of the Lord, to offer it for him; he, and not she, as the Targum of Jonathan has it;

²² And the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering before the Lord for his sin which he hath done, and the sin which he hath done shall be forgiven him.

²³ “‘And when ye shall come into the land and shall have planted all manner of trees for food, then ye shall count the fruit thereof as uncircumcised. Three years shall it be as uncircumcised unto you. It shall not be eaten of. — as uncircumcised, that is, as unclean, not to be eaten, but cast away, and counted abominable, as the foreskins are;

— three years shall it be; the cutting off of the fruit is to be repeated every year during three successive years. As the produce of the earliest year when let to grow upon the trees is both stunted and tasteless,

²⁴ But in the fourth year all the fruit thereof shall be holy with which to praise the Lord. — but in the fourth year all the fruit thereof shall be holy; separated and devoted to the service of God, to be given to the priest;

²⁵ And in the fifth year shall ye eat of the fruit thereof, that it may yield unto you the increase thereof: I am the Lord your God. — and in the fifth year; it was only in the fifth year that the owner was permitted to eat the fruits without redeeming them.

²⁶ “‘Ye shall not eat any thing with the blood; neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe omens. — any thing with the blood; any flesh out of which the blood is not first poured.

²⁷ Ye shall not round off the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. — round the corners of your heads; that is, they are not to shave off the hair around the temples and behind the ears, so as to leave the head bald;

— neither shall thou mar the corners of thy beard; by shaving them entirely; 

²⁸ Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord. — ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead; by tattooing, imprinting figures of flowers, leaves, stars; either with their nails, tearing their cheeks and other parts, or with any instrument: knife, razor; it was the custom of the Amorites, when anyone died, to cut their flesh;

²⁹ “‘Do not prostitute thy daughter to cause her to be a whore, lest the land fall to whoredom and the land become full of wickedness. — lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness: of the wickedness of whoredom;

³⁰ Ye shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary: I am the Lord. — ye shall keep my sabbaths; by attending to the worship and service of God on Sabbath days, they and their children would be preserved from the idolatry of the Gentiles, and all the filthy practices attending it;

³¹ “‘Regard not those who have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.

— those who have familiar spirits; it implied that those who practised this craft were supposed to be attended by an invisible spirit who was subject to their call to supply them with supernatural information; or practising as witchcrafts; 

— neither seek after wizards or soothsayers; such as pretend to a great deal of knowledge, as the word signifies; such as are called cunning men; the expression “wizard,” which in old English denotes “wise man,” “sage,” is almost the exact equivalent of the word in the original.

³² “‘Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head and honor the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the Lord. — rise up before the hoary head; but though no regard is to be paid to these soothsayers and cunning men, the greatest reverence is to be shown to the aged, for “with the old is wisdom, and in length of days understanding.”

³³ “‘And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. — ye shall not vex him; having once been admitted into the community, the Israelites were forbidden to upbraid him with his nationality or throw at him the fact that he was originally a heathen.

³⁴ But the stranger who dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

— shalt love him as thyself; he is not simply to be treated with consideration and courtesy because he is a foreigner, and enjoy the rights and receive the justice due to every human being, but he is to be put on a perfect equality with the ordinary Israelite.

³⁵ “‘Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in measuring length, weight, or number. —n meteyard, in weight, or in measure; the first of these signifies the measure of land, of fields and so likewise of anything that is measured, not only by the rod or line, but by the yard or ell, as cloth and other things.

³⁶ Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin shall ye have: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. — just balances, just weights; that is, they were to be the same for buying as for selling.

³⁷ Therefore shall ye observe all My statutes and all My judgments, and do them: I am the Lord.’” — terefore; because my blessings and deliverances are not indulgences to sin, but greater obligations to all duties to God.

Leviticus 20

¹ And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying,

² “Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel: ‘Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel, who giveth any of his seed unto Molech, he shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. — Molech, literally, “the King,” called also Moloch, Milcom, and Malcham, was known in later times as “the abomination of the Ammonites” 1 Kings 11:5.

