Leviticus 20:23

And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

20:10-27 These verses repeat what had been said before, but it was needful there should be line upon line. What praises we owe to God that he has taught the evil of sin, and the sure way of deliverance from it! May we have grace to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things; may we have no fellowship with unfruitful works of darkness, but reprove them.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The ground is here again stated on which all these laws of holiness should be obeyed. See Leviticus 18:24-30 note.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

20. they shall die childless—Either by the judgment of God they shall have no children, or their spurious offspring shall be denied by human authority the ordinary privileges of children in Israel.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation which I cast out before you,.... Nation seems to be put for nations, for there were seven nations cast out for them; though the Canaanites may be intended, being a general name for the whole: some think the Amorites are meant, who were a principal nation, and notorious for their wickedness: hence we often meet with this phrase in Jewish writings, "the way of the Amorites", as being exceeding bad, and so to be avoided, and by no means to be walked in, Genesis 15:16,

for they committed all these things; were guilty of all the idolatries, incests, and uncleannesses before mentioned, and forbid under severe penalties:

and therefore I abhorred them; the sins committed by them, being so abominable and detestable: their persons, though the creatures of God, were had in abhorrence by him, and this he showed by casting them out of the land; and hereby it is suggested, that, should they, the Israelites, be guilty of the like, they also would be rejected and abhorred by him: the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan are,"my Word abhorred them,''Christ, the eternal Word, Psalm 45:7.

Geneva Study Bible

And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Leviticus 20:23

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The list of punishments concludes, like the prohibitions in Leviticus 18:24., with exhortations to observe the commandments and judgments of the Lord, and to avoid such abominations (on Leviticus 18:22 cf. Leviticus 18:3-5, Leviticus 18:26, Leviticus 18:28, Leviticus 18:30; and on Leviticus 18:23 cf. Leviticus 18:3 and Leviticus 18:24). The reason assigned for the exhortations is, that Jehovah was about to give them for a possession the fruitful land, whose inhabitants He had driven out because of their abominations, and that Jehovah was their God, who had separated Israel from the nations. For this reason (Leviticus 18:25) they were also to sever (make distinctions) between clean and unclean cattle and birds, and not make their souls (i.e., their persons) abominable through unclean animals, with which the earth swarmed, and which God had "separated to make unclean," i.e., had prohibited them from eating or touching when dead, because they defiled (see ch. 11). For (Leviticus 18:26) they were to be holy, because Jehovah their God was holy, who had severed them from the nations, to belong to Him, i.e., to be the nation of His possession (see Exodus 19:4-6).