What does the Bible say about bestiality?

Closely related to this is the strong prohibition of the abominable practice of homosexuality (v. 22). God has provided the honorable institution of the marriage of a man and woman, yet people dare to abuse the very best that God has given, because of utter selfishness. We know too that such things bring painful repercussions (Rom. 1:26-27. God is not mocked. People may feel they get away with evildoing, but whatever one sows he will also reap (Gal. 6:7).

It was even necessary that Israelites should be warned against the repulsive wickedness of having sexual relations with an animal (v. 23). But this, along with the other evils before mentioned, was practiced among the nations that God was to dispossess from Canaan (v. 24). In fact, it was because of the gross defilement of the land by these things that God was punishing the inhabitants by death or expulsion. If anyone in Israel were to be found guilty of such things, this would incur the death penalty also.

Closely related to this is the strong prohibition of the abominable practice of homosexuality (v. 22). God has provided the honourable institution of the marriage of a man and woman, yet people dare to abuse the very best that God has given, because of utter selfishness. We know too that such things bring painful repercussions (Rom. 1:26-27. God is not mocked. People may feel they get away with evildoing, but whatever one sows he will also reap (Gal. 6:7).

It was even necessary that Israelites should be warned against the repulsive wickedness of having sexual relations with an animal (v. 23). But this, along with the other evils before mentioned, was practiced among the nations that God was to dispossess from Canaan (v. 24). In fact, it was because of the gross defilement of the land by these things that God was punishing the inhabitants by death or expulsion. If anyone in Israel were to be found guilty of such things, this would incur the death penalty also.

A human and an animal having sexual relations were both to be killed (vv. 15-16). Incest with a half sister was just the same as with a full sister: it demanded death. The same was true as regards aunts, whether on the father's or the mothers's side (vv. 19-20). It is evident that such evil between an uncle and niece would be the same.

A human and an animal having sexual relations were both to be killed (vv. 15-16). Incest with a half sister was just the same as with a full sister: it demanded death. The same was true as regards aunts, whether on the father's or the mothers's side (vv. 19-20). It is evident that such evil between an uncle and niece would be the same.

" 9 For everyone that curses (or, reviles) his father and his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father and his mother; his blood is upon him. 10 And a man that commits adultery with a man's wife, that commits adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. 11 And a man that lies with his father's wife has uncovered his father's nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood [is] upon them. 12 And if a man lie with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have wrought confusion; their blood [is] upon them. 13 And if a man lie with a male, as he with a woman, both of them have committed abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood [is] upon them. 14 And if a man take a wife and her mother, it [is] enormity (or, incest) with fire shall they burn him and them, that there be no enormity among you. 15 And if a man lie with a beast for copulation, he shall surely be put to death; and ye shall kill the beast. 16 And if a woman approach to any beast to gender with it, thou shalt kill the woman and the beast: they shall surely be put to death; their blood [is] upon them. 17 And if a man take his sister, his father's daughter, or his mother's daughter, and see her nakedness and she see his nakedness, it [is] a disgrace: and they shall be cut off before the eyes of the sons of their people. He has uncovered his sister's nakedness; he shall bear his iniquity. 18 And if a man shall lie with a woman in her infirmity, and uncover her nakedness, he has laid naked her flux, and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood; and both of them shall be cut off from among their people. 19 And the nakedness of thy mother's sister and of thy father's sister thou shalt not uncover; for he has laid naked his own flesh (or, near of kin): they shall bear their iniquity. 20 And if a man lie with his aunt, he has uncovered his uncle's nakedness: they shall bear their sin; they shall die childless. 21 And if a man take his brother's wife, it is uncleanness; he has uncovered his brother's nakedness: they shall be childless" (vers. 9-21).

OTHER ABOMINATIONS FORBIDDEN.

Lev. 18:19-30.

But there is uncleanness through other causes, and viler abominations contrary to nature, against which Jehovah warns. It may be painful to read; but it is wholesome to learn what human nature fell into among heathen races so civilized as in Egypt and Canaan; and God knew that His people, when slighting His word, might follow them both.

