-- Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Exodus 22 is a run of judgments God gave Israel to live by. This one is short and severe: why does God attach the death penalty to something many people now treat as entertainment?
The Hebrew word behind "sorceress" names a practice:
The word kashaph means "to use magical formulas or incantations," "to practise sorcery." The law did not allow a witch to live. Ex. 22:18; Deut. 18:10; 2 Kings 9:22; 2 Chr. 33:6; Micah 5:12; Nahum 3:4. In 1 Samuel 15:23 the word is qesem, divination. In Galatians 5:20 it is pharmakeia, sorcery.
Older translations read "witch" here, and "a woman who has a familiar spirit" in Leviticus. Behind the formulas stands a dealing with spirits:
The essential idea of a witch was dealing with spirits. The same thing has its counterpart in spiritualism today. So in Leviticus she is described as "a woman who has a familiar spirit" (Lev. 20:27). The witch of Endor is the clearest example of her kind. Saul went to her and said, "Divine for me by a spirit and bring up for me whomever I shall name to you" (1 Sam. 28:8). This is the very thing that spiritualists claim to do — to bring the inquirer into contact with departed spirits. It is in fact a turning from God to Satan.
The judgments that follow defend two things at once:
From verse 18 to the end of the chapter we get various judgments. They may not seem closely connected, but they cover both the rights of God Himself and the rights of the poor among His people. The witch commits an outrage against God by trafficking with demons.
The harshness of the penalty shows how God views the practice:
The solemn sentence, "You shall not permit a sorceress to live" (Ex. 22:18), arrests the mind because of its severity. By it God shows His hatred of what was, in its true character, a trafficking with evil spirits. Many people make mocking remarks about this repelling evil, either to soften its dreadful influence or to disprove that it exists at all. But God's word names it as one of the marks of the great falling away in the last days: "Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons" (1 Tim. 4:1).
Israel's first king enforced this law and then broke it:
Saul had put down such people in line with this law by carrying out the judgment laid down here (1 Sam. 28:9), but he himself came under it… "Saul died for his breach of faith. He broke faith with the LORD in that he did not keep the command of the LORD, and also consulted a medium, seeking guidance. He did not seek guidance from the LORD. Therefore the LORD put him to death" (1 Chron. 10:13-14). No one, not even the king, was exempt from the punishment threatened.
God gave His people a test for spirit messages, and a voice to listen to instead of diviners:
The true test of all spirit messages is Christ. What do they say of Him? Do they own Him as "Lord" and "God"? Do they speak with reverence of His atoning sacrifice? Do they acknowledge Him as Judge of living and dead? … Moses says to Israel: "Those nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners." These were what the nations fell back on as they searched for light about life beyond death. But what about God's people? "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers — it is to him you shall listen."
One writer puts the question to Christian readers:
Are there any who take part in table-turning, spirit-rapping, mesmerism, or clairvoyance? We are certain that when people give themselves to the awful business of bringing up the spirits of the departed in any way, they are putting themselves into the hands of the devil, who deceives and deludes them with his lies. What do those who hold in their hands a perfect revelation from God want with table-turning and spirit-rapping?
Another writer names the power behind it:
It is important to see that this power is of Satan, because today far more people try to contact the spirits of the dead. Even Christians may be drawn in — and indeed have been drawn in — out of mere curiosity.
- Traffic. The sorceress was no harmless fortune-teller. Her trade was dealing with spirits — in the law, "a woman who has a familiar spirit."
- Treason. Consulting spirits is turning from God to Satan. It is an outrage against God's rights, and that is why the sentence is so severe.
- Toll. Saul enforced this law, then broke it, and died for it; the penalty reached even the throne.
- Trust. God did not leave His people guessing. In place of diviners He promised a prophet for them to listen to.
- Today. Writers apply the verse straight to spiritualism today. Even curiosity, they warn, has pulled believers into the devil's hands.
-- Every one that lieth with a beast shall certainly be put to death.
Exodus 22 collects a set of "judgments," and this one names a sin and attaches death to it without argument. Commentators place it among laws where God defends His own rights — over worship, and over the order He built into creation.
The last part of Exodus 22 can look like a random list. One writer finds the thread by asking whose rights each law protects.
From verse 18 to the end of the chapter we get various judgments. They may not seem closely connected. But they clearly cover both the rights of God Himself and the rights of the poor among His people. The witch commits an outrage against God by trafficking with demons. The sinner of verse 18 outrages His order in creation. He who sacrifices to demon powers is to be destroyed.
This law and the next one — sacrificing to any god other than the Lord — carry the same penalty. One commentator names what each sin is.
Two sins are then named to which is attached the penalty of death. The first is that of the flesh — and of the flesh in its most horrible and revolting form. The second is idolatry. God could not allow the acknowledgement among His own people of any god beside Himself. It would be a denial of His own claims and authority, and the overturning of the very foundations of His relationship with His people.
The same sin appears again in Leviticus. One commentator notes this was no theoretical danger: it was open practice among the nations around Israel, and the land itself became unclean.
The unnatural acts named here are plain enough. But few people know how shamelessly the heathen practised them, even the Greeks and the Romans. What an abomination! It is confusion, says the Lord. Israel were not to make themselves unclean in any of these things, as all the nations of Canaan did whom He drove out before them. How much guiltier, then, would Israel be! The very land was made unclean... It is by receiving the good that comes from God — His word and above all His Christ — that souls are kept from evil.
