Leviticus 19:26-28 – Christian vs. Pagan Culture (Part 1)

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 20 Nov. 2016

Introduction

v The first 8 verses of Leviticus 19 related holiness to the greatest commandment to “Love the Lord your God,” and the next 10 verses or so related holiness to the second-greatest commandment to “Love your neighbor.” Now, in verses 26-31, we bounce back to loving the Lord. This is applied in a paragraph of “holiness” laws against God’s people conforming themselves to the culture of the false religions around them.

v About such laws, R.J. Rushdoony wrote in his Institutes, “At every point… holiness brings us face to face with very material laws. Every biblical law is concerned with holiness. All law creates a line of division, a separation between the law-abiding and the law-breaking peoples. Without law, there can be no separation. The modern antipathy to and open hatred of law is also a hatred of holiness. It is an attempt to destroy the line of separation between good and evil by abolition of law. But, because God is holy, law is written into the structure of all being; law cannot be abolished: it can only be enforced, if not by man, then surely by God.”

v What you believe about God and man influences every aspect of human culture, and in this brief periscope of Leviticus 19, we see cultural differences highlighted in six arenas of culture: Media, Personal Grooming, Funerals, Sexuality, Holidays, and Leadership. In these six little verses we see that someone who is holy to God will stand out from the world in all these areas and develop a culture that is distinct from the world and consistent with God’s character.

v Now, I’m only going to have time to address the first three of these six cultural areas in this sermon, so we’ll save the last three for the next sermon. The first cultural area addressed then is:

1) Information Sources

v.26 Y’all may not eat [meat] with the blood, and y’all may not practice divination, and y’all may not practice fortune-telling.

v Matthew Henry explained that it was common for pagans, when they slaughtered an animal, to set out a serving container filled with the animal’s blood for the demons (in the shape of flies) to drink while the humans cooked and ate the meat, “signifying their communion with devils by their feasting with them[1].” The blood of God's sacrifices was instead sprinkled on the altar.

v Two more key words in v.26 also describe pagan religious practices:

Ø Nachash – lit. “act secretly,” translated “Enchantment/divination/witchcraft,” and some Bible commentaries suggest it had something to do with serpents.[2]

Ø ‘onain – Translated “Sorcery, soothsaying, observing times, fortune-telling, incantations”

§ A few have suggested that the root meaning is “eyeball” in which case it could be a kind of curse to give an evil eye.

§ But I think the root meaning has more likely to do with clouds, so they may have been someone people would go to in order to conjure up some rain for their crops, or it may have had to do with watching the clouds and telling people when to do certain things like plant their crops.

Ø LXX interprets these two words as synonyms for augury, which Webster’s original dictionary defined as follows, “Among the Romans, an officer whose duty was to foretell future events by the singing, chattering, flight and feeding of birds. There was a college or community of augers, originally three in number, and afterwards nine, four patricians, and five plebeians. They bore a staff or wand, and were held in great respect.” Now whether it’s birds or tea-leaves, or sticks, or tarot cards, or Zodiac configurations, or seeing-stones, or what have you, humans throughout history have attempted to discover hidden information, especially about the future, from supernatural sources through physical objects, and here God unequivocally condemns such practices.

v This is not to say that we cannot use wise thinking and physical science to predict things.

· Both of these Hebrew words also occur in different contexts to describe people who simply observed what was going on to make an accurate assessment.

· Doppler radar projections are an entirely reasonable way to predict what the weather will be like.

· I spent one summer working for a roofing guy who specialized in finding leaks in flat industrial roofs. If someone didn’t understand what we were doing, he might think we were using magic. We would measure off the roof in 1 foot squares and paint a dot at the intersection of each square. Then we would wave a wand over each dot and write a number on a notepad, then come down from the roof and tell the people exactly where the leak was. They would come and put tar over just one square foot or so, and the leak would be stopped. How did we do that? Well, the wand was actually a very sensitive Geiger counter, and it was built to measure a slightly-radioactive isotope of Hydrogen (I hope I’m remembering this correctly.) But the practical upshot was that if there was a high reading at any particular spot on the roof, it indicated that there was water under the surface of the roof and therefore was likely to be where the leak was.

