“Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones.”
Say to the Israelites: any Israelite or any foreigner residing in Israel who sacrifices any of his children to Molek is to be put to death. The members of the community are to stone him. The child sacrifice penalty is the most severe in the chapter: death by stoning, carried out by the community. The stoning by the community members communicates that the covenant community bears collective responsibility for enforcing the most serious covenant violations. The community that permits child sacrifice in its midst becomes complicit in the abomination; the stoning that the community performs is the community's renunciation of that complicity.
COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS
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