Leviticus 18:22

With mankind - This abominable crime, frequent among the Greeks and Romans as well as the Canaanites, may be punished with death in this country.

UNLAWFUL MARRIAGES. (Lev. 18:1-30) I am the Lord your God--This renewed mention of the divine sovereignty over the Israelites was intended to bear particularly on some laws that were widely different from the social customs that obtained both in Egypt and Canaan; for the enormities, which the laws enumerated in this chapter were intended to put down, were freely practised or publicly sanctioned in both of those countries; and, indeed, the extermination of the ancient Canaanites is described as owing to the abominations with which they had polluted the land.

Thou shall not lie with mankind as with womankind,.... By carnal knowledge of them, and carnal copulation with them, and mixing bodies in like manner: this is the sin commonly called sodomy, from the inhabitants of Sodom, greatly addicted to it, for which their city was destroyed by fire: those that are guilty of this sin, are, by the apostle, called "abusers of themselves with mankind", Co1 6:9, it is abomination; it is so to God, as the above instance of his vengeance shows, and ought to be abominable to men, as being not only contrary to the law of God, but even contrary to nature itself, and what is never to be observed among brute creatures.

Here is, I. A general law against all conformity to the corrupt usages of the heathen (Lev 18:1-5). II. Particular laws, 1. Against incest (Lev 18:6-18). 2. Against beastly lusts, and barbarous idolatries (Lev 18:19-23). III. The enforcement of these laws from the ruin of the Canaanites (Lev 18:24-30).

18:22 In Gen 1:31, God pronounced all things good. This yielded a theology of the created order where good is defined by what God created and by the way he intended it to function. Part of this “good” was the creation of woman as man’s companion (Gen 2:22-24). Marriage forms a microcosm of the human race, which stands as the corporate bearer of God’s image. Sin, introduced by the Fall (Gen 3), disrupted the created order. Homosexuality is but one example of sinful violation of God’s order; it is tied to the rejection of God by fallen humanity (Rom 1:25-32). • The Hebrew word translated detestable (to‘ebah) indicates strong disapproval and disgust (Lev 20:13; see also 18:26-30).