· In other cases, God provides supernatural insight, like He did with Joseph to interpret dreams.

v What Leviticus 19 is prohibiting, however, is going to some other spiritual source for information to reveal what is unknown or to predict the future. God just does not want us to rely for our information upon any source that does not obey His will.

· So, obviously, anything that claims to use spiritual power apart from God’s will to reveal the future or the unknown should be avoided like the plague. Things like fortune tellers, tarot and palm readers, and ouija boards, spiritual aura readers, horoscopes, fortune cookies, and the like. The allure of finding out about the future or curiosity about the unknown can be very strong, but it must be resisted. God says don’t go there without Him! Ask God anything you need (James 1), but don’t go to anyone but God to reveal the unknown.

· I recently read to my children a biography entitled Totally Surrounded about Christina Di Stephano Davis, who went to be a missionary to an animistic people group in the Philippines. She described some situations where people who had trusted the witchdoctor all their lives really struggled to change their allegiance and trust God instead. In one instance, a little girl got sick, so her parents asked the witchdoctor what to do. The witchdoctor quizzed the girl, and discovered that at one point during the previous day the girl had thrown a banana peel out the window. “That’s it,” declared the witchdoctor, “a spirit was sitting outside your hut, and when you threw the banana peel out the window, you hit the spirit, and it offended him, so he made you sick. If you want to get well, you must put your supper in a bowl and leave it outside your house tonight to feed the spirit. If you are not well by the next day, perhaps you have offended a more important spirit, and you must put your food out in a bowl every night until you get well.” The missionary offered repeatedly to come and give the girl some medicine, but the witchdoctor warned the family that if the missionary tried to help the girl, then the spirit would get even more angry and make even more of them sick. After three nights of starvation and untreated sickness, the little girl died.

· Now, you could perhaps chalk that down to a witchdoctor who was just looking for a free bowl of supper to pick up at the girl’s hut after dark those three nights, but many witch doctors have real connections with the spirit world. I met a former shaman named Shoefoot from the Yukpa people of Venezuela who shared his testimony that before he became a Christian, he would talk to evil spirits, and they would warn him about what they called “The Enemy God[3].” The Enemy God was very powerful but hated them and wanted to hurt them, they told him, but as long as he did what the spirits said, he would be safe from the Enemy God. Well, when missionaries arrived, the spirits warned the witchdoctor that the missionaries were agents of The Enemy God and that, at all costs, he must not listen to them. To make a long story short, Shoefoot did listen to the missionary’s message and discovered that The Enemy God was the enemy of demons but the savior of sinners, and God saved him! So, yes, the spirit world is real, and demons are still deceiving people today, and we must take care that we do not expose ourselves to their deception.

· Anything that is questionable as to how it reveals the future or the unknown should be carefully evaluated before you allow it to become a source of information for you.

§ One instance I can think of is the practice called “water witching.” When I was a student at Covenant College, I watched the college’s plumber find a water pipe underground by holding two twigs and walking around and noting how the twigs moved. He said that it worked according to natural principles of molecular alignment which modern scientists haven’t figured out yet. On the other hand, I’ve heard that not just anybody can make it work and that it is actually a form of witchcraft, which is why it is called “water witching.” It’s not a question I have resolved, since I’ve never had to look for water underground myself. But if there is any question in your mind whether an information source works by spiritual forces which are in rebellion against God or whether it works according to forces which obey God’s laws, then stay away from it until you know for sure.

v Deuteronomy 18:9-12 repeats the warnings of Leviticus 19, “When you come into the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the LORD, and because of these abominations the LORD your God drives them out from before you.” (NKJV)

v Did the Jews heed this command? Sadly, no. 2 Kings 17:16-17 “So they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, made for themselves a molded image and two calves, made a wooden image and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. And they caused their sons and daughters to pass through the fire, practiced witchcraft and soothsaying, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger.”[4] (NKJV)

v So Isaiah 2:6 tells us that God “rejected [His] people, the house of Jacob, because they took their fill from the East and fortune-tellers like the Philistines...” (NAW)

v So what should we do?

