Leviticus 18:3

After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(3) After the doings of the land of Egypt.—During their sojourn in Egypt the Israelites became familiar with the practices which obtained in the land of their bondage, and as they adopted some of them (see Leviticus 17:7), they are here solemnly warned to eschew those which are especially proscribed in the sequel.

And after the doings of the land of Canaan. The danger of imitating the customs which they had for centuries witnessed in the land they quitted, was greatly increased by the fact that these licentious practices obtained in worse forms in the land which they were to inherit. It is therefore against the past and the future that they are here warned.

Neither shall ye walk in their ordinances. As some of “the doings” referred to may have been simple custom, not based upon the law of the country where they obtained, the Lawgiver here emphatically condemns the acts which were legalised, declaring them to have no authority whatever. (See Leviticus 18:30.)

Benson Commentary

Leviticus 18:3. Egypt and Canaan — These two nations he mentions, because their habitation and conversation among them made their evil example in the following matters more dangerous. But under them he includes all other nations.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

18:1-30 Unlawful marriages and fleshly lusts. - Here is a law against all conformity to the corrupt usages of the heathen. Also laws against incest, against brutal lusts, and barbarous idolatries; and the enforcement of these laws from the ruin of the Canaanites. God here gives moral precepts. Close and constant adherence to God's ordinances is the most effectual preservative from gross sin. The grace of God only will secure us; that grace is to be expected only in the use of the means of grace. Nor does He ever leave any to their hearts' lusts, till they have left him and his services.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

See the Leviticus 18:24-30 note.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2-4. 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.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Egypt and Canaan: these two nations he mentions, because their habitation and conversation among them made their evil example in the following matters more dangerous. But under them he includes all other nations, as he elsewhere expresseth it. In their ordinances, or statutes; either because their laws did indeed allow such things, or because prevailing customs have the force of laws.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do,.... Where they had dwelt many years, and were just come out from thence, and where they had learned many of their evil practices; not only their idolatrous ones referred to in the preceding chapter, which it is certain they followed, Ezekiel 20:7; but also their immoral practices, particularly respecting incestuous marriages, after insisted on, some of which were established by a law among them; so Diodorus Siculus relates (q), that it passed into a law with the Egyptians, contrary to the common custom of all others, that men might marry their own sisters; which is one of the incestuous marriages taken notice of in this chapter, and forbid:

and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: which land had been promised to their ancestors and to them long ago, and whither they were now going under divine direction and guidance, to inherit it, and are here particularly warned of the evil practices among them, that they might avoid them: Maimonides (r) says, these are what our Rabbins call "the ways of the Amorites" (the principal people of the nations of the land of Canaan), and which, he adds, are as branches of the magic art; namely, such which do not follow from natural reason, but from magical operation, and depend upon the dispositions and orders of the stars, and so were necessarily led to worship them: hence, they say, in whatsoever is anything of medicine, in it is nothing of the way of the Amorites; by which they mean nothing else than this, that everything is lawful in which there appears a natural reason for it; and on the contrary, all others are unlawful: but here respect is had not to magical operations but to incestuous marriages, which prevailed among that people, and which they might have received from their ancestor Canaan, who learned them from his father Ham, of whom Berosus (s) writes, that even before the flood he corrupted mankind; asserting and putting it in practice, that men might lie with their mothers, sisters, daughters, and with males and brutes, or any other, for which he was cast out by Noah:

neither shall ye walk in their ordinances: which they ordained, appointed, and settled, for they were such a people the Psalmist speaks of, which framed mischief or wickedness by a law, Psalm 94:2; so Diodorus Siculus says of the incestuous marriage before referred to, and which the above writer, Berosus, derives from Ham their ancestor, that they are said "to pass into a law"; but Aben Ezra puts another sense on these words, let no man use himself to walk in this way until it becomes an ordinance or statute unto him; custom is second nature, and in course of time has the force of a law, wherefore bad customs should be strictly guarded against.

(q) Bibliothec. l. 1. p. 23. (r) Moreh Nevochim, par. 3. c. 37. (s) Antiqu. l. 3. fol. 25.

Geneva Study Bible

After the {a} doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.

(a) You shall preserve yourselves from these abominations following, which the Egyptians and Canaanites use.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Leviticus 18:3

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Holiness of the Marriage Relation. - The prohibition of incest and similar sensual abominations is introduced with a general warning as to the licentious customs of the Egyptians and Canaanites, and an exhortation to walk in the judgments and ordinances of Jehovah (Leviticus 18:2-5), and is brought to a close with a threatening allusion to the consequences of all such defilements (Leviticus 18:24-30).

Leviticus 18:1-4

By the words, "I am Jehovah your God," which are placed at the head and repeated at the close (Leviticus 18:30), the observance of the command is enforced upon the people as a covenant obligation, and urged upon them most strongly by the promise, that through the observance of the ordinances and judgments of Jehovah they should live (Leviticus 18:5).