prostitution

Stand Your Ground. Stay the Course.

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26 “You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes. 27 You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. 28 You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord.

29 “Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, lest the land fall into prostitution and the land become full of depravity. 30 You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.

31 “Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God.

32 “You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.

33 “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. 34 You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

35 “You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measures of length or weight or quantity. 36 You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. 37 And you shall observe all my statutes and all my rules, and do them: I am the Lord.” – Leviticus 19:26-37 ESV

When the Israelites finally arrived in the land of Canaan, they would find themselves facing a myriad of temptations that would put a strain on their relationship with Yahweh. This section of laws was designed to regulate the choices they would make when they inevitably had to interface with the pagan nations of Canaan. They would be entering a land whose preexisting occupants were not followers of Yahweh. According to Deuteronomy 7, when Israel was preparing to enter Canaan for the first time, the land contained seven different nations: The Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

These distant relatives of the Israelites were the descendants of Ham, one of the sons of Noah, but they had long ago abandoned their worship of Yahweh. As Moses prepared the people of Israel to enter Canaan for the first time, he warned them about the “detestable customs” of the land’s occupants.

“When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, be very careful not to imitate the detestable customs of the nations living there. For example, never sacrifice your son or daughter as a burnt offering. And do not let your people practice fortune-telling, or use sorcery, or interpret omens, or engage in witchcraft,  or cast spells, or function as mediums or psychics, or call forth the spirits of the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord. It is because the other nations have done these detestable things that the Lord your God will drive them out ahead of you. 13 But you must be blameless before the Lord your God. The nations you are about to displace consult sorcerers and fortune-tellers, but the Lord your God forbids you to do such things.” – Deuteronomy 18:9-14 NLT

So, God took time to reemphasize those laws that specifically dealt with the problems associated with Canaan. Verses 26-28 cover behaviors that God has already addressed but that would prove to be very tempting in the land of Canaan because they were prevalent among the seven nations that lived there. God’s ban on the consumption of blood was not practiced by the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, or Jebusites. In fact, many of these groups had their own elaborate religious rituals where they offered blood sacrifices to false gods like Baal and Molech. As part of these rites, the drinking of blood was actually encouraged because it was believed that the blood could endue the worshiper with energy or power. 

God warned the Israelites about incorporating any of these cultic practices into their worship or daily lives. Each of the admonitions contained in this passage deals with behaviors that were common practice among the Canaanites and were associated with the worship of their false gods.

“Do not eat meat that has not been drained of its blood. Do not practice fortune-telling or witchcraft. Do not trim off the hair on your temples or trim your beards. Do not cut your bodies for the dead, and do not mark your skin with tattoos. I am the Lord.” – Leviticus 19:26-28 NLT

Superstition and an obsession with the dead pervaded the Canaanite mindset, taking the form of fortune-telling and witchcraft. Ancestor worship and attempts to communicate with the dead were common among the Canaanites. But the Israelites were to have nothing to do with such practices. They were not even to emulate the fashion and hairstyles of their Canaanite neighbors. The reference to trimming the hair of their temples and beards was probably a warning against copying the look of the cultic priests. The Israelites were forbidden to take on the outward characteristics of the pagans, including disfiguring their bodies through ritual scarring or the use of tattoos. All of these things were closely associated with the idolatrous worship of the Canaanites.

“According to Babylonian-Assyrian religion, gods who represented the superior natural forces could be directly influenced by charms and spells to direct their power against evil demons who sought to work ill. This was sacred magic, and embraced under its scope, enchantment, sorcery, incantation, and witchcraft” – W. Carleton Wood, “The Religion of Canaan: From the Earliest Times to the Hebrew Conquest,” Journal of Biblical Literature, 1916, Vol. 35, No. 1/2 (1916), pp. 1-133

Magic, potions, bodily disfigurement, worship of the dead, and the consumption of blood were just a few of the pagan rituals the Israelites would find themselves confronting in the land of Canaan. And God knew they would be tempted to incorporate many of these pagan practices into their worship of Him. But God demanded distinctiveness among His people. He found the practices of the Canaanites abominable and unacceptable because they were associated with the worship of false gods. Everything about these rituals and rites was an affront to Yahweh’s status as the one true God and His chosen people were to have nothing to do with them.

