I received this reader question recently:

There are laws in the Torah that require stoning/burning. I understand why the penalty needs to be death (and the penalty of all sin is death under the law), but I have trouble understanding why God would have His people be the ones to carry out the killing. If I were an Ancient Israelite under the law, it is very difficult to imagine God commanding me to kill those who broke certain laws, especially since we’re all law breakers. 

After much study and prayer and conversation with godly people, here are my thoughts on this hard part of Scripture.

The People Commanded to Put Rule-breakers to Death

There are many verses in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy that lay out God’s rules to follow under the Mosaic covenant for the nation of Israel. Leviticus 20 reinforces some of the laws listed elsewhere and emphasizes the punishment that should be given which, in the case Leviticus 20, almost all of them list death as the punishment and several specifically mention stoning by the people and one mentions burning. According to The Bible Knowledge Commentary, the burning was understood in Jewish tradition to mean hot lead being poured down the throat.

Let’s take a look at two examples of these passages:

Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones.

Leviticus 20:2

If a man marries both a woman and her mother, it is wicked. Both he and they must be burned in the fire, so that no wickedness will be among you.

Leviticus 20:14

The Court Case before the Stoning

So we have an accurate picture of this stoning and burning, it’s important to note there was a court case as witnesses brought the charges forth. You couldn’t just be suspicious of your neighbor then drag them out to the street yourself and start stoning them. There had to be testimony of two or three witnesses (Deuteronomy 17:6). The cases would be brought forth to Moses or some of the lesser judges to hear the case (Exodus 18:14-25). These stonings and burnings were not a choatic free for all.

Why Death as a Punishment?

It’s clear in scripture that the wages of sin is death (Romans 3:23). This means that there is eternal death waiting for those who do not turn to Jesus Christ as their Savior. Jesus’ death and resurrection counts as the death that pays for the punishment for our sins since Jesus was perfect and did not have sins himself to pay for. We understand that this is for our eternity, but even for believers in Jesus Christ, there will be earthly, relational consequences for sins.

In Leviticus 20 and elsewhere in the Torah, the most serious sins are listed as warranting bodily death as punishment. These sins are against life, religion, and the family such as murder, kidnapping, adultery, homosexuality, blasphemy, idolatry, and persistent disobedience against authority (Bible Knowledge Commentary, p.202).

The reader above mentioned that this is not the hard part of this concept. It makes sense that there needs to be death as a consequence of wrongdoing especially for these serious sins that effect so many others in the community. But why have the people do it? Why couldn’t God have done it since it was His covenant that the people were breaking?

When God Brings Death as Punishment

There are times when God is the one who takes someone’s life as a result of disobedience. For example:

• God flooded the whole earth during Noah’s time to drown those who were only having evil continually in their heart. (Genesis 6)
• God opened up the earth to swallow Korah and those who were with him who were rebelling against Moses’ leadership (Numbers 16).
• God strikes Annanias and Sapphira dead when they lie about their financial gift to the church being the total proceeds of the sale of their land. (Acts 5)

So if God can punish sin himself, and He has at different times in history, why does he His people do the stoning or death penalty under the Torah law?

Why Have the People Put Each Other to Death?

Here are some possible reasons why:

So the people would be holy

God himself gives the reasons for these death penalties at the end of Leviticus 20. He says, ²² “‘Keep all my decrees and laws and follow them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. ²³ You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them. ²⁴ But I said to you, “You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am the Lord your God, who has set you apart from the nations.“

Part of holiness is removing the sin from among you and not letting it hang around. God doesn’t want them to live like the nations that are already in the Promised Land that they were about to go into. The nations were not only worshiping idols and having sex with whoever they wanted, since they did not recognize these actions as offensive to God, they were also not purging the unholiness from their midst.

For these reasons, the nations were about to be vomited out of the land, just like God says will happen to the Israelities if they don’t purge the holiness from their people, too. (Spoiler alert: they don’t keep up with this either and are exiled from the land in 586 BC. Yet, there was always a remnant who was faithful to God. They just didn’t get to keep the land forever.)

So the people will be deterred from doing the same thing themselves

If one had to be part of stoning someone to death for worshiping idols, then you can be sure that they would know that they wouldn’t want that to happen to them. They would hopefully take great care to worship the Lord only. They would know that God is serious about His laws.

To emphasis community accountability

I imagine that if you would have to stone those who disobeyed and you noticed that your neighbor or family member was disobeying you would be motivated to come to them and ask them to stop sinning before it got to the point that stoning or death was warranted.

I can imagine saying to a neighbor, “Please! Stop worshiping idols! Please turn back to God! I do not want to have to stone you to death or watch our community stone you to death!”

To be clear that the death was a consequence of sin

If God were to take someone’s life because of sin, there would be opportunity for people to explain away the death by natural means. “Oh, they just died of a heart attack.” Or, “it was just an accident.” But if the people are stoning the person as the result of a trial because of sin, it would be clear that the person’s death was a result of sin.

What this means for us today

Community life is found in the Church

Even though we do not live under the Mosaic Law, the Church is to be the kind of community that holds each other accountable. We are to bring someone back when they are going down the path of destructive sins (James 5:19-20). This does not happen by stoning today, but through confronting brothers and sisters in Christ who sin (Matthew 18:15-18).

Take obedience seriously

God’s heart is still for His people to take obedience seriously, particularly the things mentioned in Leviticus 20 like staying away from mediums and spiritists, having sex only with your spouse and not family members or animals, and continually disobeying authority including dishonoring your parents.

Author and speaker Elisabeth Elliot has a lot to say about obedience. In her book Quest for Love, she notes, “How many momentous events in Scripture depended on one person’s seemingly small act of obedience! Rest assured: Do what God tells you to do now, and, depend upon it, you will be shown what to do next.”

Put to death what is unholy

God wants us to put to death what is unholy in ourselves. Colossians 3:5-8 says, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. ⁶ On account of these the wrath of God is coming. ⁷ In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. ⁸ But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.”

In some ways, this is harder than stoning a community member who has sinned. It’s easy to find sin in others. It’s harder to recognize sin in ourselves. This is also harder because God clarifies that we need to kill ungodly attitudes in ourselves, too, not just the actions mentioned in Leviticus 20. Anger, talking badly about others, obscene talk. Those need to be killed in us, too.

Thankfully, those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior have the Holy Spirit within us on whom we can rely for guidance, wisdom, and strength. It’s not up to our willpower to remove the wicked attitudes from within us. Listen to the Holy Spirit. Take the way out when he provides.

Do you have any thoughts about why God has His people do the stoning when these Mosaic Laws were broken? Comment below!

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