Big Idea: God’s moral and sexual standards bring life.

Understanding the Text

Leviticus 18 within the laws of holiness (Lev. 17–27) teaches holiness to laypersons in the areas of incest and sexuality. It exhorts the Israelites to live differently than do the Egyptians or the Canaanites (vv. 1–5) in those areas (vv. 6–23) or else be expelled from the land (vv. 24–30). The present chapter overlaps in content with Leviticus 20. In terms of sacred space, Leviticus 18–20 arguably describes things that disqualify a person from the camp.1See the introduction to Leviticus.

Historical and Cultural Background

The ancient Egyptians practiced incest, especially among royalty. By Hellenistic times brother-sister marriages in the Egyptian royal families had become so commonplace that Egypt came to b…