— the nature of the rite and of the impious custom called passing children through the fire to Molech is probably true; the practices appear to have been essentially connected with magical arts, probably also with unlawful lusts, and with some particular form of profane swearing.

³ And I will set My face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he hath given of his seed unto Molech, to defile My sanctuary and to profane My holy name. — and to profane my holy name: by sacrificing to an idol, when sacrifice should be offered to God; and such a sacrifice as would cause the name of God, and his holy laws, and true religion, to be blasphemed and evil, spoken of among the Gentiles.

⁴ And if the people of the land do in any way hide their eyes from the man when he giveth of his seed unto Molech and kill him not, — and if the people of the land; if the community itself, whose duty it is to execute the sentence, either from culpable indifference or criminal sympathy with the sin, connive at it;

⁵ then I will set My face against that man and against his family and will cut him off, and all who go a whoring after him to commit whoredom with Molech, from among their people. — then I will set my face against that man; that man that sees him do the fact, and winks at it, or the judge that connives at him, and will not condemn him, as well as the man that has committed the iniquity;

⁶ “‘And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits and after wizards to go a whoring after them, I will even set My face against that soul and will cut him off from among his people. — such as have familiar spirits; to seek knowledge, or counsel, or help from them; the same punishment will be visited upon the man who consults necromancers; Jonathan says “and will destroy him by a plague from among his people.”

⁷ “‘Sanctify yourselves therefore and be ye holy, for I am the Lord your God. — sanctify yourselves therefore; by abstaining from such impious and idolatrous practices, as well as by observing the holy commandments of the Lord; otherwise internal sanctification is not the work of man, but of the Lord himself;

⁸ “‘And ye shall keep My statutes and do them: I am the Lord who sanctify you. — and ye shall keep my statutes, and do them; not only those respecting the above things, but all others, which would be a means of preserving them from sin, and of promoting holiness in their lives and conversations;

— I am the Lord which sanctify you: who had separated and distinguished them from all other people on earth, and who had given them holy laws, as the means of holiness; and who only could and did sanctify internally, by his spirit, such or them as were sanctified in heart, as well as outwardly.

⁹ “‘For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death. He hath cursed his father or his mother: his blood shall be upon him. — for everyone that curseth his father or his mother; here begins the account of the penalties annexed to the several laws in the preceding chapter; and that respecting the fear and honour of parents being the first,

¹⁰ “‘And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

— this death was inflicted for six crimes; (1) upon him who had commerce with another man’s wife; (2) who smote his father or mother; (3) who stole an Israelite; (4) who being an elder rebelled against the decree of the senate (Deuteronomy 17:12); (5) who played the false prophet; and (6) who prophesied in the name of another god.

¹¹ And the man that lieth with his father’s wife hath uncovered his father’s nakedness. Both of them shall surely be put to death: their blood shall be upon them. — it should be noted that having sex with a stepmother or daughter-in-law are put, by the punishment inflicted upon them, on the same level with adultery and unnatural crimes (verses 10, 13, 15, 16);

¹² And if a man lie with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death. They have wrought confusion: their blood shall be upon them. — confusion; by perverting the order which God hath appointed, and making the same offspring both his own child and his grand-child.

¹³ “‘If a man also lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death: their blood shall be upon them. — if a man lie also with mankind, as he lieth with a woman; is guilty of the sin of sodomy, this is a breach of the law and worthy of death; be slain by stoning, as the above Targum says;

¹⁴ “‘And if a man take a wife and her mother, it is wickedness. They shall be burned with fire, both he and they, that there be no wickedness among you. — it is wickedness; abominable wickedness, shocking and detestable; there are other things, which also are wicked and not to be done, but this is extremely wicked, wickedness to a high degree;

¹⁵ “‘And if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death; and ye shall slay the beast. — if a man lie with a beast; a sin quite unnatural, exceeding shocking and detestable, forbid Leviticus 18:23,

¹⁶ And if a woman approach unto any beast and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman and the beast. They shall surely be put to death: their blood shall be upon them. — thou shall kill the woman and the beast: the woman by stoning, and the beast with clubs, as the Targum of Jonathan; and this for the same reasons as before, as well as to prevent monstrous births;

¹⁷ “‘And if a man shall take his sister, his father’s daughter or his mother’s daughter, and see her nakedness and she see his nakedness, it is a wicked thing; and they shall be cut off in the sight of their people. He hath uncovered his sister’s nakedness: he shall bear his iniquity.