God even had to go so far as to ban Israelite fathers from allowing their daughters to become prostitutes. This is most likely a reference to the practice of cult prostitution that was prevalent among the Canaanites.

“A peculiar feature of the Mesopotamian and Canaanite culture was ritualistic prostitution. To the temples of the goddesses of fertility (Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte) were attached bordellos served by consecrated women who represented the goddess, the female principle of fertility… The existence of sacred prostitutes shows that the individual worshipers received in this way communion with the divine principle of life and a renewal of their life forces.” – Eugene J. Fisher, Cultic Prostitution in the Ancient Near East? A Reassessment. Biblical Theology Bulletin

That Israelite fathers might even consider doing such a thing is an affront to our modern sensibilities. But it simply reveals the moral decline that had taken place among the nations of the earth by that time. In humanity’s flight from God, they had abandoned all reason and made the pursuit of personal pleasure their highest priority. The apostle Paul describes this moral descent in far-from-flattering terms.

Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.

So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. – Romans 1:22-26 NLT

God knew that anything done in the name of religion could become a gateway to all kinds of sins and excesses. Cultic prostitution would not stop at the temple but would make its way into the very fabric of Israelite life. If one could justify sin by spiritualizing it, it was just a matter of time before it pervaded every sphere of daily life.

That’s why God reemphasized His law concerning the Sabbath. That one day of the week had been set apart for the exclusive worship of Yahweh. It was to be a regular reminder that He was the one and only God, and He alone was worthy of worship, glory, and honor. There was no place for mediums or necromancers among God’s people. They didn’t need witches and diviners. They had the all-powerful God of the universe dwelling in their presence and providing for their every need. There was nothing they could gain from the pagan magicians and cultic priests of Canaan.

Instead, God’s people were to honor the elderly, show care and concern for the foreigners living among them, and treat one another with honor and respect. There was no room for deceit or dishonesty among God’s chosen people. Those were the ways of the pagans. Their false sense of piety was marked by moral decay and pervasive sin. But God had given His people His law so that they might stand out from the crowd. That’s why God ends this section with the admonition: “You must be careful to keep all of my decrees and regulations by putting them into practice. I am the Lord” (Leviticus 19:37 NLT).

The real test would come when the Israelites entered the land of Canaan. When that day came, the true battle would be for the hearts and souls of God’s people and not for the land. Gaining control of Canaan would be relatively easy because God would give His people victory over their enemies. But winning the battle against moral compromise and ethical accommodation would be far more difficult. To defeat the urge to concede moral ground to the enemy was going to require obedience to God’s commands. The Israelites were going to have to pursue holiness more than their own happiness. They would need to make pleasing God a higher priority than seeking personal pleasure. The world of Canaan would offer a host of alluring options but the people of God would have to stand their ground and stay the course. They would need to heed the words God used to open this chapter: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2 ESV).

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Not For the Faint of Heart

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1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother. 3 They played the whore in Egypt; they played the whore in their youth; there their breasts were pressed and their virgin bosoms handled. 4 Oholah was the name of the elder and Oholibah the name of her sister. They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem.

5 “Oholah played the whore while she was mine, and she lusted after her lovers the Assyrians, warriors 6 clothed in purple, governors and commanders, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses. 7 She bestowed her whoring upon them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them, and she defiled herself with all the idols of everyone after whom she lusted. 8 She did not give up her whoring that she had begun in Egypt; for in her youth men had lain with her and handled her virgin bosom and poured out their whoring lust upon her. 9 Therefore I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the Assyrians, after whom she lusted. 10 These uncovered her nakedness; they seized her sons and her daughters; and as for her, they killed her with the sword; and she became a byword among women, when judgment had been executed on her.

