The Penalty for Blasphemy

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's Word, and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. I'm glad to be with you today. Let's have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into the Lord's Word.
Let's pray. Father, you are an amazing God. You've given us your word. You've told us who you are, and you've promised us your Holy Spirit. Father, we pray that you would please help us now to understand your word. Please, Lord, let it resonate with our hearts. Teach us, God. We need your help in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, so we are at Leviticus chapter 23. Sorry, take that back. Leviticus, whoa. Leviticus chapter 24. And we'll begin at verse 10 and we'll read through the end of the chapter.
And this Israelite woman's son and a man of Israel fought each other in the camp. And the Israelite woman's son blasphemed the name and cursed. And so they brought him to Moses, his mother's name was Shalemith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan. And they put him in custody that the mind of the Lord might be shown to them. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Take outside the camp him who has cursed, and tell all who heard him Then let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him. Then you shall speak to the children of Israel, saying, Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin, and whoever blasphemes the name of Jehovah shall surely be put to death.
All the congregation shall certainly stone him. the stranger, as well as him who was born in the land. When he blasphemes the name, he shall be put to death. Whoever kills any man shall surely be put to death. Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, animal for animal. If a man causes disfigurement of his neighbor as he has done, so shall it be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has caused disfigurement of a man, so shall it be done to him. And whoever kills an animal shall restore it, but whoever kills a man shall be put to death. For you shall have the same law for the stranger and for the one from your own country. For I am Yahweh your God.' Then Moses spoke to the children of Israel, and they took outside the camp him who had cursed. and stoned him with stones. So the children of Israel did as Jehovah commanded Moses.
Well, we need to ask ourselves our three questions. A, what is this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do in response to these words? Well, what's this about? Well, we have this story right there. It's a real live situation. There's a historical event that happens in Israel. There is a woman who has an Egyptian husband. They have a son. Her name is Shulamith and she's the daughter of Debrie of the tribe of Dan. She has this son. So he's half-Egyptian and he goes and he gets in a fight with a full-blooded Israelite man.
They fight each other in the midst of this fight. We don't know if the fight is literal conflict or whether they are arguing with each other, but it doesn't matter. The big violation is the man takes the name of the Lord and he blasphemes against the Lord. He causes injury to God himself by taking the divine name, the Tetragrammaton, Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh, upon his lips and he slanders God himself.
And the people are like, whoa, we don't know what to do with this. So they put him in custody. They take him to Moses and they find out the will of that God. Figure out what do we do? I mean, he's not full-blooded Israelite. What do we do? He's half Egyptian. Do we have a different law for people like that? How does this work?
And the Lord is the one who, this is where I want to be careful, right? The theology of this as I was wrestling, right? We get what's called the lex talionis here, the law of retaliation, which is just eye for eye, tooth for tooth, wound for wound. This is the idea that the punishment meets the crime, right? There's a limit to it. But there's also a justice to it. Nobody is above the law. You have the same law, and I actually have this part underlined, right? For you have the same law for the stranger and for one of your own country, for I am Jehovah your God, right? No, hold on.
He violated the third commandment. And there's an interesting thing here if you were following along in the New King James Version. In verse 11 it says that he had blasphemed the name and cursed. And so, and then again in verse 16, when he blasphemes the name, he shall be put to death. In the New King James they'll put in italics the name of the Lord.
But this is actually one of those places why Jewish people will not say the Tetragrammaton. They won't say Jehovah, they won't say Yahweh, whichever way that goes, and I'm not going to get into that debate here. But the point is, Jewish people take this so seriously that they will not say either of those names. Instead, they'll say Hashem, the name. Because they don't want to blaspheme the Lord's name.
Because they see here, in this theocratic nation, if you take the name of the Lord your God in vain, you're to be put to death. whoever you are. And where does this line up with the Lex Talionis, the law of retaliation? This person has sinned against the highest authority in Israel. They've brought disrepute upon the Covenant King, the God of the universe, the thrice holy one of Israel, the one who is supposed to be the Redeemer. and the ruler of his elect, this whole nation of corporate Israel, and the man has spoken against the king. What's the punishment when it escalates that high?
Well, the Lord here says it's death. What's the best verse to summarize this section? Well, you know, we could just underline verse, let me see here, verse 10 and 11. I think that would be fine. But I also have an interesting note on verse 14, let all who heard him lay their hands on his head and let all the congregation stone him. There had to be witnesses to this. And those who were with the witnesses, if they were willing to testify, they also had to be the executioners and to lay their hands upon his head and essentially testify that they were telling the truth and they were taking ownership for what they were about to do. But let's see, calling, what are we called to do?
I don't think that this goes away. I don't think the answer is what our Jewish friends have done and they just say Hashem, you know, they won't say the Tetragrammaton at all, by the way, Tetra for grammaton name, right, so they just won't say it, or yeah, for letters, for letter name. And so our Jewish friends will say, well, we just don't say it. They'll actually have a perpetual kareh. So when you come to that in the Hebrew, you say Adonai instead. And so you don't say the name at all. You just say Lord. Adonai means Lord.
And so that's actually where we get our reference for Lord from. So the point being is that I don't think that's the place for it. But I think in our hearts, we ought to be those who are very, very, very careful. about blaspheming against the Lord. I mean, in our culture, right, taking the name of God in vain, it's just like any other thing you do. I mean, people use Jesus's name as a swear word, as an exclamation point. They use it all the time as an insult to each other. And it's so often just thrown out there. And so the question is, are we those types of people? Are we those who uphold the name of God with our lips and with our lives?
Let's pray. Father, we pray that we would be those who would honor you with our lives and with our lips, that we would take your name in vain. Lord, we pray that you would please let us follow after you. We pray that we would proclaim the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, until he returns again. In Jesus's name, Amen. May God bless you. May you love the Lord. He is your shepherd and he has called together his sheep and he watches over us all the days of our lives. So may you take comfort in him. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.