Leviticus 20:2-27

He shall surely be put to death.

Penal sanctions

This chapter, directly or indirectly, casts no little light on some most fundamental and practical questions regarding the administration of justice in dealing with criminals. We may learn here what, in the mind of the King of kings, is the primary object of the punishment of criminals against society. First and foremost is the satisfaction of outraged justice, and of the regal majesty of the supreme and holy God; the vindication of the holiness of the Most High against that wickedness of men which would set at nought the Holy One and overturn that moral order which He has established. Again and again the crime itself is given as the reason for the penalty, inasmuch as by such iniquity in the midst of Israel the holy sanctuary of God among them was profaned. But if this is set forth as the fundamental reason for the infliction of the punishment, it is not represented as the only object. If, as regards the criminal himself, the punishment is a satisfaction and expiation to justice for his crime, on the other hand, as regards the people, the punishment is intended for their moral good and purification (see Leviticus 20:14). Both of these principles are of such a nature that they must be of perpetual validity. The government or legislative power that loses sight of either of them is certain to go wrong, and the people will be sure, sooner or later, to suffer in morals by the error. In the light we have now, it is easy to see what are the principles according to which, in various cases, the punishments were measured out. Evidently, in the first place, the penalty was determined, even as equity demands, by the intrinsic heinousness of the crime. A second consideration, which evidently had place, was the danger involved in each crime to the moral and spiritual well-being of the community; and, we may add, in the third place, the degree to which the people were likely to be exposed to the contagion of certain crimes prevalent in the nations immediately about them. As regards the crimes specified, the criminal law of modern Christendom does not inflict the penalty of death in a single possible case here mentioned; and, to the mind of many, the contrasted severity of the Mosaic code presents a grave difficulty. And yet, if one believes, on the authority of the teaching of Christ, that the theocratic government of Israel is not a fable, but a historic fact, although he may still have much difficulty in recognising the righteousness of this code, he will be slow on this account either to renounce his faith in the Divine authority of this chapter or to impugn the justice of the holy King of Israel in charging Him with undue severity, and will rather patiently await some other solution of the problem than the denial of the essential equity of these laws. But there are several considerations which, for many, will greatly lessen, if they do not wholly remove, the difficulty which the case presents. In the first place, as regards the punishment of idolatry with death, we have to remember that, from a theocratic point of view, idolatry was essentially high treason, the most formal repudiation possible of the supreme authority of Israel’s King. If, even in our modern states, the gravity of the issues involved in high treason has led men to believe that death is not too severe a penalty for an offence aimed directly at the subversion of governmental order, how much more must this be admitted when the government is not of fallible man, but of the most holy and infallible God? And when, besides this, we recall the atrocious cruelties and revolting impurities which were inseparably associated with that idolatry, we shall have still less difficulty in seeing that it was just that the worshipper of Molech should die. And as decreeing the penalty of death for sorcery and similar practices, it is probable that the reason for this is to be found in the close connection of these with the prevailing idolatry. But it is in regard to crimes against the integrity and purity of the family that we find the most impressive contrast between this penal code and those of modern times. Although, unhappily, adultery and, less commonly, incest, and even, rarely, the unnatural crimes mentioned in this chapter, are not unknown in modern Christendom, yet, while the law of Moses punished all these with death, modern law treats them with comparative leniency, or even refuses to regard some forms of these offences as crimes. What then? Shall we hasten to the conclusion that we have advanced on Moses? that this law was certainly unjust in its severity? or is it possible that modern law is at fault in that it has fallen below those standards of righteousness which rule in the kingdom of God? One would think that by any man who believes in the Divine origin of the theocracy only one answer could be given. Assuredly, one cannot suppose that God judged of a crime with undue severity; and if not, is not then Christendom, as it were, summoned by this penal code of the theocracy--after making all due allowance for different conditions of society into revise its estimate of the moral gravity of these and other offences? We do well to heed this fact, that not merely unnatural crimes, such as sodomy, bestiality, and the grosser forms of incest, but adultery, is by God ranked in the same category as murder. Is it strange? For what are crimes of this kind but assaults on the very being of the family? Where there is incest or adultery we may truly say the family is murdered; what murder is to the individual, that, precisely, are crimes of this class to the family. In the theocratic code these were, therefore, made punishable with death; and, we venture to believe, with abundant reason. Is it likely that God was too severe? or must we not rather fear that man, ever lenient to prevailing sins, in our day has become falsely and unmercifully merciful, kind with a most perilous and unholy kindness? Still harder will it be for most of us to understand why the death-penalty should have been also affixed to cursing or smiting a father or a mother, an extreme form of rebellion against parental authority. We must, no doubt, bear in mind, as in all these cases, that a rough people, like those just emancipated slaves, required a severity of dealing which with finer natures would not be needed; and also, that the fact of Israel’s call to be a priestly nation bearing salvation to mankind, made every disobedience among them the graver crime, as tending to so disastrous issues, not for Israel alone, but for the whole race of man which Israel was appointed to bless. On an analogous principle we justify military authority in shooting the sentry found asleep at his post. Still, while allowing for all this, one can hardly escape the inference that in the sight of God rebellion against parents must be a more serious offence than many in our time have been wont to imagine. And the more that we consider how truly basal to the order of government and of society is both sexual purity and the maintenance of a spirit of reverence and subordination to parents, the easier we shall find it to recognise the fact that if in this penal code there is doubtless great severity, it is yet the severity of governmental wisdom and true paternal kindness on the part of the high King of Israel, who governed that nation with intent, above all, that they might become, in the highest sense, “a holy nation” in the midst of an ungodly world, and so become the vehicle of blessing to others. And God thus judged that it was better that sinning individuals should die without mercy than that family government and family purity should perish, and Israel, instead of being a blessing to the nations, should sink with them into the mire of universal moral corruption. And it is well to observe that this law, if severe, was most equitable and impartial in its application. We have here, in no instance, torture; the scourging which in one case is enjoined is limited elsewhere to the forty stripes save one. Neither have we discrimination against any class or either sex; nothing like that detestable injustice of modern society which turns the fallen woman into the street with pious scorn, while it often receives the betrayer and even the adulterer--in most cases the more guilty of the two--into “the best society.” Nothing have we here, again, which could justify by example the insistence of many, through a perverted humanity, when a murderess is sentenced for her crime to the scaffold, her sex should purchase a partial immunity from the penalty of crime. The Levitical law is as impartial as its Author; even if death be the penalty the guilty one must die, whether man or woman. (S. H. Kellogg, D. D.)

