2BC BIBLE STUDY NOTES
Wednesday in the Word
Second Baptist Church
January 30, 2019
Leviticus 18:1-29
Picking up from last week, we learned how God began to warn the Israelites to not practice the rituals that were often associated with the Goat Demons. The people of the land who worshipped the Goat demon often sacrificed animals in the field and let their blood run in the fields with the idea that the blood of those animals would guarantee them a good harvest. God forbids the people from doing any of these things and demands that all animals be slaughtered at the temple away from the fields. Sacrificing animals in the fields and drinking their blood was just a few of the Goat demon rituals that God warned the people not to do or they would be punished. God didn’t want the people to think that any of their blessings were the results of these empty pagan rituals. The Goat Demon wasn’t the only popular false god that the people routinely worshipped. The false god Molech was another. If the 17th chapter was a warning about the pagan rituals of the goat demon, chapter 18 is another warning to not practice the pagan rituals of the pagan god Molech. God hates it when we don’t worship him and him only. God is a Jealous God in the sense that he hates for us to waste our time on worshipping things that have no power and are not responsible for our blessings. The problem was the Israelites were saturated with people who loved to worship idols. This was mainly due to their enslavement and being surrounded by folks who worshipped these false gods. The golden calf was actually a symbol of the goat demon (Baal). Because the horns of goats and rams were seen as phallic symbols (the male sex organ), it was not uncommon for the worship of the goat demon to include sexual orgies. Molech, his companion Ashtereth, and the goat demon both shared the practice of sexual orgies in their rituals. Chapter 18 prohibits the men of the community from these sexual orgies that often included sex with family members. Israel prostituted themselves with these Gods for centuries. God intended to prevent His people from practicing the shrine prostitution of the Canaanites, which He warned against in Leviticus 18:3. The word translated Mo-lech or Moloch (the spelling varies), occurs multiple times in the Bible, in Leviticus 18:21, 20:2, 3, 4, 5, l Kings 11:7, 2 Kings 23:10, Jeremiah 32:35, Amos 5:25-26, Acts 7:42-43. God prohibited Israel from adopting the cultic sexual fertility goddess worship of Egypt and Canaan.
Verses 1-5. These verses give us the context for the rest of the passage. Just like the worship of the goat demon was the context of chapter 17, the worship of the Egyptians and Canaanite gods is the context for this chapter. God tells them not to worship the gods that were worshipped in Egypt nor the gods they worship to where he is taking them. God knew he has to tell the people to get rid of their old practices and don’t adopt any new practices. The practices that are mentioned in this chapter are connected to the sexual rituals of these false gods. What we must understand is that ancient people had all sorts of superstitions to what would bring them favor, blessings, good luck, a harvest or children. Many of the superstitions connected having sex with a person to appease the gods. Baal and Molech worshippers believed they could influence the gods’ actions by performing the behavior they wished the gods to demonstrate. Believing the sexual union of Baal and Asherah produced fertility, their worshipers engaged in immoral sex to cause the gods to join together, ensuring good harvests. The logic is kind of faulty but that is what they thought. If they had sex, the gods would have sex and be happy thus giving them a harvest as a reward or some other favor.
Verses 6-20. God commands the men not to have sexual relations with any woman outside of his wife who is a close relative like aunts, mothers, stepmothers, sisters, nieces, close cousins, daughters, and granddaughters. Sex with close relatives was part and parcel of the Baal and Molech worship. It is hard for us to imagine this, but the sex cults of these gods was so prevalent that sex with family members by dominate males was common. Not only was this an idolatrous practice, it was a real undoing of the community by allowing for sexual abuse and messy relationships.
Verse 21. Seems out of place, except when you know that Molech was also considered the fire god and the children of these sexual unions were often sacrificed on the altar of Molech. Fire gods like Moloch and his fertility goddess consort, Ashtoreth, were not religious fantasies. They exercised a very real power over the primitive Canaanites. And their pagan worship snared some of the children of Israel. The Molech idol was a large hollow brass statue with the head of a bull and the bulging belly of a man. It was designed like an old-fashioned pot-bellied stove, with the belly as the firebox. A child sacrifice laid on the hands, would roll into the fire in the belly cavity.
Verse 22. The Baal and Molech Shrines employed male and female prostitutes where it was thought that anal sex was a way to offer a sacrifice to the gods. Almost all idol worship included sex with close relatives or anal sex with male and female shrine prostitutes. Often the male priest in these shrines were the only one a person could have sex with. This sex often provided the financial support for those shrines. This is so far from our reality, but these practices were very common in ancient times.
Verse 23. Since the gods were often portrayed as goats and rams, some shrines allowed for sex with sheep and goats as a way to make an offering to the goat demon or Molech. All of these practices were ways that they worshipped false gods, God forbids.
Verses 24-29. God shares that he made the land barren and ran the people off the land due to their detestable ways. God tells the Israelites to not follow the ways of those people and follow his decrees. God warns them that if they go back to worship these gods, they will encounter the same fate.
click here to select another lesson