Ø Jeremiah 27:9 “Therefore do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your dreamers, your soothsayers, or your sorcerers, who speak to you, saying, "You shall not serve the king of Babylon.” (NKJV)

Ø “For Christians to have their nativities cast, and their fortunes told them, to use spells and charms for the cure of diseases and the driving away of evil spirits, to be affected with the falling of the salt, a hare [or black cat] crossing the way, cross days, or the like, is an intolerable affront to the Lord Jesus, a support of paganism and idolatry, and a reproach both to themselves and to that worthy name by which they are called.” ~Matthew Henry

Ø Let us go first in prayer to God before we think of going for help to attorneys or doctors or consultants or counselors or repair-men, or you-name-it!

2) Personal Grooming

v.27 Y’all may not cut around the top of your head and y’all may not lay waste to the top of your beard,

v These words “top” and “head” are found in Lev. 13 describing male-pattern-baldness, although it may or may not be describing the same thing here. The word for “top/edge/corner/side” in this verse is singular in Hebrew, and it occurs twice, “top of the head” “top of the beard” as the object of both commands.

v The only other place this statute is mentioned in the Bible is Lev. 21:1-6 “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: 'None shall defile himself for the dead (lanephesh) among his people except for his relatives who are nearest to him… 5 They shall not make any bald place on their heads, nor shall they shave the edges of their beards nor make any cuttings in their flesh. They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God, for they offer the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and the bread of their God; therefore they shall be holy.” (NKJV)

v The first verb, naqaph, generally means “to surround in order to conquer,” for instance:

Ø 2 Kings 11:8 “But you shall surround the king on all sides, every man with his weapons in his hand...” (NKJV)

Ø Isaiah 10:34 “He will cut around the thickets of the forest with an axe, and Lebanon will fall...” (NAW).

v The second verb shachat, literally means “to lay waste” – it’s what God did to the earth in Noah’s flood and what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah. For something more like what is meant here in Lev. 19, consider Exodus 21:26 “If a man strikes the eye of his male or female servant, and destroys it, he shall let him go free for the sake of his eye.” (NKJV)

Ø The Greek word translated from the Hebrew word shachat shows up in the New Testament in 1 Corinthians 3:17 “When someone ruins the inner-sanctum of God, God will ruin that person, for the inner-sanctum of God is holy, which is what you yourselves are.” (NAW)

Ø If your body is holy, then doing unholy things with your body is destructive to the body God made for you, not to mention that it’s also offensive to God who made your body to be holy.

v So how exactly do we apply this verse about hair cuts?

Ø Some people have interpreted it to mean “don’t shave off a perfectly good beard.”

Ø It seems I have seen some Amish folks interpret it that you can shave off your mustache (the “top” of your beard) but not the rest of the beard.

Ø Chasidic Jews have interpreted it to mean don’t ever trim your sideburns, so they have these longs curls hanging off the sides of their heads.

Ø Bill Gothard has interpreted it to mean that men should not cut off their sideburns because women don’t have sideburns, so it would maintain distinctions between men’s and women’s hairstyles.

Ø Roman Catholic monks, on the other hand, seem to have gone the other direction with tonsure and shaved around their heads, doing the very thing prohibited in this statute.

v I don’t think any of these ideas get at the meaning of this verse. I think the important thing to note is the context of this statute. What is the larger picture of the kinds of things being prohibited here? Is it the hair style per se, or is it something more?

Ø The context seems to indicate that whatever these hair styles are, they are associated with pagan religious practice, and it is for the purpose of identifying with God that this distinction is being made in grooming. I think the underlying principle is a warning not to make yourself look like people who are in rebellion against God.

Ø Matthew Henry suggested that the style arose from “those that worshipped the hosts of heaven, [who] in honour of them, cut their hair so as that their heads might resemble the celestial globe.”

