Leviticus 20:1–24:23: Is the Death Penalty Justified for All the Crimes Listed?

Are all the crimes listed in Leviticus 20 and 24 worthy of being punished by death? Surely there is a difference between burning babies to honor the god Molech and marrying a close relative. What explanation can be given for what appears to be such harsh penalties?

Leviticus 20 is mainly a penal code. It can be divided into two main sections: the penalty for worshiping Molech with child sacrifices and going to mediums and spiritists (Lev 20:1-8, 27), and the penalties for sinning against the family (Lev 20:9-26). And whereas the laws in Leviticus 18--19 were apodictic in form (that is, similar to the form of the Ten Commandments: "you shall . . ."), the laws of chapter 20 are casuistic (that is, in the form of case laws, with "If a person . . . then . . .").

The horror of taking healthy babies and placing them on the arms of the god Molech and letting the baby roll down the arms into the interior of the idol where a burning fire would consume the live baby is clear enough. To demand the death penalty for such a violation of the rights, dignity and image of God in those children ought to present its own rationale for all thinking persons who ought also to be outraged at such a violation of innocence and the destruction of the lives of these children.

Not so clear to us, but likewise just as deadly, was the habit of consulting mediums and spiritists in the hopes that they possessed supernatural powers. These practices involved consulting the dead and other dangerous forms of yielding one's body to the realm of the demonic in order to obtain information or power over someone or something else. More than we moderns can appreciate, this too led to some very deadly practices.

What about such a severe penalty for sins against the family, especially since all the verses in this section (Lev 20:9-21) deal with sexual sins, except verse 9? At the very minimum this section shows that the family was extremely important. Violations of the family that called for the death penalty included cursing one's parents (Lev 20:9), adultery (Lev 20:10), incest with one's mother, stepdaughter, daughter-in-law or mother-in-law (Lev 20:11-12, 14), homosexual behavior or sodomy (Lev 20:13), bestiality (Lev 20:15-16), incest with one's half sister or full sister (Lev 20:17), and relations with a woman in her monthly period (Lev 20:18).

Many of the penalties listed here prescribe a "cutting off," in contrast to a judicial execution as in Leviticus 20:2-5. Could this signify something different from capital punishment? Some have rather convincingly argued that the expression to "cut off" in many of these lists of penalties meant to excommunicate that person from the community of God. The case, however, is not altogether clear, for in some of these situations, the threat of punishment from God in some form of premature death appears to fit the meaning best.

It must be noted that the death penalty might also indicate the seriousness of the crime without calling for the actual implementation of it in every case. In fact, there is little evidence that many of these sanctions were ever actually carried out in ancient Israel. Only in the case of premeditated murder was there the added stricture of "Do not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer, who deserves to die" (Num 35:31). The word "ransom" is the Hebrew koper, meaning a "deliverance or a ransom by means of a substitute." Traditional wisdom, both in the Jewish and Christian communities, interpreted this verse in Numbers 35:31 to mean that out of the almost twenty cases calling for capital punishment in the Old Testament, every one of them could have the sanction commuted by an appropriate substitute of money or anything that showed the seriousness of the crime; but in the case of what we today call first-degree murder, there was never to be offered or accepted any substitute or bargaining of any kind: the offender had to pay with his or her life.

The case of the blasphemer in Leviticus 24:10-23 is similar. In one of the rare narrative passages in Leviticus, the blasphemer was incarcerated in jail until God revealed what should be done with him. The blasphemer had cursed "the Name" of God in the heat of passion. The penalty for blasphemy against God, or, as it will also be stated later in the New Testament, against the Holy Spirit, is death. This was an affront against the holiness of God and had to be dealt with by the whole community lest the guilt fall on all the community. This incident of blasphemy provides, then, further occasion for spelling out six more laws (Lev 24:16-22) that had previously had been announced in Genesis 9:6; Exodus 21:12-14, 18-25, 35-36, and later in Deuteronomy 19:21. The reason for their repetition is to show that these laws apply equally to the resident aliens as to the Israelites. Of course, whenever the lose of life was the result of accidental manslaughter (Num 35:9-34), no capital punishment was required.