Leviticus 24:10-23 - Blaspheming God’s Name

Well, well, well, look who it is, and look what time it is. I have got to get new intros. It is Leviticus 24 time, and we are gonna be looking at a very, very interesting story.

And this particular story was so interesting that normally, as I've mentioned before, I just gotta read through the passage, and maybe if there's a particular connection to another Bible passage or something like that, I'll look at that other

passage. But today, I had a lot of questions, and so I went and looked at a couple other resources from some really, really trusted Bible scholars and got some great insights that I hope will be an encouragement to you today.

Because as we look at this passage, this is one of those things that to our New Testament minds seems very severe and is very questionable. And so we can have a gut reaction that says, oh God, that was really mean, like why did you do that?

But I think as we look at the passage, it even invites us to consider some things and think about some things that will be very helpful and beneficial to our spiritual walk with the Lord. So let's dive right in to Leviticus 24 and verse 10.

I'll say this on the one hand. So before this, we've looked at the priests, their lives, the holy days of the festivals of celebrating God, the Sabbaths, and the bread of the presence, the show bread.

And then right after this, we're gonna look at the Sabbath years and the year of Jubilee, and then go into some of the blessings and couched right in between all of these things about how the priests need to be holy and the holy days that the people

celebrate is one random historical account from Israel's time. It says this, now the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father was among the Israelites. And so this would necessarily have been totally foreign.

This was something that often took place. You know, the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt, and oftentimes someone will take a slave as a wife, and it doesn't necessarily say if the Egyptian father went with this family, but he very well might have.

So here you have someone that they're, if you will, borrowing some of the phrases from some earlier things. The native born, he is the son of an Israelite mother, and he's kind of a resident alien or an immigrant. He's the son of an Egyptian father.

And so that's going to come into play as we look at the rest of these verses. So he was among the Israelites. A fight broke out in the camp between the Israelite woman's son and an Israelite man.

Her son cursed and blasphemed the name, and they brought him to Moses. His mother's name was Shelemith, a daughter of Debris of the tribe of Dan. So here often in the Old Testament, God is referenced by this phrase, the name, Hashem.

And later in Israel's history, they would just say the phrase, the name, instead of saying what we would know today as the Tetragrammaton, the Y-H-W-H, Yahweh, or in some older things, before they realized that Hebrew doesn't have a J, Jehovah.

They, instead of saying the name of God, they would just say literally the phrase, the name, Hashem. And so here he curses the name, and that is often synonymous with cursing, blaspheming God.

Verse 12, they put him in custody until Yahweh's decision could be made clear to them. So they don't really know what to do. They say this fight broke out, he both cursed and blasphemed.

So the word curse here is to, it's to pierce. So the normal phrase that we've read in Leviticus is the phrase profane the name, and that is, if my memory serves correctly, chalel, and then here to blaspheme is to chalel. So it's a more severe thing.

So before when it talks about profaning the name of the Lord, your God, so it's used a lot in connection with how you treat other people, where God says I want you to leave some harvest or barley grain things at the edge of your fields for the

immigrants and resident aliens and the poor. He says you are to obey this because I am Yahweh your God. He says don't profane, don't make common my name. Oh yeah, you know, Yahweh's followers do this, Baal's followers do this.

It's something that's unique. It's to be held high in high esteem. It's to be deemed important.

And so to hear blaspheme, so to make common is chalel, to blaspheme, to make dirt, to make filth is chalel. This would be to perhaps use it as a curse word. Many people in our world today will use God's name to curse in a variety of senses.

There's obviously the acronym JFC that would take Jesus' name and make it a horrible insult, something that is very demeaning and shocking to especially Christian senses, as it should. It's blaspheming the name of God.

You also have people that they'll use the phrase, oh my God, flippantly and is in a way that, frankly, is in defiance of how God's name is to be treated in Scripture. It's not something that we throw around flippantly.

It's something that it's the name of our Lord, the one that bought us, the one that created the world, the one that forgives us, the one that is one day coming back as a judge. We don't use him. We don't use his name.

We don't invoke him into circumstances that are just commonplace. So I'd encourage you, maybe you're one that you'd say, it doesn't really mean anything, but that's kind of the point is that his name does mean something.

And if you bring up God's name, may it only be to lift him up, may it only be to highlight him as revered. There are many other phrases and words that you can use to express shock or excitement or happiness.

If you're going to use God's name, use it in a way like praise God. If you're going to say thank you, Jesus, with a realization that he is high and lifted up, his name is not something that's to be taken lightly.

Here, her son, cursed and blasphemed, the word cursed is like to pierce. They didn't have pen and paper during this time, so anything that you would write would be like chiseled into pottery or stone. It's that kind of thought.