Stone him with stones.

Lapidation

Lapidation, as is well known, was frequently resorted to by excited mobs for the exercise of summary justice or revenge. But as a legal punishment it was not usual in the ancient world; it is only mentioned as a Macedonian and a Spanish custom, and as having been occasionally employed by the Romans. Among the Hebrews, however, it was very common; it was counted as the first and severest of the four modes of inflicting capital punishment--the three others being burning, beheading, and strangling--and it was in the Pentateuch ordained for a variety of offences, especially those associated with idolatry and incest; in certain cases it was even inflicted upon animals; and its application was by the Rabbins considerably extended. As regards the proceedings observed, the Bible contains no hints except the statements that it took place without the precincts of the town, and that the men by whose testimony the criminal had been convicted were obliged to throw the first stones. But the Mishnah gives the following account, some features of which are possibly of remoter antiquity: When the offender is being led away to the place of execution, an official remains at the door of the law-court, while a man on horseback is stationed at some distance, but so that the former can see him wave a handkerchief, which he does when any one comes declaring that he has something to say in favour of the condemned; in this case the horseman at once hastens to stop the procession; if the convicted himself maintains that he can offer proofs of his innocence or extenuating circumstances, he is taken back before the tribunals; and this may be repeated four or five times, if there appears to be the least foundation for his assertions. A herald precedes him all the while, exclaiming, “So-and-so is being led out to be stoned to death for this and this offence, and so-and-so are the witnesses; whosoever has to say anything that might save him let him come forward and say it.” Having arrived about ten yards from the appointed spot, he is publicly called upon to confess his sins; for “whosoever confesses his sins has a share in the future life”; if he is too illiterate to confess, he is ordered to say, “Let my death be the expiation for all my sins.” At four yards from the place he is partially stripped of his garments. When the procession has at last reached its destination, he is conducted upon a scaffolding, the height of which is that of two men, and after drinking “wine mingled with myrrh,” to render him less sensible to pain, he is by one of the witnesses pushed down, so that he falls upon his back; if he is not killed by the fall the other witness throws a stone upon his breast; and if he is still alive all the people present cover him with stones. When the corpse, which is usually nailed to the cross, is in a state of decomposition, the bones are collected and burnt in a separate place; then his relatives pay visits to the judges and the witnesses, in order to prove that they bear them no hatred, and that they acknowledge the justice of the sentence; and they must show their grief by no external mark of mourning. (M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D.)