Ø Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown’s commentary says, “…this fashion had been learned by the Israelites in Egypt, for the ancient Egyptians had their dark locks cropped short or shaved with great nicety, so that what remained on the crown appeared in the form of a circle surrounding the head, while the beard was dressed into a square form. This kind of coiffure had a highly idolatrous meaning; and it was adopted, with some slight variations, by almost all idolaters in ancient times. ( cf. Jeremiah 9:25-26 and 25:23 …) Frequently a lock or tuft of hair was left on the hinder part of the head, the rest being cut round in the form of a ring, as the Turks, Chinese, and Hindus do…”

Ø Keil & Delitzsch explain that this meant “not to cut the hair in a circle from one temple to the other [like a bowl cut], as some of the Arab tribes did, according to Herodotus (Thalia, sive, l. 3. c. 8), in honour of their god Ὀροτάλ...”

v Identity is reflected is in the style of your grooming and clothing. Styles are a form of communication, and every style has a history behind it which is related to a particular philosophy.

Ø For instance, if you were to see a man walk into the room with his hair in dreadlocks – all matted and unkempt with bits of bone woven into it, most people would immediately recognize that he was identifying himself with reggae culture, which has a history of devil worship, drug use, and rebellious behavior. If the man were to object and say it is only a hair style, he would be fooling only himself.

Ø Or if a woman were to walk in with a miniskirt and fishnet stockings, most of us would immediately recognize that she was wearing clothing which has historically identified prostitutes. She may think that because the other girls in school wear it, it must be o.k., but a different message comes through to everyone who knows where that style came from.

Ø I remember in the 1970’s when the cool boys in my prep school all suddenly started sporting brightly-colored hair picks in their back pockets. I remember thinking it was funny because I knew exactly where that fad came from. You see, I spent every summer in a youth camp for inner-city black kids, and every one of the boys at that camp kept a pick in their back pocket to comb tangles out of their ‘fro. But for my white friends with their straight hair, I knew it had no practical value; they just thought it made them look “cool.” I never saw anything morally wrong with it, but I did think it was funny to see all these rich white boys from the suburbs who would have been mortified to be identified with the blacks on the other side of the tracks, nevertheless imitating the very people they despised.

Ø I remember my sixth grade teacher telling us that someday nose-piercing would be cool, and we laughed and laughed at that because that was something only tribes in the African bush did… but now I see my sixth grade teacher was right. But before getting a piercing, be sure to think through what piercing means – what the philosophy is that is communicated by piercing, and make sure that the way you groom yourself does not identify you with non-Christian values but rather sets you apart so that people can recognize you as a follower of Jesus.

3) Mourning

v.28 and y’all may not give yourselves a gash in your flesh for someone’s soul, and y’all may not give yourselves an engraving of a tattoo; I am Yahweh.

v The only other place the Hebrew word for “cut/gash” (שׂרטת) appears in the Bible is Lev. 21:5, where it is lumped together with head and beard shaving, and it places these practices in the context of someone dying, which is why the word nephesh here, which is usually translated “life/soul” is translated “dead” or “dead body” here.

Ø A related word is found in Zech. 12:3 where it describes this cutting action being done with rocks.

Ø When we look at a description in the Bible of what pagan priests did in their rituals, we see them doing this very thing. When the priests of Baal (the supposed god of lightening) tried to get Baal to send down fire from heaven at the contest on top of Mount Carmel, 1 Kings 18:28 tells us, “…they cried aloud, and cut themselves (גּדד), as was their custom, with knives and lances, until the blood gushed out on them” (NKJV). This was their custom.

