18:16 thy brother’s wife. This proscription applied only while the woman’s husband was living. When he died, particularly if he had no children, the principle of Levirate marriage came into effect (see note on Deuteronomy 25:5-10).

18:22 abomination. Homosexuality has become so common today, just as in the ancient pagan tribes, that it is considered an acceptable–or even preferable–life style. God, however, who created men and women and ordained the proper and fruitful institution of marriage and the family unit, calls it abomination. Despite modern theories, it is not a natural condition; it is a learned behavior which, like any other sin prohibited by a holy God, can become a very difficult behavior to change when long practiced. Nevertheless, the Bible clearly forbids–and nowhere more forcefully than here in this eighteenth chapter of Leviticus–not only homosexuality but also adultery, incest, bestiality, and any other type of sexual commerce except that in monogamous, life-long marriage. God can and does forgive these and other sins (that is what the Levitical offerings in this same book teach). Persistent and unrepentant continuance therein will eventually result in the judgment implicit in Romans 1:27, “receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.”