Leviticus 20:2

20:2 “You are to say to the Israelites, ‘Any man from the Israelites or from the foreigners who reside in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death; the people of the land must pelt him with stones.

Leviticus 20:27

Prohibition against Spiritists and Mediums

20:27 “‘A man or woman who has in them a spirit of the dead or a familiar spirit must be put to death. They must pelt them with stones; their blood guilt is on themselves.’”


tn Heb “or from the sojourner who sojourns”; NAB “an alien residing in Israel.”

tn Heb “his seed” (so KJV, ASV); likewise in vv. 3-4.

tn Regarding Molech and Molech worship see the note on Lev 18:21.

tn This is not the most frequently-used Hebrew verb for stoning (see instead סָקַל, saqal), but a word that refers to the action of throwing, slinging, or pelting someone with stones (רָגָם, ragam; see HALOT 1187 s.v. רגם qal.a, and B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 136).

tc Smr, LXX, Syriac, and some Targum mss have the relative pronoun אֲשֶׁר (’asher, “who, which”), rather than the MT’s כִּי (ki, “for, because, that”).

tn See the note on the phrase “familiar spirit” in Lev 19:31 above.

tn This is not the most frequently-used Hebrew verb for stoning, but a word that refers to the action of throwing, slinging, or pelting someone with stones (see the note on v. 2 above). Smr and LXX have “you [plural] shall pelt them with stones.”