11 “Her sister Oholibah saw this, and she became more corrupt than her sister in her lust and in her whoring, which was worse than that of her sister. 12 She lusted after the Assyrians, governors and commanders, warriors clothed in full armor, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men. 13 And I saw that she was defiled; they both took the same way. 14 But she carried her whoring further. She saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed in vermilion, 15 wearing belts on their waists, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them having the appearance of officers, a likeness of Babylonians whose native land was Chaldea. 16 When she saw them, she lusted after them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea. 17 And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoring lust. And after she was defiled by them, she turned from them in disgust. 18 When she carried on her whoring so openly and flaunted her nakedness, I turned in disgust from her, as I had turned in disgust from her sister. 19 Yet she increased her whoring, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt 20 and lusted after her lovers there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses. 21 Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom and pressed your young breasts.” – Ezekiel 23:1-21 ESV

This chapter needs a graphic-warning label. It is full of sexual imagery and illicit language that makes it difficult to read and even harder to reconcile as content befitting God’s Word. But its message was meant to produce shock and disgust by comparing the behavior of God’s people with the grossest and most unacceptable sexual sins imaginable.

God begins this unflattering portrayal of His people by alluding to them by different names. The northern kingdom of Israel becomes Oholah and the southern kingdom of Judah becomes Oholibah. These pseudonyms were meant to depict each kingdom in a negative light, portraying them as two sisters who each display a penchant for sexual promiscuity and immorality. Oholah means “her tent,” and is meant to represent Samaria, the capital city of the northern kingdom. This designation most likely refers to King Jeroboam’s determination to set up his own houses of worship in Israel to prevent the people from returning to Jerusalem to worship at the temple. His actions are recorded in 1 Kings.

…on the advice of his counselors, the king made two gold calves. He said to the people, “It is too much trouble for you to worship in Jerusalem. Look, Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of Egypt!”

He placed these calf idols in Bethel and in Dan—at either end of his kingdom. But this became a great sin, for the people worshiped the idols, traveling as far north as Dan to worship the one there.

Jeroboam also erected buildings at the pagan shrines and ordained priests from the common people—those who were not from the priestly tribe of Levi. And Jeroboam instituted a religious festival in Bethel, held on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, in imitation of the annual Festival of Shelters in Judah. There at Bethel he himself offered sacrifices to the calves he had made, and he appointed priests for the pagan shrines he had made. So on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, a day that he himself had designated, Jeroboam offered sacrifices on the altar at Bethel. He instituted a religious festival for Israel, and he went up to the altar to burn incense. – 1 Kings 12:18-31 NLT

In a sense, Jeroboam, the first king to rule over the northern kingdom, made the grave error of erecting an alternative house of worship, tempting the people to reject Yahweh as their god.

By contrast, the name Oholibah means “my tent is in her,” and stands for Jerusalem, the capital city of Judah where God’s temple was located. It was at this one “tent” that the people of Judah were to worship the one true God: Yahweh. But like their northern neighbors, the Judahites had proven themselves to be unfaithful. 

This entire chapter acts as a metaphorical version of Jeremiah 3:6-11, where God outlines the sins of Israel and Judah.

During the reign of King Josiah, the Lord said to me, “Have you seen what fickle Israel has done? Like a wife who commits adultery, Israel has worshiped other gods on every hill and under every green tree. I thought, ‘After she has done all this, she will return to me.’ But she did not return, and her faithless sister Judah saw this. She saw that I divorced faithless Israel because of her adultery. But that treacherous sister Judah had no fear, and now she, too, has left me and given herself to prostitution. Israel treated it all so lightly—she thought nothing of committing adultery by worshiping idols made of wood and stone. So now the land has been polluted. But despite all this, her faithless sister Judah has never sincerely returned to me. She has only pretended to be sorry. I, the Lord, have spoken!”

Then the Lord said to me, “Even faithless Israel is less guilty than treacherous Judah!” – Jeremiah 3:6-11 NLT

In the Ezekiel passage, God describes Ohalah and Oholibah as His “wives.” This is not intended to be a divine endorsement of polygamy but is simply meant to be a picture of the intimate relationship between God and His chosen people. The two kingdoms comprised the 12 tribes of Israel and they had been set apart as His own. But God accuses them of having committed adultery. The northern kingdom, allured by the power and prestige of the Assyrian Empire, made unsanctioned alliances with this up-and-coming global power. God deems these dalliances as nothing short of adulterous.