Ø “The practice of making deep gashes on the face and arms and legs, in time of bereavement, was universal among the heathen.. [Keil & Delitzsch cite it in Babylonian, Armenian, Scythian, Roman, Arab, and Persian literature, and Gill adds the Amorites, Carthaginians, and Phoenicians.[5] In one of those citations, Herodotus relates that if a king died, people would cut off a part of their ears, shave the hair round about, and make cuts all over their arms, forehead, nose, and left hand] [I]t was deemed a becoming mark of respect for the dead, as well as a sort of propitiatory offering to the deities who presided over death and the grave. The Jews learned this custom in Egypt, and though weaned from it, relapsed in a later and degenerate age into this old superstition (Isa. 15:2; Jer. 16:6; Jer. 41:5).” ~JFB

Ø Nowhere in the Bible does God encourage us to cut ourselves as a manner of personal expression.

v What does cutting mean? It is a way of damaging the body God created for you.

Ø Perhaps it is an intentional defacing of what He made for you,

Ø or perhaps it is an attempt to punish yourself for your own shortcomings instead of accepting the suffering and blood of Jesus as sufficient to atone for your sins.

Ø Either way, cutting is a form of rebellion against God and as such is consistent with paganism, not Christianity.

Ø All the more prohibited are the blood-rituals of witchcraft where people cut themselves to draw blood and use the blood in spells and potions and stuff. Leviticus makes it clear that the only ceremonial use for blood is to atone for sin the way God provides atonement for sin, and that is through the death of a sacrificial animal which was fulfilled in the death of Jesus Christ.

v The Hebrew words for “tattoo mark/engraving” occur nowhere else in the Bible, but that’s how everybody translates it.

Ø The closest we get to this word for tattooing in the New Testament is when Paul says that he bore stigmata scars on his body (Gal. 6:17), from almost being stoned to death in Lyconia (Act 14:19) or from being beaten with rods in Philippi (Act 16:22). (This is not speaking of services which the local tattoo parlor offers.)

Ø “Engraving” God’s word on tablets (Deut. 27:3) and doorposts (Deut. 11:20) was encouraged, but deathmarks on your skin was prohibited.

Ø This appears to be describing pagan practices regarding funerals and memorial services, although some Jewish commentators thought it meant marking oneself with the name of a pagan God to dedicate yourself to that idol[6].

Ø God’s people obviously conducted funerals, even though it made them temporarily unclean to bury a dead body (Num 5:2, 9:5ff).

Ø While this may not have a one to one correspondence with the modern practice of tattoos, it would indicate that getting a tattoo of a scull or a tattoo with the likeness of a loved one who died is not consistent with Biblical faith.

Ø Nowadays, so many people have tattoos that it seems nothing more than an innocent decoration in most people’s minds, but let me repeat what I said before that styles and fashions all have a history and a philosophy behind them. Just because they are popular doesn’t mean they are meaningless and can be practiced unthinkingly. Historically, tattooing has never been widely practiced by people who devoutly follow the Bible, but it has consistently been the practice of pagans throughout history. The point of this verse is to warn us against doing things that identify us with the enemies of God.

v Now, I realize that there is a balance to be found between being, on the one hand, in an ivory tower, so out-of-touch with the world that you have no Gospel witness and, on the other hand, being so conformed to the world that you are no different from the world and thus lose your Gospel witness.

Ø The Apostle Paul wrote of “becoming all things to all men that I might win some,”

Ø and Jesus branded himself with the likeness of human flesh in order to identify with us,

Ø so there are some things you have the freedom to do to accommodate yourself to a certain culture of people to whom God has called you to share the Gospel. Perhaps that might even include getting a tattoo,

Ø but the larger principle which God laid down in His word here still applies that, as a follower of Christ, it is your responsibility to sift through the practices of the culture around you and make judgment calls about which practices communicate rebellion against God and therefore should not be adopted, and which practices can be adopted because they are not inconsistent with following Christ and do not communicate a message contrary to the Gospel.

Ø May God give us wisdom as we work to discern these differences.