It's to pierce into, and then the second phrase, so her son pierced into and brought low, made dirty, not just made common, made dirty the name.

So they go to God through Moses, and they say, hey, what are we supposed to do with this person who has cursed and blasphemed the name?

Verse 13, Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, bring the one who was cursed to the outside of the camp, and have all who heard him lay their hands on his head. Then have the whole community stone him.

And tell the Israelites, if anyone curses his God, he will bear the consequences of his sin. Whoever blasphemes the name of Yahweh must be put to death. The whole community is to stone him.

If he blasphemes the name, he is to be put to death, whether the resident alien or the native. So here he says, it doesn't matter whether or not you count him as Egyptian because of his dad, or Hebrew because of his mother.

He says in both cases, the penalty for cursing, blaspheming the name of God is death. Now, as we think about that, we find it very severe.

Frankly, many of us have known Christians that have just very flippantly taken the Lord's name in vain in a variety of ways. We go, wow. So they're deserving of death because of their blasphemy.

And there's a couple of things that are in play here that I'll mention here in just one second.

But in verse 13, with the way in which this punishment was to take place for this particular blasphemer, this was something that was reminiscent of even how the scapegoat, the goat that goes to Azazel in Leviticus 16, it's the same type of process

that you take him outside of the camp. Everyone in the congregation puts their, well, it says, all who heard him blaspheme lay their hands on his head.

We have now collectively experienced defilement because of this person's sin, that the camp is not a holy place.

Everyone that heard this person say this and speak in this way, now there is a sin stain that is on all of them, that now when they interact with circumstances perhaps like this person was interacting, they'll remember what this person said and what

they did in that moment. And that memory would perhaps motivate them to say the same things, to act in the same way as this person had. So God says, I want you to, if you will, place all of that sin stain on that blasphemer.

And then he is to be stoned.

This was, if I remember correctly, this might be the reason that Stephen was stoned, was for blasphemy in Acts chapter 7, is I think the particular charge that was brought against him because he was talking about Jesus as Messiah.

And so they said, hey, you know, he's blasphemed, so we're going to stone him.

Yeah, it doesn't necessarily say which one in particular, like what the charge was, just that they stoned him, but at least from some of the other things, it would make sense that they filed this under, oh yeah, blasphemy, you stone someone for

blasphemy against God and saying that Jesus is God falls under that in their mind. So this is not something that's ever mentioned again in the Hebrew Bible as people partaking in. It doesn't appear that this happened after this.

Instead, because this stuff didn't ever happen, because there wasn't ever justice for this sin, there would appear to be many times where people would begin to take God's name as dirty or defiled. You look at Goliath.

I do think it's interesting, actually. I didn't think about this before. Goliath, how does he die?

He dies with a stone in his forehead. It says that he blasphemed, he cursed the Israelites by their God, that they were just, they were puny, and they served a weak God, and David kills him with a stone. He stones him.

It's outside of the camp, the Congregation of Israel. But that's a very interesting thought that I hadn't thought of before. He kills him by stoning him because of his blasphemy.

It's somewhat humorous there. So, all of this taking place, it shows us the importance of who God is.

So the priests were supposed to be very, very, very careful to guard the holiness of the name of God in how they interacted with the things in the tabernacle and then the temple. That was their goal.

They protect the holiness, the sanctity, the purity of the temple.

And to violate that, as we saw with Eleazar and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, was to bring death, to violate God's holiness invites that death, that the purity of God's presence is deadly to sin.

And here God is saying, okay, the priests watch over the temple and the tabernacle, and that's how they guard the holiness and the purity of God to Israel. He says, but Israel, you have the name with you.

Like, you know your God, and so you have a responsibility to guard it in how you interact with one another, in how you talk about God, in how you treat other people.

And we'll see this in just one second, because many of us go, okay, just saying like, you know, just saying Jesus' name in vain or saying God's name in vain, that doesn't really seem like a killable offense, not something that is deserving of death.

Then we can read in verses 17 and on some context clues of why would the judgment be this severe? If a man kills anyone, he must be put to death. Okay, that seems like an odd pivot.

Okay, so if someone blasphemes the name, blasphemes the Lord, he is to be put to death. If a man kills anyone, he must be put to death. Interesting.

Verse 18, whoever kills an animal is to make restitution for it, life for life. If any man inflicts a permanent injury on his neighbor, whatever he has done is to be done to him. Here, the same restitution thing.

Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, whatever injury he inflicted on the person, the same is to be inflicted on him. Whoever kills an animal is to make restitution for it, but whoever kills a person is to be put to death.

You are to have the same law for the resident alien and the native, because I am Yahweh, your God. After Moses spoke to the Israelites, they brought the one who had cursed to the outside of the camp and stoned him.