“Oholah lusted after other lovers instead of me, and she gave her love to the Assyrian officers.” – Ezekiel 23:5 NLT

The kings of Judah literally prostrated themselves as the feet of the Assyrian kings, hoping to evade defeat at their hands. This scene is depicted in The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser,  which shows King Jehu of Israel bowing in submission before King Shalmaneser III of Assyria and giving him tribute money.

The primary problem with these alliances was that they encouraged the people to place their hopes in someone other than God. Secondarily, they led to idolatry. Each time Israel made a treaty with a foreign power, they ended up embracing the false gods of their newfound “lovers.”

“…she prostituted herself with the most desirable men of Assyria, worshiping their idols and defiling herself.” – Ezekiel 23:7 NLT

And God reveals that this tendency to spiritual adultery had begun all the way back in Egypt. At one time, Israel and Judah had been one nation, formed by God in the crucible of captivity in Egypt. There, for 400 years, the descendants of Abraham had suffered under the oppressive hand of their Egyptian overlords, but they had also grown into a mighty nation. And during their four-century-long stay in the land of the Pharaohs, they had turned their backs on the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, embracing instead the gods of the Egyptians. So, idolatry was nothing new for them. It had been a problem from the very beginning.

“…when she left Egypt, she did not leave her spirit of prostitution behind. She was still as lewd as in her youth, when the Egyptians slept with her, fondled her breasts, and used her as a prostitute.” – Ezekiel 23:8 NLT

They brought their adulterous tendencies with them to the land of promise, continuing to give their affections to other gods. Even when Solomon, the son of King David, ascended to the throne of Israel, he promoted idolatry. Having disobeyed God by marrying many foreign wives, he soon found himself embracing their false gods and erecting shrines and worship centers all over the kingdom. It was for this reason that God split Solomon’s kingdom in half, creating Judah and Israel.

And after the division of the kingdom, the adultery continued virtually unabated. Eventually, God punished the northern kingdom, using the Assyrians to destroy the capital city of Samaria and subjugate the disobedient citizens of Israel.

“I handed her over to her Assyrian lovers, whom she desired so much. They stripped her, took away her children as their slaves, and then killed her. After she received her punishment, her reputation was known to every woman in the land.” – Ezekiel 23:9-10 NLT

Yet, the fall of Judah did nothing to change the behavior of the southern kingdom of Israel. Having watched their northern “sister” suffer humiliation and annihilation at the hands of their enemies, they stubbornly continued to pursue the same adulterous path.

“Yet even though Oholibah saw what had happened to Oholah, her sister, she followed right in her footsteps. And she was even more depraved, abandoning herself to her lust and prostitution.” – Ezekiel 23:11 NLT

Rather than learn a valuable lesson from the fall of Judah, the southern kingdom upped the ante and escalated their idolatrous ways. And God uses extremely graphic language to describe just how wicked Judah became.

“…she turned to even greater prostitution, remembering her youth when she was a prostitute in Egypt. She lusted after lovers with genitals as large as a donkey’s and emissions like those of a horse.” – Ezekiel 23:19-20 NLT

To understand just how disturbing this message must have been for Ezekiel to deliver and for his audience to receive, imagine going to church one Sunday morning and hearing your pastor present a message that contained some of the same imagery and language that Ezekiel used. Just think how you would feel if he accused you of spiritual prostitution and used the same graphic details to describe your spiritual indiscretions. You would be shocked, appalled, and probably offended. So were the people of Judah. And that is exactly what God intended. He wanted to shock them. He wanted to offend them. And He wanted them to be appalled at the gravity of their guilt. So He used extremely graphic language to describe just how serious their sin was.

Sometimes we can become overly comfortable with our sin that we view it with a kind of casualness. We get so used to it that we forget just how detestable it is to God. That was Judah’s problem. They had sinned for so long that it no longer bothered them. They had learned to live with it and excuse it. They become accustomed to justifying their behavior. But God made it graphicly clear that this was anything but normal. Like two sisters who blatantly prostituted themselves with other men, Israel and Judah pursued relationships with other nations and other gods. They turned their backs on God and sought satisfaction elsewhere. They looked to other nations for their security. They turned to other gods for hope and healing. And while we might consider those actions less-than-shocking, God makes it clear that He viewed their actions as nothing short of immoral and unthinkable. Like a woman who walks out on her loving husband and gives herself physically to every man she meets, Israel and Judah had prostituted themselves time and time again – right in front of the very God who had chosen them, rescued them, and blessed them with His Law, His Temple, and His presence.

