21 And you may not make any of your children go through the fire as an offering to Molech, and you may not put shame on the name of your God: I am the Lord.
And do not take an oath in my name falsely, putting shame on the name of your God: I am the Lord.
Let them be holy to their God and not make the name of their God common; for the fire offerings of the Lord and the bread of their God are offered by them, and they are to be holy.
Again, say to the children of Israel, If any man of the children of Israel, or any other man living in Israel, gives his offspring to Molech, he is certainly to be put to death: he is to be stoned by the people of the land; And my face will be turned against that man, and he will be cut off from his people; because he has given his offspring to Molech, making my holy place unclean, and making my holy name common. And if the people of the land do not take note of that man when he gives his offspring to Molech, and do not put him to death, Then my face will be turned against him and his family, and he and all those who do evil with him will be cut off from among their people.
But you make it unholy by saying, The Lord's table has become unclean, and his food is of no value.
Let there not be seen among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter go through the fire, or anyone using secret arts, or a maker of strange sounds, or a reader of signs, or any wonder-worker,
And do not make my holy name common; so that it may be kept holy by the children of Israel: I am the Lord who make you holy,
Give orders to Aaron and to his sons to keep themselves separate from the holy things of the children of Israel which they give to me, and not to make my holy name common: I am the Lord,
Because they are turned away from me to the worship of Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and Chemosh, the god of Moab, and Milcom, the god of the Ammonites; they have not been walking in my ways or doing what is right in my eyes or keeping my laws and my decisions as his father David did.
Then Solomon put up a high place for Chemosh, the disgusting god of Moab, in the mountain before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the disgusting god worshipped by the children of Ammon.
But he went in the ways of the kings of Israel, and even made his son go through the fire, copying the disgusting ways of the nations whom the Lord had sent out of the land before the children of Israel.
And by them the glory of the eternal God was changed and made into the image of man who is not eternal, and of birds and beasts and things which go on the earth.
And when they came among the nations, wherever they went, they made my holy name unclean, when it was said of them, These are the people of the Lord who have gone out from his land. But I had pity for my holy name which the children of Israel had made unclean wherever they went. For this cause say to the children of Israel, This is what the Lord has said: I am doing this, not because of you, O children of Israel, but because of my holy name, which you have made unclean among the nations wherever you went. And I will make holy my great name which has been made unclean among the nations, which you have made unclean among them; and it will be clear to the nations that I am the Lord, says the Lord, when I make myself holy in you before their eyes.
For she has been false to me, and blood is on her hands, and with her images she has been untrue; and more than this, she made her sons, whom she had by me, go through the fire to them to be burned up.
And when you give your offerings, causing your sons to go through the fire, you make yourselves unclean with all your images to this day; and will you come to me for directions, O children of Israel? By my life, says the Lord, you will get no direction from me.
And they have put up the high places of the Baal, burning their sons in the fire; a thing which was not ordered by me, and it was never in my mind:
And they have put up the high place of Topheth in the valley of the son of Hinnom, burning their sons and their daughters there in the fire; a thing which was not ordered by me and never came into my mind.
And Topheth, in the valley of the sons of Hinnom, he made unclean, so that no man might make his son or his daughter go through the fire to Molech.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Leviticus 18
Commentary on Leviticus 18 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 18
Here is,
Lev 18:1-5
After divers ceremonial institutions, God here returns to the enforcement of moral precepts. The former are still of use to us as types, the latter still binding as laws. We have here,
Lev 18:6-18
These laws relate to the seventh commandment, and, no doubt, are obligatory on us under the gospel, for they are consonant to the very light and law of nature: one of the articles, that of a man's having his father's wife, the apostle speaks of as a sin not so much as named among the Gentiles, 1 Co. 5:1. Though some of the incests here forbidden were practised by some particular persons among the heathen, yet they were disallowed and detested, unless among those nations who had become barbarous, and were quite given up to vile affections. Observe,
Lev 18:19-30
Here is,