Leviticus 18:25

_DEFILE NOT YE YOURSELVES IN ANY OF THESE THINGS: FOR IN ALL THESE THE NATIONS ARE DEFILED WHICH I CAST OUT BEFORE YOU:_ In all these the nations are defiled ... Ancient history gives many appalling proofs that the enormous vices described in this chapter were very prevalent-nay, were regularly practiced from religious motives in the temples of Egypt and the groves of Canaan; and it was these gigantic social disorders that occasioned the expulsion of which the Israelites were, in the hands of a righteous and retributive Providence, the appointed instruments (Genesis 15:16). The strongly figurative language of 'the land itself vomiting out her inhabitants,' as the stomach disgorges a deadly poison, shows the hopeless depth of their moral corruption. Verse 30. THEREFORE SHALL YE KEEP MINE ORDINANCE. In giving the Israelites these particular institutions, God w

Verse Leviticus 18:25. _THE LAND ITSELF VOMITETH OUT HER INHABITANTS._] This is a very nervous _prosopopoeia_ or _personification_; a figure by which any part of inanimate nature may be represented as possessing the passions and reason of man. Here the _land_ is represented as an intelligent being, with a deep and refined sense of moral good and evil: information concerning the abominations of the people is brought to this personified land, with which it is so deeply affected that a _nausea_ is produced, and it vomits out its abominable and accursed inhabitants. It was natural for the inspired penman to make use of such a figure, as the description he was obliged to give of so many and enormous abominations must have affected him nearly in the same way in which he represents the land to be affected....

The land designed and consecrated for His people by Yahweh Leviticus 25:23 is here impersonated, and represented as vomiting forth its present inhabitants, in consequence of their indulgence in the abominations that have been mentioned. The iniquity of the Canaanites was now full. See Genesis 15:16; compare Isaiah 24:1. The Israelites in this place, and throughout the chapter, are exhorted to a pure and holy life, on the ground that Yahweh, the Holy One, is their God and that they are His people. Compare Leviticus 19:2. It is upon this high sanction that they are peremptorily forbidden to defile themselves wi

PART III. SECTION III. EXPOSITION MORAL UNCLEANNESS AND ITS PUNISHMENT. This being the subject of the three following chapters (chapters 18-20), they naturally form a sequence to chapters 11-17, which have dealt with ceremonial uncleanness and its purification. It is a remarkable thing that, except by implication in connection with the sin offerings and the trespass offerings and the ceremonies of the Day of Atonement, there has not yet been a single moral precept, as such, in the Book of Leviticus, and there has been very little recognition of sin as distinct from pollution. All has been ceremonial. But the ceremonial is typical of the moral, and from the consideration of ceremonial uncleanness and its remedy, we now proceed to the consideration of moral uncleanness and its penalty. It is to be noticed

AND THE LAND IS DEFILED,.... The inhabitants of it, with the immoralities and idolatries before mentioned: THEREFORE I DO VISIT THE INIQUITY THEREOF UPON IT; or punish the inhabitants that are on it for their sins: AND THE LAND ITSELF VOMITETH OUT HER INHABITANTS; as a stomach loaded with corrupt and bad food it has taken in, nauseates it, and cannot bear and retain it, but casts it up, and never receives it again; so the land of Canaan is represented as loathing its inhabitants, and as having an aversion to them, and indignation against them, and as not being able to bear them, but entirely willing to be rid of them and throw them out of their places in it, never to be admitted more, being as nauseous and as useless as the cast of a man's stomach; see Revelation 3:16....

V. PRACTICAL HOLINESS IN DAILY LIFE 1. Different Unholy Relationships CHAPTER 18 _ 1. Separation and obedience (Leviticus 18:1)_ 2. Unholy relationships (Leviticus 18:6) 3. Vile and abominable practices (Leviticus 18:19) 4. Judgment threatened (Leviticus 18:24) This section of Leviticus contains the words of Jehovah addressed to His people, whom He had redeemed and in whose midst He dwelt. They are to be a holy people. About thirty times in this section we find the solemn word “I am Jehovah. Ye shall be holy: for I, Jehovah your God, am holy.” This is Jehovah's cal

EPILOGUE. These sins mean defilement for those who commit them, whether Canaanites or Israelites, and also for the land itself. Hence the land also must be punished, and will vomit out its inhabitants as so much unclean or noisome food (_cf._ Ezekiel 36:6 ff., Ezekiel 36:17). Leviticus 18:26 is parallel to Leviticus 18:30, which forms an impressive conclusion to the whole chapter; Leviticus 18:29, however, where alone in this chapter an actual punishment is stated, is rather in the manner of Leviticus 17 and Leviticus 20....

INIQUITY. Hebrew. _'avah._ App-44. VOMITETH. Figure of speech _Prosopopoeia,_ App-6. Compare "spued", Leviticus 18:28. From the beginning, the earth has shared the consequences of man's guilt (Genesis 3:17; Romans 8:19). Since it yields no fruit when man yields no obedience; and defiled when man is defiled (Deuteronomy 11:17). Is blessed when man is blessed (Leviticus 25:19; Leviticus 26:4.

See general note at the beginning of the ch. These _vv._are probably expanded from earlier materials. After the warning in Leviticus 18:24 the standpoint changes, and the remainder of the passage is a reflection on the past, the verbs being really in the past tense, _were_defiled, _was_defiled, I _visited_, (the land) _vomited_....

THE LAND ITSELF VOMITETH OUT HER INHABITANTS— One cannot conceive a stronger figure. _The land,_ by an elegant prosopopaeia, is personified, and represented as so sensible of the loathsome wickedness of her inhabitants, as to nauseate them on that account, and to cast them as offensive from her stomach. See Leviticus 18:28 in which it is to be wished that the word _vomit_ had been retained, as well as in other similar passages; see ch. Leviticus 20:22.Revelation 3:16; Revelation 3:22. What an idea does all this give us of idolatry, which sanctified such horrid and detestable practices!...