This chapter should disturb us and wake us up to the reality of the seriousness of sin. It should shock us and make us understand just how serious spiritual adultery is to God. He doesn’t take it lightly. He won’t tolerate it among His people. He would not and could not turn a blind eye to the actions of Judah or Israel. Spiritual unfaithfulness was and still is an offense to a holy God. If it bothered Him this much, back in the day of Ezekiel, it must still bother Him today. He is warning us to consider the seriousness of unfaithfulness and spiritual infidelity in the life of the child of God.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Regulations For Real Life

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15 “You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. 16 He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him. You shall not wrong him.

17 “None of the daughters of Israel shall be a cult prostitute, and none of the sons of Israel shall be a cult prostitute. 18 You shall not bring the fee of a prostitute or the wages of a dog into the house of the Lord your God in payment for any vow, for both of these are an abomination to the Lord your God.

19 “You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest. 20 You may charge a foreigner interest, but you may not charge your brother interest, that the Lord your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.

21 “If you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it, for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin. 22 But if you refrain from vowing, you will not be guilty of sin. 23 You shall be careful to do what has passed your lips, for you have voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God what you have promised with your mouth.

24 “If you go into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as many as you wish, but you shall not put any in your bag. 25 If you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s standing grain.” – Deuteronomy 23:15-25 ESV

Moses now moves his point of emphasis from times of war to the everyday affairs of life. There would be periods of peace in Israel and during these times the men of war would return home to the normal circumstances of life. These occasions would call for an additional set of regulations to govern  a wide range of situations, and Moses left nothing up to chance.

The first scenario involves an escaped slave. The context seems to indicate that this fugitive slave has arrived in Israel from a distant land. This does not appear to be a reference to an indentured servant. There were slaves in Israel, but many of these individuals were fellow Israelites whose financial circumstances had obligated them to take on the role of a household servant in order to pay a debt they owed. And there were very strict rules regarding the treatment of these fellow Israelites, including the Year of Jubilee, when theses servants were to be set free and their debt wiped clean.

If you buy a Hebrew slave, he may serve for no more than six years. Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom. – Exodus 21:2 NLT

The reference to an escaped slave found in verses 15-16 would appear to be dealing with a foreign slave who has shown up in Israel seeking refuge. In this case, there would be no obligation to return the slave to his master, because the master would be considered a pagan. Any rules concerning Hebrew slaves  would not apply in this case. But if an escaped slave showed up in Israel seeking asylum, they were to be treated with compassion and given the right to settle anywhere within the borders of Israel. These individuals were not be oppressed or treated like property. Instead, they were to be extended every courtesy and considered as a guest of the nation.

The very fact that the Bible deals with the topic of slavery yet never explicitly demands its abolition, leaves many modern-day Christians confused. Non-Christians have used the Bible’s seeming silence regarding the issue of slavery as a reason for rejecting the faith. But it is important to remember that the Bible is to be read and observed in its entirety. As a book, it covers a great stretch of time and deals with a wide range of social issues. The Bible neither condemns or condones slavery. Slavery, like so many other social aberrations, was the direct result of the fall. When sin entered the scene, not only was man’s relationship with God damanged, but the interpersonal dynamic between individuals changed for the worse. Not long after Adam and Eve rebelled against God, one of their own sons murdered his brother. And it goes downhill from there. The Bible is not about God telling man how to restore everything back to the way it was before the fall. It is about God revealing just how bad man’s spiritual condition had become because of the fall.

All of these laws given to the Israelites were designed to reveal man’s inherent sinfulness. The apostle Paul answers the age-old question, “Why, then, was the law given?” by stating,  “It was given alongside the promise to show people their sins” (Galatians 19 NLT). He wrote the very same thing to the believers in Rome.

For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are. – Romans 3:20 NLT

The Mosaic Law was not intended to rectify all of man’s sinful inclinations. But it was meant to regulate behavior. Without the law, men would not even be aware that what they were doing was sin. Again, Paul provides us with a clarification on the purpose of the law.

