Verse 20
20. The soul… having his uncleanness This verse implies that there is an order in the religious exercises of the Hebrews. The ceremonially impure could bring but one acceptable oblation, the sin offering, for the removal of his defilement. Eucharistic offerings from hands impure are not a sweet savour unto Jehovah, but a stench in his nostrils. The first duty of an impenitent sinner is not to lay earthly holocausts upon God’s altar, but to “cease to do evil.”
That soul shall be cut off from his people This must be understood as the punishment of an audacious and defiant trampling down of Jehovah’s authority, a high-handed sin, and not a mere inadvertence. The cutting off denotes not mere excommunication, but, “the punishment of death in general, without defining the manner.” Gesenius. Probation is made up of small things. These are tests of character more practicable than requirements of greater seeming importance. Divine authority infuses a moral element into mere ritualism.
Hence positive precepts, as the Christian sacraments, are often a higher test of faith than commandments, which find their reason in man’s moral nature. See Butler’s Analogy, part ii, chap. 1.
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