Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Leviticus 18:2-5
The Command To Obey Yahweh Their God Whose Commands Bring Life (Leviticus 18:2).
“Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, I am Yahweh your God.”
What follows very much has the covenant in mind. God stresses constantly, as He did at the giving of the covenant (Leviticus 20:2), that He is Yahweh their God, and that He therefore expects their response. Note that these words are directed solely at the people. This continues from now until Leviticus 20:27, and then from Leviticus 23 onwards.
“You shall not do after the doings of the land of Egypt, in which you dwelt, and you shall not do after the doings of the land of Canaan, to which I will bring you, nor shall you walk in their statutes.”
Because He is Yahweh their God, and because they are His, they are not to live as others live and do as others do. They are not to follow the doings of the land of Egypt. They are not to follow the doings of the land of Canaan. Nor when he has brought them there are they to walk in their statutes, their behavioural rules that were recorded and required of men. They are rather to do as He requires.
Particularly are they not to follow their attitudes towards sexual relationships. Both the Egyptians and the Canaanites allowed sexual relationships and marriage within some of the degrees described below, and the Canaanites especially were free with their sexual favours, but Israel was not to be so.
This was particularly important in view of the conglomerate nature of ‘the children of Israel'. All among them were used to living in accordance with differing long established and varying customs picked up in Egypt, and previously in Canaan and other places. They were a total mixture of customs. But now they were to put all those behind them and begin to follow Yahweh's statutes and ordinances. The new beginning established at Sinai had to be seen as pre-eminent. The past must be put behind them.
“My ordinances shall you do, and my statutes shall you keep, to walk in them. I am Yahweh your God.”
Rather are they to do the ordinances and judgments that He has required of them, given them in judgments, or caused to be written as their guide (see Exodus 17:14; Exodus 24:4; Exodus 34:27; Numbers 33:1; Deuteronomy 31:9), and to follow His demands and declarations, and walk in His ways. And they are to do this because He is Yahweh their God, their Great Deliverer.
We are reminded by this that we too when we become Christians have become a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). We too have to put aside the old ways and walk as new men and women (Ephesians 4:22; Colossians 3:5; Galatians 2:20).
“You shall therefore keep my statutes, and my ordinances, which if a man do, he shall live in them. I am Yahweh.”
For it is in keeping those statutes and ordinances that they will find life. First of all they will avoid the danger of dying because of sin (compare Exodus 28:35; Exodus 28:43; Exodus 30:20; Leviticus 8:35; Leviticus 10:6; Leviticus 10:9; Leviticus 15:31; Leviticus 16:2; Leviticus 16:13). Secondly they will live in prosperity and blessing, for in Deuteronomy the idea of life and prosperity go very much together (Deuteronomy 30:15). The blessings of Deuteronomy 28:1 were to be for those who ‘lived'. And thirdly elsewhere in Leviticus it is stressed that they would enjoy the abundant blessings of God. ‘If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments and do them, then I shall give you rains in their season, and the land will yield its abundant produce and the trees of the field will bear their fruit. And your threshing will last for you until grape gathering, and grape gathering will last until sowing time, and you will eat your food to the full and live securely in your land' (Leviticus 26:3).
So fullness of life, He tells us, results from knowing God and walking in His ways. This was also the essential message of the writer of Ecclesiastes (Ecclesiastes 2:24; Ecclesiastes 3:22; Ecclesiastes 5:18; Ecclesiastes 11:9) as he sought to understand the meaning of life. He pointed to the free and happy life under God available to those who trusted in Him. And that was the life that the Law was intended to give, as the people responded to God in love and worship and sought eagerly to do what pleased Him and to enjoy the good things in life that He gave them.
This was not saying that the Law could ‘give life' as we might understand it. It very much could not. It could only show the life that should be lived. It could show what life was. It was the God of the covenant Who could give life, Who could renew His spirit within them (Psalms 51:10; Psalms 139:7; Psalms 143:10 compare Numbers 11:25), Who could give them clean hearts if they sought them (Psalms 51:10; Ezekiel 18:31). For the purpose of the ordinances was that they should constantly be returned to cleanness, and to a sense of a right relationship with God. The one who had raised up Abraham, Who had raised up Jacob, could also constantly raise them up. This is the message that the prophets would remind them of again and again. But it was true from the beginning. And through this they could live according to His covenant and enjoy His fullness of blessing. They would ‘live in them'.
Relationships Which Are Forbidden.
But central to this fullness of life were satisfactory family relationships. If they wished to enjoy ‘life' these were vital. Living in a patriarchal society where the wider family lived in close relationships with each other, and where authority was vested in the wider family and very much determined by status in the household, there was the greatest possible danger among such families, knowing the propensities of men, that the closeness of their relationships in their living together could produce sexual problems, and that those could then produce situations that struck at the very roots of the family and of authority. Men's lusts would be able to destroy families and especially womenfolk. They could also make life very difficult for everybody in a constant changing of relationships. They could in effect destroy ‘life'.
This was especially true because men who were in positions of authority in the family could, without these regulations, have enforced their will sexually and caused untold hurt within their own family circles. Without regulation children especially would clearly be vulnerable to those whom they loved and who were responsible for their protection. It was therefore necessary to have strict rules to control these relationships, to prevent them getting out of hand, and to so legislate that such aberrations should not even be thought of.
Practically speaking there were a number of good reasons why the relationships that follow were to be carefully regulated and any stepping across the boundary avoided, even if the assumption is that marriage, albeit often ‘forced' marriage, was mainly in view by the perpetrators. They could produce complications in status and in inheritance, cause deep rows, division and distress within families, result in huge tensions, destroy inter-relationships, foster discrimination and jealousies between blood relations, produce insecurity and uncertainty in family life, encourage constant distrust and fear, leave young children very vulnerable, and cause much bad blood and hurt which might affect a number of generations. They could destroy the stability, trust and love of the family. Such practises could also have been carried out deliberately in order to concentrate wealth and power within a few families to the general harm of the nation (compare the inter-marriage policy of Abraham's family in order to maintain status).
In most cases they were also totally unseemly anyway, denoting total lack of what was decent and natural (like boiling a kid in its mother's milk was to be unthinkable because it went against nature), and underlying them were also no doubt a recognition by God of the genetic problems that could arise. But above all they are a reminder that we are not just to be free to follow ‘love' (or lust) but must first do what is seemly and considerate for all. There are things that come before ‘love'. The family unity must not be destroyed for the selfish gratification of the few. That is why rigid barriers were and are necessary.
Where Christian standards of marriage and life, based on these words, have held sway, these relationships described have not outwardly seemed much of a problem. They have simply not been openly breached (although much has gone on under cover which we would be ashamed to talk about if we knew of it). But now that in many countries sex has become a free for all once again they have again begun to raise their heads, and many families are being affected, and many people hurt, by uncouth sexual behaviour in lands once thought of as ‘Christian'.
The problem of incestuous relationships was acknowledged elsewhere in the ancient world, but in a wide variety of ways and with varying penalties, many not very severe. It was, therefore, often not treated too seriously and never dealt with in detail in quite this way. This is thus a rare attempt to formalise in depth how such relationships should be viewed.