I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” – Romans 7:7 NIV

Murder, slavery, adultery, lust, rape, incest – all of these things are the sad and inevitable outcomes of the fall. Everything has been perverted. The entire creation has been marred by sin. And the Scriptures provides an overview of mankind’s relationship with God ever since the entrance of sin into His creation. The answer to the problem of slavery is not its abolition, but the redemption of mankind from slavery to sin. Telling sinful human beings not to enslave one another would be no more effective then demanding that they not lust after one another. The underlying problem is the heart.

So, all of these scenarios deal with what were everyday issues confronting the Israelites. Slavery was an everyday part of life because mankind was plagued by sin. And the second scenario deals with an other common problem during that day: Cult prostitution. We don’t react to this quite like we could slavery, but it was just as egregious a problem. The pagan nations surrounding Israel had incorporated sexual immorality into the worship of their false gods. But God prohibited Israel from emulating these pagan practices. They were forbidden from allowing their sons and daughters to serve as cult prostitutes. This kind of immoral practice was off-limits for the Israelites. And they were not allowed to use any money earned through this activity as a form of tithe or offering. In essense, Moses was preventing the Israelites from rationalizing their immoral behavior through apparent acts of righteousness.

The final set of regulations seem disconnected and dissimilar. But they all have to do with the interpersonal relationships between members of the covenant community of Israel. God placed a high priority on these relationships, providing the Israelites with very specific regulations regarding their actions toward one another. They were not allowed to charge one another interest. They could loan one another money, but they were not to do so in order to make a profit. This was really intended as a kind of social welfare system, designed to ensure that no Israelite was ever in need. But God allowed the charging of interest to non-Jews.

If an Israelite made a vow, he was expected to keep it. Vowing to do something in God’s name was to be taken seriously. It was a promise that was guaranteed by the holiness and integrity of God. To fail to keep that commitment was a grave sin. So, it was better not to vow at all, since the making of a vow was totally voluntary. Failing to keep your commitments was to be seen as unacceptable behavior among the Israelites. Jesus provided an important clarification on this matter in His Sermon on the Mount.

“You have also heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not break your vows; you must carry out the vows you make to the Lord.’ But I say, do not make any vows!…

“Just say a simple, ‘Yes, I will,’ or ‘No, I won’t.’ Anything beyond this is from the evil one.” – Matthew 5:33-34, 37 NLT

The final verses in this section deal with the sharing of one’s resources. If an Israelite was passing through another man’s vineyard or field of grain, he was free to gather enough food to sustain him on his journey. In other words, he could meet his immediate need for food, but he was not allowed to harvest the crops belonging to another man. To do so would be theft. But as long as he was taking just enough grapes to satisfy his hunger, he was free to do so. The Israelites were expected to care for the needs of one another, but they were also respect one another’s rights.

All of these regulations were intended to govern the everyday lives of the people of Israel. They cover with a wide range of topics, but they all deal with the daily interactions between the people of God. The nation of Israel had been set apart by God and were expected to glorify His name through the way they lived their lives. While the nations around them were operating according to their sin natures, Israel had been provided with the Mosaic Law, a gracious gift from God designed to expose their own sinful dispositions and remind them of the holiness of their God.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG) Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

A Spirit of Whoredom.

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My people inquire of a piece of wood, and their walking staff gives them oracles. For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have left their God to play the whore. They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains and burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is good. Therefore your daughters play the whore, and your brides commit adultery. I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go aside with prostitutes and sacrifice with cult prostitutes, and a people without understanding shall come to ruin. – Hosea 4:12-14 ESV

Idolatry should seem like a not-so-subtle form of idiocy to us. The idea of taking a piece of wood and carving an image out of it and bowing down before it as some kind of god should come across as utterly ridiculous. The prophet, Isaiah, provides us with God’s very comical description of just how silly idol worship should be to us.