So the Israelites did as Yahweh had commanded Moses. So as we're kind of familiar with from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus in talking about this kind of law of even punishment, that it was not, okay, someone breaks your bone, you can't kill them.

Someone kills your animal, you can't go after their kids. He says there is an even retribution and restitution.

Even from some other passages, what seems to be communicated is that it's not, okay, you accidentally knock someone's eye out, you knock out someone's tooth, okay, then they physically will knock out your tooth.

The idea seems to be more that you then owe them the amount that their tooth is viewed as worth in accordance with some of the judges and things. There's a smattering of passages across the Pentateuch that would seem to deal with that.

But at the very least, this puts an absolute cap on revenge, that if someone has done something to you, you cannot go beyond what they have done. So it limits our natural tendency towards over-the-top vengeance. And so there's that evenness there.

But what's really interesting is kind of on the front end and the back end is this phrase, if a man kills anyone, he must be put to death. And then in verse 21, whoever kills, whoever kills a person is to be put to death.

So what some people have seen, just like with Aaron's two sons, that they go into the temple, they offer the unauthorized incense to God that went directly against what he had commanded. And so they were killed as a result.

And then right after, God says, do not be drunk, priests, do not be drunk when you are interacting with the holy things. He says, because I am your God.

People have seen, okay, there might be something here that just as the priests are to regard the tabernacle and the temple as holy, here people are to view how they interact with both God's name and people that bear the name and image of God.

They are to view them as holy and to take that lightly. So there's a thought that perhaps this son of an Israelite mother and Egyptian father killed the other Israelite.

And in doing so, through that action, pierced and blasphemed, made dirty the name of God. Or perhaps something like, let's see if Yahweh can save you now as he is inflicting this murder on this person.

It doesn't directly state it in the passage, but in the kind of parallel accounts and how these things are phrased of, here's what happened, and then here's the law that God has. If you kill someone, you will be killed. Here it's that restitution.

Or at the very least, if even a human life is worth another human life, if the restitution, if the retribution for killing a human is that your life is forfeit, how much more so is God? His name, his honor is more valuable than even a human life.

The honor of God is more valuable.

And frankly, that's how many of us would view our lives before God, that we would very evidently say, okay, if someone comes up to you with a gun and goes, renounce Christ or die, many of us would say, oh yes, I would die for Jesus.

Why would we say that? Because his name, his honor, his reputation, is more important than our own. And so perhaps that's also what's being communicated here.

There are some things, this has been something very helpful, that Tim Mackey with the Bible Project has helped me realize often with the Old Testament, is sometimes things are not stated very overtly or clearly because we're intended to think about

it, to go, oh, I wonder why this was this severe. I wonder why this doesn't just happen all the time in the Old Testament. I wonder what it means or why it says to blaspheme the name and why it doesn't just say blaspheme the Lord, blaspheme Yahweh.

So all of those things are intended to make you think about the passage and all of the ramifications. So obviously very, very interesting passage here that we come away from it going, wow, God really, really views his name as something important.

And it's something that's just as severe as if I come ritually or morally unclean into God's presence, into the tabernacle or the temple, that there's danger for my soul there.

But it's not just that I can live however I want out in the world, out in the camp, but I just have to behave when I'm in God's presence. He says, no, how you interact with people, even in the camp, is important.

For you today, how do you treat people? Do you have a love and a care for others, or do you make God's name blasphemable and dirty through how you interact with others?

Would others view Christians as a derogatory term because of how you act, because of how you speak, because of the way in which you treat workers or family members or people that service you at restaurants or things like that?

How do people think of the name of Jesus because of how you treat them? Then do you blaspheme God's name? Do you use it flippantly?

Do you use it as something that's just an exclamation and everything's just, you know, in a moment of shock? Oh, Jesus! Or, oh my God, just everything.

Realize that God's name is holy. It is set apart. It is to be used in a way that is revered, that is lifting him up, that he is not commonplace.

So don't use his name like a common expression. Our world does plenty of that. If I want to hear God's name blasphemed, I can go to anyone in our world, and they'll offer it freely.

I can watch any TV show or movie and hear it. We ought not, as Christians, have that same thing happen with us. So do you view God's name as important?

Do you view how you interact with people as an expression of how they will see God, that how you act portrays your God? How are you portraying him?

And then realizing, kind of at the end of it, the great forgiveness that we do have in Jesus, that we who have blasphemed, that we who have defiled the name of Jesus in the minds and hearts of others, that we are not killed as a result of it, but

Christ has forgiveness for us. Are you walking in that forgiveness and eschewing being rid of sin? Thanks for tuning in today.

Tomorrow we've got some really great things with the Sabbath laws and the Year of Jubilee, which is one of the coolest portions of Israelite culture, at least that God had prescribed, and hope to see you tomorrow for that. Thanks for tuning in.

Thank you.