" 19 And thou shalt not approach a woman in the separation of her uncleanness to uncover her nakedness. 20 And thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour's wife to become unclean with her. 21 And thou shalt not give of thy seed to let them pass through [the fire] to Molech, nor shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I [am] Jehovah. 22 And thou shalt not lie with mankind as one lies with womankind: it [is] abomination. 23 And thou shalt not lie with any beast to become unclean therewith; and a woman shall not stand before a beast to lie down therewith: it [is] confusion. 24 Make not yourselves unclean in any of these things; for in all these have made themselves unclean the nations which I cast out from before you. 25 And the land has become unclean: and I visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants. 26 But ye shall observe my statutes and my judgments, and shall not do any of all these abominations, — the homeborn and the stranger that sojourns among you 27 (for all these abominations have the men of the land done, who [were] before you, and the land has been made unclean); 28 that the land vomit not you out also, when ye make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. 29 For whosoever shall do any of these abominations, the souls that do [them] shall be cut off from among their people. 30 Therefore shall ye observe my charge, that ye do not [any] of these abominable customs which were done before you; and ye shall not make yourselves unclean therein: I [am] Jehovah your God" (19-30).

The unnatural brutalities of verses 22, 23, are plain enough; but it may not be known how unblushingly they were perpetrated among the heathen, even by the Greeks and the Romans. What abomination! It is confusion, says Jehovah. Israel were not to render themselves unclean in any of these things, as in all these did the nations of Canaan which He cast out before them. How much guiltier, if so, would Israel be! The very land was made unclean. Therefore had He visited the iniquity on it. Earth vomited out its inhabitants; so that Israel must beware, not only for themselves, but for any stranger sojourning among them, lest the land should vomit them out, as it had the nations that dwelt there before Israel. For such evil was intolerable in His eyes, and yet more offensive in His own people than in any other; a truth forgotten soon among the Jews, as later in Christendom. "Therefore shall ye observe my charge that ye do not [any] of the abominable customs which were done before you, and that ye make not yourselves unclean therein: I [am] Jehovah your God." It is by receiving the good that is from God, His word and above all His Christ, that souls are kept from evil.

But greater impurity prevailed among the heathen, and especially those who occupied the promised land. The sons of Israel too were soon to be exposed to their shameless example. He who gave them Canaan knew their hearts far better than they themselves did. Hence these solemn and painful denunciations of incest, etc. Flesh is the same root of vileness in a Jew as in a Gentile. Restraint may hinder its outbreak; but evil lusts are there, ready to carry away the impulsive and headstrong beyond all bounds.

The Lord Jesus is in every way the Saviour, not from divine punishment only but from sins. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of offences according to the riches of God's grace. But in Him we have life also, life eternal, for He is the Son, and gives nothing less than this life to everyone that believes on Him. And life in Christ is the indispensable basis of the new nature, and of our new relationships and duties, affections and privileges, crowned since redemption with the indwelling Spirit for the Christian and for the church, that both might have an immediate link with God and power from Him.

As to the first, it is manifest that the Spirit of God could never enact laws for the purpose of preventing evils that have no existence. He does not construct a dam where there is no flood to be resisted. He does not deal with abstract ideas, but with positive realities. Man is, in very deed, capable of perpetrating each and every one of the shameful crimes referred to in this most faithful section of the book of Leviticus. If he were not, Why should he be told not to do so. Such a code would be wholly unsuitable for angels, inasmuch as they are incapable of committing the sins referred to; but it suits man, because he has gotten the seeds of those sins in his nature. This is deeply humbling. It is a fresh declaration of the truth that man is a total wreck. From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, there is not so much as a single speck of moral soundness, as looked at in the light of the divine presence. The being for whom Jehovah thought it needful to write Leviticus 18 - 20 must be a vile sinner; but that being is man — the writer and reader of these lines. How plain it is, therefore, that "they that are in the flesh cannot please God." (Rom. 8) Thank God, the believer is "not in the flesh, but in the Spirit." He has been taken completely out of his old creation standing, and introduced into the new creation, in which the moral evils aimed at in this our section can have no existence. True, he has gotten the old nature; but it is his happy privilege to "reckon" it as a dead thing, and to walk in the abiding power of the new creation, wherein "all things are of God." This is Christian liberty — even liberty to walk up and down in that fair creation where no trace of evil can ever be found; hallowed liberty to walk in holiness and purity before God and man; liberty to tread those lofty walks of personal sanctity whereon the beams of the divine countenance ever pour themselves in living lustre. Reader, this is Christian liberty. It is liberty, not to commit sin, but to taste the celestial sweets of a life of true holiness and moral elevation. May we prize more highly than we have ever done this precious boon of heaven — Christian liberty!

This section sets before us, in a very remarkable manner, the personal sanctity and moral propriety which Jehovah looked for, on the part of those whom He had graciously introduced into relationship with Himself, and, at the same time, it presents a most humiliating picture of the enormities of which human nature is capable.