John Calvin Commentary Leviticus 20

Nothing new occurs here, for Moses's objective was, by enacting penalties, to reinforce the instruction recently given. By previously condemning incestuous marriages, he aimed to summon the Israelites before God, so that their consciences would abhor the crime, even though he gave them no reason to fear earthly judges. Now, however, he alarms them with the threat of punishment, should any indulge themselves with excessive security.

He does not punish the incestuous with rods, as if they were guilty of only a minor offense; instead, he declares it a capital crime if anyone had sinned against the law of nature. First, he condemns the stepmother and stepson to death if they had sexual relations with each other. He then makes the same decree regarding the father-in-law and daughter-in-law, and thirdly, the stepfather and stepdaughter.

However, when a man cohabits simultaneously with a mother and her daughter, he extends the punishment to the mother as well—it must be understood—provided she also consents to the abominable affair. For if a man seduces her daughter against the mother’s will, and the mother is unable to resist it even if she wished to, she is free from guilt.

The same punishment is decreed for a brother and sister, and for a nephew and aunt. It is also extended to relations by marriage (affinity); if anyone should cohabit with his uncle’s wife or his brother’s wife.

We have elsewhere explained the meaning of the expression their blood shall be upon them; that is, that the cause of their death is to be attributed to no one but the flagrant criminals themselves. This is so that their judges, under the guise of humanity, will not shrink from being severe, since it often happens that those who do not fully consider the atrocity of the evil are misled by an empty display of clemency.⁹⁵

Moreover, Moses indirectly suggests that if the guilty are pardoned, vengeance will thus be provoked against the whole people, since iniquity is nurtured by impunity until it bursts forth like a flood.

The penalty of childlessness corresponds to the crime, for it is just that those who have endeavored to corrupt the holy race of Abraham with their adulterous offspring should be exterminated from the world in barrenness.

If a man also⁶³ God had until now taught what was right, in order to restrain the people from sin, not only from fear of punishment, but for conscience’ sake.

But since not all voluntarily dispose themselves to obedience, He awards severe punishments to those wicked despisers who make no effort to be religious. It is astonishing that almost all the Gentiles have so sunk into stupid and brutal folly that they have tolerated, almost with impunity, unnatural crimes, detestable in their very name.

I admit that even the wickedest of them were ashamed to justify such a gross crime. However, although it was practiced with impunity, it was a common reproach, even against the public tribunals themselves, that this crime ought to be punished more severely than other offenses, which they readily punished.

Both offending parties were subjected to the same punishment, because it is a pollution that should by no means be tolerated.

Indeed, if a man or woman offends with an animal—so that all may more strongly abhor and beware of the unnatural crime—the penalty is extended even to the harmless animal, just as we have seen before that a goring ox is condemned to death if it had killed a man. From this, we infer how greatly this kind of crime displeases God, since its iniquity is confirmed by the death of guiltless animals.

And if a man shall lie⁸⁴ The enormity of the crime is seen by the severity of the punishment; and surely, when a man and woman abandon themselves to so disgraceful an act, it is clear that there are no remains of modesty in them.

God, therefore, regards not only the offense itself, but also the brutal impulse of lust, by which men are so carried away as to degenerate from the very feelings of nature. For from what wickedness would he abstain, who yields to such impurity that in his fury he breaks through an obstacle which restrains the animals themselves? Let us not wonder, then, that God is a severe avenger of such obscenity.

This precept ⁸⁵ serves no other purpose than that believers should be kept far from all filthiness, and that chastity may flourish among them. It is indeed true that a woman, under these circumstances, is withheld from connection with a man by the very foulness of the disease, while there is also danger of contagion; but God rather chooses here to be an instructor in decency to His people, than to perform the office of a physician. It must be remembered, therefore, that men are warned against all indelicacy, which is repugnant to natural feeling; and, by synecdoche, married persons are exhorted to restrain themselves from all immodest lasciviousness, and the husband to enjoy his wife’s embraces with delicacy and propriety.