(26) Ye shall therefore keep my statutes.--As the perpetration of the above named abominations entailed such disastrous consequences both to the land and to its inhabitants, the strict observance of the Divine statutes is enjoined upon all alike, whether they be Israelites by race or strangers who took up their abode amongst them and joined the Jewish community. (See Leviticus 17:9.)18:1-30 Unlawful marriages and fleshly lusts. - Here is a law against all conformity to the corrupt usages of the heathen. Also laws against incest, against brutal lusts, and barbarous idolatries; and the enforcement of these laws from the ruin of the Canaanites. God here gives moral precepts. Close and constant adherence to God's ordinances is the most effectual preservative from gross sin. The grace of God only will secure us; that grace is to be expected only in the use of the means of grace. Nor does He ever leave any to their hearts' lusts, till they have left him and his services.Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments,.... Before observed to them, whether of a ceremonial nature, and enjoined them according to his sovereign will and pleasure; or of a moral nature, and founded in justice and equity, and so worthy of their regard, and obligatory upon them; as well as in their own nature they recommended themselves to their regard, as being the reverse of those loathsome and abominable things before dehorted from: and shall not commit any of these abominations; such as incest, adultery, idolatry, and bestiality, which are in themselves abominable things, execrable to God, and to be detested by men: neither any of your own nation; that belonged to any of their own tribes, or should be born to them in the land of Canaan when they came thither, and were properly natives of it: nor any stranger that sojourneth among you; any proselyte, and especially a proselyte of righteousness, who conformed to the Jewish religion, and had laid himself under obligation to do everything that was binding upon an Israelite. |
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