This is an austere chapter, enumerating a list of sins for which the death penalty is demanded. That would be hard to understand if you fail to realize that all of these represent pagan practices. The chapter begins and ends with a reference to idolatrous rituals, and everything in between is best understood as more of the same. Thus, it is not the acts in themselves that are so wrong, but that they are all associated with pagan practices that defile the nation and threaten covenant shalom.
Please note that the frequent comment “his blood shall be upon him” is a specific formula that forbids relatives of the guilty from seeking any blood vengeance rights. The perpetrator executed for any of these crimes against the Covenant was no victim, but brought on his own death.
Sacrificing children to Moloch involved building a brass oven in some likeness of the deity, with the arms as the focus of the heat. Once hot enough, a child was thrown alive into the arms and cooked to death. For the most part, it was meant to curry Moloch’s favor for predictable weather and a good harvest. That’s bad enough, but the whole symbolism of giving children granted by Jehovah to some other deity was just beyond the pale. However, the failure to zealously prosecute those who commit this foul idolatry is considered equal to the sin itself, and thus the penalty is the same. The People of the Covenant are all equally charged with guarding the Covenant regardless how dear the life that was forfeited.
The various practices of divination are condemned yet again. The people are warned to commit themselves to a zeal for the Lord and prosecute the defiling idolatry wherever, whenever and however it rears it’s demonic head. Cursing one’s parents was another foul act of idolatry, since there was no ritual for that under the Covenant. It was defacto a pagan practice that involved consorting with demons.
The list of forbidden sexual relations is not new at this point. Most of them were part of Egyptian religious practices. Again, the reference to sex during a woman’s menstruation is not a mere sex act, as we noted in a previous lesson, but refers to a pagan practice meant to conjure power from blood. The mention of burning with fire was not a means of execution, but what happens to the bodies after they are dead from stoning. Also, “they shall be childless” is a reference to execution well before the woman can give birth. If her pregnancy is the evidence that brings on the charge, she is to be executed before giving birth, because the child is defiled.
God depicts the land — the natural world — as intolerant of these filthy pagan practices. The land itself would facilitate the slaughter of the degraded Canaanites living there, and it would do the same to Israel by someone else. Holiness meant taking seriously the heart-led way of sensing moral danger, and these commandments would set a baseline for understanding what moral danger looked like. Thus, anyone who practices any idolatrous rituals for any reason must be stoned to death.
