Leviticus 17:7
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
And they shall no more offer their sacrifices to devils, after whom they have gone a whoring. This shall be a statute for ever to them throughout their generations.
American King James Version (AKJV)
And they shall no more offer their sacrifices to devils, after whom they have gone a whoring. This shall be a statute for ever to them throughout their generations.
American Standard Version (ASV)
And they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices unto the he-goats, after which they play the harlot. This shall be a statute forever unto them throughout their generations.
Basic English Translation (BBE)
And let them make no more offerings to evil spirits, after which they have gone, turning away from the Lord. Let this be a law to them for ever, through all their generations.
Webster's Revision
And they shall no more offer their sacrifices to idols, with which they have committed idolatry: This shall be a statute for ever to them throughout their generations.
World English Bible
They shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to the goat idols, after which they play the prostitute. This shall be a statute forever to them throughout their generations.'
English Revised Version (ERV)
And they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices unto the he-goats, after whom they go a whoring. This shall be a statute for ever unto them throughout their generations.
Clarke's Leviticus 17:7 Bible Commentary
They shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils - They shall not sacrifice לשעירים lasseirim, to the hairy ones, to goats. The famous heathen god, Pan, was represented as having the posteriors, horns, and ears of a goat; and the Mendesians, a people of Egypt, had a deity which they worshipped under this form. Herodotus says that all goats were worshipped in Egypt, but the he-goat particularly. It appears also that the different ape and monkey species were objects of superstitious worship; and from these sprang, not only Mendes and Jupiter Ammon, who was worshipped under the figure of a ram, but also Pan and the Sileni, with the innumerable herd of those imaginary beings, satyrs, dryads, hamadryads, etc. etc., all woodland gods, and held in veneration among the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans.
After whom they have gone a whoring - Though this term is frequently used to express idolatry, yet we are not to suppose that it is not to be taken in a literal sense in many places in Scripture, even where it is used in connection with idolatrous acts of worship. It is well known that Baal-Peor and Ashtaroth were worshipped with unclean rites; and that public prostitution formed a grand part of the worship of many deities among the Egyptians, Moabites, Canaanites, Greeks, and Romans. The great god of the two latter nations, Jupiter, was represented as the general corrupter of women; and of Venus, Flora, Priapus, and others, it is needless to speak. That there was public prostitution in the patriarchal times, see Clarke on Genesis 38:21 (note). And that there was public prostitution of women to goats in Egypt, see Herodotus, lib. ii., c. 46, p. 108, edit. Gale, who gives a case of this abominable kind that took place in Egypt while he was in that country. See also many examples in Bochart, vol. ii., col. 641; and see Clarke's note on Leviticus 20:16.
Barnes's Leviticus 17:7 Bible Commentary
Devils - The word in the original is the "shaggy goat" of Leviticus 4:23. But it is sometimes employed, as here, to denote an object of pagan worship or a demon dwelling in the deserts 2 Chronicles 11:15; Isaiah 13:21; Isaiah 34:14. The worship of the goat, accompanied by the foulest rites, prevailed in Lower Egypt; and the Israelites may have been led into this snare while they dwelt in Egypt.
This law for the slaughtering of animals was not merely to exclude idolatry from the chosen nation. It had a more positive and permanent purpose. It bore witness to the sanctity of life: it served to remind the people of the solemnity of the grant of the lives of all inferior creatures made to Noah Genesis 9:2-3; it purged and directed toward Yahweh the feelings in respect to animal food which seem to be common to man's nature; and it connected a habit of thanksgiving with the maintenance of our human life by means of daily food. 1 Timothy 4:3-5. Having acknowledged that the animal belonged to Yahweh the devout Hebrew received back its flesh as Yahweh's gift.
Wesley's Leviticus 17:7 Bible Commentary
17:7 Unto devils — So they did, not directly or intentionally, but by construction and consequence, because the devil is the author of idolatry, and is eminently served, and honoured by it. And as the Egyptians were notorious for their idolatry, so the Israelites were infected with their leaven, Joshua 24:14; Ezekiel 20:7; 23:2,3.
A whoring — Idolatry, especially in God's people, is commonly called whoredom, because it is a violation of that covenant by which they were peculiarly betrothed or married to God.