CONCLUSION

v Well, I have to pause for now, but in conclusion, let me say that your Christian experience may well begin with simply believing that Jesus died for your sin, but it can’t stop there with mere faith.

v The Apostle James says that’s the kind of faith even demons have. Faith for the Christian must lead to action in obedience to Jesus. That includes working out your faith in every area of culture.

v Leviticus 19: 26-31 tells us that our consecration to the one true God will influence our choices:

Ø from how we look for information,

Ø to how we cut our hair and style our clothes,

Ø to how we express grief

v Next week I’ll plan to show how it also influences

Ø how we treat our children and how we treat the opposite sex,

Ø how we spend holidays

Ø and where we look for guidance.

v But for now, will you allow God’s holiness to change you and make you different from the world? And will you diligently seek to live out the character of God by forming a culture of holiness around you?

Comparative translations of Leviticus 19:26-31

When a translation adds words not in the Hebrew text, but does not indicate it has done so by the use of italics (or greyed-out text), I put the added words in [square brackets]. When one version chooses a wording which is different from all the other translations, I underline it. When a version chooses a translation which, in my opinion, either departs too far from the root meaning of the Hebrew word or departs too far from the grammar form of the original Hebrew, I use ~~strikeout~~. And when a version omits a word which is in the Hebrew text, I insert an X. (Sometimes I will place the X at the end of a word if the original word is plural but the English translation is singular.) I occasionally use colors to help the reader see correlations between the various editions and versions when there are more than two different translations of a given word. Hebrew text that is colored purple matches the Dead Sea Scrolls, and variants between the DSS and the MT are noted in endnotes with the following exceptions: When a holem or qibbutz pointing in the MT is represented in the DSS by a vav or a hireq pointing in the MT is represented in the DSS by a yod (the corresponding consonantal representation of the same vowel) or when the tetragrammaton is spelled with paleo-Hebrew letters, I did not record it a variant. In Chapter 19, 11Q1 paleoLeviticusa contains verses 1-4, 1Q3 PaleoLev-Num contains verses 30-34, 4Q26a Leviticuse contains verses 34-37, and 4Q23 Leviticus-Numbersa contains verses 3-8.