“the wood-carver measures a block of wood and draws a pattern on it. He works with chisel and plane and carves it into a human figure. He gives it human beauty and puts it in a little shrine. He cuts down cedars; he selects the cypress and the oak; he plants the pine in the forest to be nourished by the rain. Then he uses part of the wood to make a fire. With it he warms himself and bakes his bread. Then—yes, it’s true—he takes the rest of it and makes himself a god to worship! He makes an idol and bows down in front of it!” – Isaiah 44:13-15 NLT

Regarding idols, God pulls no punches. “How foolish are those who manufacture idols. These prized objects are really worthless. The people who worship idols don’t know this, so they are all put to shame” (Isaiah 44:9 NLT).  And as sophisticated, modern believers, we would probably agree with His assessment. The thought of bowing down before a block of wood or some kind of man-make object sounds ridiculous to us. But for the people of Israel, idol worship was a part of the daily fabric of life. It was a common practice among all the nations surrounding them. Idol worship was socially acceptable. But the real issue behind all idol worship is the rejection of the one true God. God calls it a “spirit of whoredom.” What drives it is a desire for something other than God. It is built on dissatisfaction, distrust, and a belief that God is not enough. Rather than trust God and His promises, the people of Israel hedged their bets and turned to the gods of other nations in a hope that they would have all their bases covered. It God didn’t come through, maybe one of the other gods would. Some of their unfaithfulness to God was also driven by mere peer pressure, the desire to fit in with the nations around them. One of the reasons God had demanded that the people of Israel destroy all the nations living in the land of promise was so that they would not be tempted to worship their gods. But Israel failed to keep God’s command and soon found themselves intermarrying with those nations and worshiping their false gods.

By the time we get to the period in which Hosea prophesied, things had digressed to a dangerous point. Israel had actually manufactured their own idols – two golden calves – to replace the worship of Yahweh. They had set up their own priesthood and sacrificial system to replace that which God had instituted in Jerusalem. Their unfaithfulness had reached epic proportions and God had had enough. The “spirit of whoredom” was rampant. It even led their daughters to become actual prostitutes. The marriages of the people of Israel were marked by adultery and unfaithfulness. God declared, “your men are doing the same thing, sinning with whores and shrine prostitutes” (Hosea 4:14 NLT).

Unfaithfulness to God stems from an ignorance of God. If the Israelites had really known and understood just how great their God was, they would never have considered turning their back on Him. But over time, they had grown foolish in their understanding. They had lost their intimacy with God and had no real personal relationship with Him. God had become little more than a concept to them, an impersonal, distant deity whom they couldn’t see and with whom they had little or no interaction. The spirit of whoredom creeps in when we stray from God. The less time we spend with Him, reading His Word, sharing with Him our wants and needs, listening to His direction and hearing of His love for us, the more we will tend to stray from Him. They say distance makes the heart grow fonder, but distance from God is dangerous. It can lead to disinterest and, ultimately, unfaithfulness. Like the people of Israel, we will find ourselves turning to something other than God in order to have our needs met. And while we may not have wooden idols in our homes or shrines located under trees or on top of hills. we will find ourselves worshiping false gods. The spirit of whoredom will creep in, tempting us to seek out something other than God to bring us satisfaction, contentment, joy, pleasure, hope, peace, or fulfillment. Anything we turn to other than God is an idol in our lives. Anything we fear losing has become an idol in our lives. Anything we wake up at night worrying about has become an idol in our lives. If sleeping in means more to us than seeking God, sleep has become an idol. If watching TV brings us more joy than reading God’s Word, then TV has become an idol. If becoming successful is more appealing to us than becoming holy, then our job has become an idol to us. If we place more trust in our money than we do God, then money has become an idol to us. And we are suffering from the spirit of whoredom.

God is not enough for us. His love is insufficient for us. We need more. We demand more. When He doesn’t give us what we think we need, we turn to something else. When we think we deserve more or better, we seek what we’re looking for elsewhere. And when we do, we shouldn’t be surprised when our children end up seeking their hope, help, fulfillment and satisfaction from the things of this world. The spirit of whoredom is contagious. It can spread through a family, a church and a generation. In a very short time, we can find ourselves in the same predicament that Israel was in – unfaithful to God,  spiritually adulterous and facing God’s wrath for their infidelity and insubordination. But God would have us return to Him, placing our faith and trust in Him. He wants to love us, bless us and fulfill His will in us.