Tolerance and Punishment in the Old Testament
The underlying theme for sexual purity in the Old Testament is the Holiness of YAHWEH:
“Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God. Keep my decrees and follow them. I am the Lord, who makes you holy.” (Leviticus 20:7, 8)
As we noted in part one, while the Old Testament strongly legislates against several acts of sexual misconduct such as adultery, homosexuality, incest and bestiality; it was quite tolerate to what the New Testament refers to as fornication and acts of prostitution.
In the New Testament sexual impurity is not just what a person does, but it is the state of one’s heart.
The Old Testament judges and punishes different kinds of sexual offences with death but remains tolerant to some sexual activities outside marriage such as prostitution and fornication allowing men to have concubines. However, prostitution was frowned upon in the Jewish culture. Prostitution was a means of economic survival for unmarried women who received an income from the services they offered to men. Like we stated earlier, a man was only guilty of adultery if he had sex with a married woman. Married women were strictly forbidden from having sex outside the marriage union. A married woman who had sex with a man other her husband was executed. Adultery was punishable by death.
Prostitution although tolerated, was considered a silly act. Proverbs warns men who indulge in sex with prostitutes that they would come to poverty while men who have sex with married women are warned that they would be killed (Proverbs 6). Therefore, a person who had sex with prostitutes was at the same level of foolishness as a drunkard, sluggard, or a glutton. The consequence for these kinds of silly behaviours was poverty.
But the consequence for adultery was death.
In the event that a man who is not married had sex with a virgin (or a woman who is not married), he was required to honour her by marrying her. Unfortunately, this would also apply to what we legally know today as rape. A man who raped an unmarried woman was forced to marry her (Deuteronomy 22:28-29 and Exodus 22:16, 17). A man who was forced to marry the woman he had violated could not divorce her under any conditions throughout his life.
However, maintaining sexual purity before marriage was a sign of uprightness. Men who never had sex with their fiancé’s were regarded righteous. Joseph, being a righteous man, never had sex with Mary until he married her. In fact, he never consummated the marriage until the birth of Jesus (Matthew 1:25). Sex was not allowed between two unmarried lovers, but if they did, a man was compelled to marry the woman. This is true in the story of Isaac and Jacob. Isaac only had sex with Rebekah after he married her. Jacob was madly in love with Rachel and was engaged to her, but could only have sex with her after he married her.
While fornication is not punishable in similar ways as adultery, abstaining from sex before marriage was a mark of wisdom and righteousness under the Old Covenant.
Here are some highlights of the sexual misconduct that did not attract any form of capital punishment:
- Prostitution;
- Sex with a Prostitute;
- Sex with an unmarried virgin; and
- Sex with an unmarried woman.
Whilst here are some highlights of the sexual misconduct acts that attracted capital punishment under the Old Covenant – punishable by death.
- Adultery: (i) When any man (married or unmarried) had sex with a married woman or;
(ii) when a married woman went out of her marriage to go and have sex with a man who was not her husband. In both cases the offender would be stoned to death. Leviticus clearly states that never have sex with your neighbour’s wife. The adulterer and the adulteress were to be stoned to death. - Homosexuality: Sex with persons of the same sex as yours.
- Incest: Sex with close relatives or with spouses of close relatives. Incest was also when a man had sex with a woman and her daughter.
- Bestiality: Sex with animals either by a man or a woman.
Leviticus 18 refers to these forbidden sexual activities as abominations, profanities, detestable acts and perversions. In this context adultery, homosexuality, incest and bestiality were such terrible abominations that they were not covered under the atonement of the Old Covenant just like murder and idol worship were not. Leviticus 18 ends with this warning.
“Everyone who does any of these detestable things—such persons must be cut off from their people.”
Being cut off from their people was being excluded from the atonement, and as such, facing death consequently for the sexual sin committed. Leviticus 18:29 also implies that those who committed such acts, even if they escaped the punishment of the human judges who presided over such cases, they would not escape the punishment of YAHWEH. Commenting on this verse Ellicott writes that “in case the transgression escapes the ken of the tribunal, God himself will inflict the punishment upon the criminals, since some of the crimes specified in this chapter are, according to Leviticus 20, to be visited with death by the hand of man.”
Therefore, the Old Testament Law legislated accordingly for the following:
Adultery
“If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbour—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.” Leviticus 20:10
Incest
“If a man has sexual relations with his father’s wife, he has dishonoured his father. Both the man and the woman are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. “‘If a man has sexual relations with his daughter-in-law, both of them are to be put to death. What they have done is a perversion; their blood will be on their own heads.” Leviticus 20:11,12
Homosexuality
“If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.” Leviticus 20:13
Bestiality
“If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he is to be put to death, and you must kill the animal. If a woman approaches an animal to have sexual relations with it, kill both the woman and the animal. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.” Leviticus 20:15,16
The Covenant Community was expected to uphold YAHWEH’s holiness by maintaining a high view of marriage and abstaining from different kinds of sexual misconduct and perversions. The Law stated clearly that sexual immorality defiled the land and was among the reasons why the Promised Land they were entering to possess vomited its earlier Gentile Inhabitants.
While the Old Testament focuses on the acts of sexual immorality, the New Testament confronts the state of the heart of a sexually immoral person.
The Old Testament legislates, supports and even promotes polygamy (in the context of the levirate marriage); the New Testament restates the monogamy with Jesus himself insisting that God created them male and female at the beginning. While the Old Testament permits divorce for just any reason, Jesus restricts the permission for divorce to ONLY marital unfaithfulness. Even in such events forgiveness, reconciliation and restoration demonstrates the love of Christ in a marriage rather than divorce.
By JPC Ntuntu