Behind such practices lies a purpose, not just an appetite. The same writer names what that purpose targets.
Among the efforts of Satan's power in idolatry, one was to destroy the order, affections, and beauty which God has established in nature. Christianity respects all such natural bonds, though it raises us above them. Satan degrades them in every way by what is unnatural. Anyone who knows even a little about the horrors of idolatry will remember how widespread and systematic such outrages were. All this the law forbade.
A law exists because the crime is possible. That turns this verse into a mirror.
The fact that the Lord had to enact laws against certain crimes proves that man is capable of committing those crimes. If the capacity and the tendency were not there, the laws would not be needed. Many people, if you named to them the gross abominations forbidden in these chapters, might be inclined to answer like Hazael: "Is your servant a dog, that he should do this thing?" Such people have not yet travelled down into the deep abyss of their own hearts. Some crimes forbidden here would seem to put man, in his habits and tendencies, below the level of a dog. Yet those very laws prove beyond all question that the most refined and cultivated person carries in his heart the seeds of the very darkest and most horrifying abominations.
The same writer does not leave the reader there. The depth of the ruin becomes the measure of the remedy.
Deep as man's ruin is, the love of God is deeper still. Black as his guilt is, the blood of Jesus can wash it all away. Wide as the gulf is that separates man from God, the cross has bridged it. God has come down to the very lowest point of the sinner's condition, so that He might lift him up into a position of infinite favour... Nothing could fathom man's ruin but God's love, and nothing could equal man's guilt but the blood of Christ.
- Order — The sin strikes at God's order in creation. That is why the law stands beside the bans on witchcraft and on sacrificing to other gods.
- Confusion — God's own name for it. The nations around Israel practised it openly, and the land itself became unclean.
- Design — Satan works to destroy the order and beauty God set in nature. The law was there to block him.
- Mirror — A law only exists because the crime is possible. So the law proves the capacity is in the human heart, even the most refined and cultivated one.
- Deeper — The depth of the ruin measures the remedy. God came down to the lowest point of the sinner's condition to lift him into favour.
-- He that sacrificeth to [any] god, save to Jehovah only, shall be devoted to destruction.
Exodus 22 is mostly everyday case law: paying back stolen goods, caring for the poor, treating foreigners well. Then comes a sentence with a total penalty — so why does sacrificing to another god weigh heavier than robbery?
The judgments from verse 18 onward look scattered. One writer finds a single thread: God's rights, and the rights of the weak.
From verse 18 to the end of the chapter we get various judgments. They may not seem closely connected. But they clearly cover both the rights of God Himself and the rights of the poor among His people. The witch commits an outrage against God by trafficking with demons. The sinner of verse 18 outrages His order in creation. He who sacrifices to demon powers is to be destroyed.
The penalty makes sense once you see what such an act says. Offering sacrifice elsewhere does not add a god alongside the true One. It pushes Him out.
God could not allow any god beside Himself to be acknowledged among His own people. It would deny His own claims and authority, and overthrow the very foundations of His relationship with His people. On their part it would deny His true character and reject His absolute rule. The worship of the true God and of false gods could not exist side by side... The acceptance of false gods amounts to a rejection of the true God. So, on the other side, Scripture says this of the Thessalonians after their conversion: "You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God."
The image itself is nothing. But that is not where the danger ends. The Apostle warns the Corinthians about what stands behind it.
The Corinthian believers knew that the idols themselves were nothing. They knew that meat offered to idols was no different from other meat. So they were in danger of arguing that they could attend a pagan temple and eat meat offered to idols. No, says the Apostle, you forget that what they sacrifice to idols they really sacrifice to demons. Demons are the ones stirring up this idol worship. The idol may indeed be a mere nothing, but the demons behind it were very real. In leading men to worship idols, they were leading men to worship demons, and so seizing the homage due to God alone.
This is not an isolated rule dropped into a list. It restates the first commandment and attaches a penalty to it.
The words of the covenant in Exodus open with the first commandment. It requires Israel to worship God and no one else. The same sanction appears among the words of the covenant, in Exodus 22:20: "Whoever sacrifices to any god, other than the LORD alone, shall be devoted to destruction." The covenant described in Deuteronomy 29 is just the same. They entered into covenant to have the LORD for their God, and to renounce all other gods.
The first people to break this law were the very people who received it.
God had chosen this nation out of all the nations of the earth, and had favoured and enriched it. Is it not a solemn reflection that so early in its history it should be guilty of the most flagrant idolatry?
Few of us today are tempted to build an altar. The same writer names the idols that compete for the heart now.
We may not be guilty of bowing down to a god of our own making, "like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man." But there are other idols always trying to steal our hearts away from Him... The greatest and most subtle idol is self. We badly need this warning. When the apostle describes the features of the last days, the first thing he mentions is this: "people will be lovers of self."
- Claim. Sacrifice belongs to God alone. To accept another god is to reject the true One, and the two kinds of worship cannot stand side by side.
- Rival. The idol itself is nothing, but demons stand behind it, seizing the homage that is due to God alone.
- Covenant. This sentence is part of the covenant. It restates the first commandment and adds the penalty.
- Collapse. The nation that received this word — chosen, rescued, richly favoured — fell into open idolatry early in its own history.
- Guard. The rival gods that threaten now are subtler, and the most subtle of them is self.