— if a man shall take his sister, his father’s daughter, or his mother’s daughter; take her to be his wife, or commit lewdness with her, it is not lawful to marry her, or lie with her;

¹⁸ “‘And if a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness and shall uncover her nakedness, he hath discovered her fountain, and she hath uncovered the fountain of her blood; and both of them shall be cut off from among their people. — a woman having her sickness; her monthly periods, which make her weak and languid, which is forbidden;

¹⁹ And thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother’s sister nor of thy father’s sister, for he uncovereth his near kin: they shall bear their iniquity. — for he uncovereth his near kin; as an aunt is to a man, and so an uncle to a woman, and both equally criminal;

²⁰ And if a man shall lie with his uncle’s wife, he hath uncovered his uncle’s nakedness. They shall bear their sin: they shall die childless. — they shall die childless; either the offspring should not be regarded as lawfully theirs, nor be entitled to any hereditary privileges, or they should have no blessing in their children.

²¹ And if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing. He hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness: they shall be childless. — and if a man shall take his brother’s wife; to his wife, whether in his life, as the Targum of Jonathan adds, or whether after his death;

— unless when there is no issue, then he was obliged to it by another law, Deuteronomy 25:5; which is now ceased, and the law in Leviticus 18:16; here referred to, stands clear of all exceptions;

²² “‘Ye shall therefore keep all My statutes and all My judgments, and do them, that the land whither I bring you to dwell therein spew you not out. — that the land . . . spue you not out; as the stomach does its food when it is loathsome and nauseous to it, and it cannot bear it; Leviticus 18:25.

²³ And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation which I cast out before you; for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them. — for there were seven nations cast out for them; and notorious for their wickedness: hence we often meet with this phrase, “the way of the Amorites” they would be ejected and abhorred by him, as the Targums of Jonathan says;

²⁴ But I have said unto you, “Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey.” I am the Lord your God, who have separated you from other people. — but I have said unto you; that is, promised to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and also to you, that he would expel the Canaanites, and give the land to the Israelites as an inheritance;

— I am the Lord your God; had chosen them above all people, to be a special and peculiar people to him; had distinguished them by his favours, and had given them particular laws and ordinances, to observe and walk according to them, different from all other nations, which it became them carefully to regard.

²⁵ Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean; and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean. — have separated you from other people; your selection from the rest of the nations was for the all-important end of preserving the knowledge and worship of the true God amid the universal apostasy;

²⁶ And ye shall be holy unto Me; for I the Lord am holy and have severed you from other people, that ye should be Mine. — and ye shall be holy unto me; separated from all unclean persons and things, and devoted to his service, and obedient to all his commands, and so live holy lives and conversations, according to his will, and to his honour and glory;

— for I the Lord am holy; and therefore they, his people, should be like him, and imitate him, and observe those things which are agreeable to his holy nature and will, and yield a cheerful obedience to his holy precepts;

— and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine; which is a very forcible argument, a strong motive, and which laid them under great obligation to obedience and holiness.

²⁷ “‘A man also or woman who hath a familiar spirit, or who is a wizard, shall surely be put to death. They shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.’” — “but” a man also or woman; that is, because the Israelites are God’s holy ones, therefore every man or woman who pretends to disclose future events by means of necromancy, thus usurping the functions of God, is to be stoned to death.

~ by Joel on January 15, 2024.

Posted in Books of Moses