LXX	Brenton	KJV	NAW	MT
26 Μὴ ἔσθετε ἐπὶ τῶν ὀρέων καὶ οὐκ οἰωνιεῖσθε οὐδὲ ὀρνιθοσκοπήσεσθε.	26 Eat not on the mountains, nor shall ye employ auguries, nor divine by inspection of birds.	26 Ye shall not eat any thing with the blood: neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times.	26 Y’all may not eat [meat] with the blood, and y’all may not practice divination, and y’all may not practice fortune-telling[A].	26 לֹא תֹאכְלוּ עַל-הַדָּם[B] לֹא[C] תְנַחֲשׁוּ וְלֹא תְעוֹנֵנוּ:
27 οὐ ποιήσετε σισόην ἐκ τῆς κόμης τῆς κεφαλῆς ὑμῶν οὐδὲ φθερεῖτε τὴν ὄψιν τοῦ πώγωνος ὑμῶν.	27 Ye shall not make a round cutting of the hair of your head, nor disfigure X X your beard.	27 Ye shall not round the corner[s] of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corner[s] of thy beard.	27 Y’all may not cut around the top of your head and y’all may not lay waste to the top of your beard,	27 לֹא תַקִּפוּ פְּאַת רֹאשְׁכֶם וְלֹא תַשְׁחִית אֵת פְּאַת זְקָנֶךָ[D]:
28 καὶ ἐντομίδας ἐπὶ X ψυχῇ οὐ ~~ποιήσετε~~ ἐν τῷ σώματι ὑμῶν καὶ γράμματα στικτὰ οὐ ~~ποιήσετε~~ ἐν ὑμῖν· ἐγώ εἰμι κύριος [ὁ θεὸς ὑμῶν[E]].	28 And ye shall not ~~make~~ cuttings in your body for a ~~dead body~~, and ye shall not ~~inscribe~~ on yourselves ~~any~~ marks. I am the Lord [your God].	28 X Ye shall not ~~make~~ any cuttings in your flesh for the ~~dead~~, nor print ~~any~~ marks upon you: I am the LORD.	28 and y’all may not give yourselves a gash in your flesh for someone’s soul, and y’all may not give yourselves an engraving of a tattoo; I am Yahweh.	28 וְשֶׂרֶט[F] לָנֶפֶשׁ לֹא תִתְּנוּ בִּבְשַׂרְכֶם וּכְתֹבֶת קַעֲקַע לֹא תִתְּנוּ בָּכֶם אֲנִי יְהוָה:
29 οὐ βεβηλώσεις τὴν θυγατέρα σου ἐκπορνεῦσαι αὐτήν, καὶ οὐκ ἐκπορνεύσει ἡ γῆ καὶ ἡ γῆ πλησθήσεται ἀνομίας.	29 Thou shalt not profane thy daughter to prostitute her; so the land shall not go a whoring, and the land be filled with iniquity.	29 Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore; lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness.	29 You may not violate your daughter by causing her to engage in prostitution, so the land will not engage in prostitution lest the land become full of organized-crime.	29 אַל-תְּחַלֵּל אֶת-בִּתְּךָ לְהַזְנוֹתָהּ וְלֹא-תִזְנֶה הָאָרֶץ וּמָלְאָה הָאָרֶץ זִמָּה[G]:
30 Τὰ σάββατά μου φυλάξεσθε καὶ [ἀπὸ] τῶν ἁγίων μου φοβηθήσεσθε· ἐγώ [εἰμι] κύριος.	30 Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuaries: I am the Lord.	30 Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD.	30 It is my Sabbaths that y’all must keep, and my holiness y’all must respect; I am Yahweh.	30 אֶת-שַׁבְּתֹתַי תִּשְׁמֹרוּ וּמִקְדָּשִׁי תִּירָאוּ אֲנִי יְהוָה
31 οὐκ ἐπακολουθήσετε ἐγγαστριμύθοις καὶ τοῖς ἐπαοιδοῖς οὐ προσκολληθήσεσθε ἐκμιανθῆναι ἐν αὐτοῖς· ἐγώ εἰμι κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὑμῶν.	31 Ye shall not attend to those who have in them divining spirits, nor attach yourselves to enchanters, to pollute yourselves with them: I am the Lord your God.	31 Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God.	31 Y’all may not pay attention to their mediums or to their wizards. Y’all may not seek to become unclean with them; I am Yahweh your God.	31 אַל-תִּפְנוּ אֶל-הָאֹבֹת וְאֶל-הַיִּדְּעֹנִים אַל-תְּבַקְשׁוּ לְטָמְאָה בָהֶם אֲנִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם:

^{^[1]} Gill and Maimonedes (Moreh Nevochim, par. 3. c. 46) also wrote in favor of this explanation.

^{^[2]} Gill also suggested “weasels, birds, or fishes,” citing “T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 66. 1. Jarchi in loc.”

^{^[3]} You can see a dramatization of his story made with his approval in the movie, The Enemy God.

^{^[4]} Both words occur in the lists of King Manasseh’s sins in 2 Chronicles 33:6 and 2 Kings 21:6, cf. Isa. 57:3

^{^[5]} “Scratching the arms, hands, and face, which is said to have prevailed among the Babylonians and Armenians (Cyrop. iii. 1, 13, iii. 3, 67), the Scythians (Herod. Melpomene, sive, l. 4. c. 71), and even the ancient Romans (cf. M. Geier de Ebraeor. luctu, c. 10), and to be still practised by the Arabs (Arvieux Beduinen, p. 153), the Persians (Morier Zweite Reise, p. 189), and the Abyssinians of the present day… Tattoing [was] a custom not only very common among the savage tribes, but still met with in Arabia (Arvieux Beduinen, p. 155; Burckhardt Beduinen, pp. 40, 41) and in Egypt among both men and women of the lower orders (Lane, Manners and Customs i. pp. 25, 35, iii. p. 169).” ~Keil & Delitzsch

^{^[6]} Ben Gersom, Misn. Maccot, c. 3. sect. 6, T. Bab. Maccot, fol. 21. 1., and Jarchi, Maimon. Bartenora, & Ez Chayim.