Leviticus 20:15 Meaning: Why the Animal Also Had to Die

The Hebrew behind “lies with” here is unexpected. The man “gives his copulation to an animal”, the verb natan usually means to give or set. It paints the act as something handed over, a deliberate offering of oneself to a forbidden union. The punishment phrase “shall surely be put to death” uses the same verb mut (to die) twice in a row, once as an infinitive absolute and once as a verb: mot yumat. It means “to die he will be put to death”, the strongest possible emphasis. There is no loophole, no lesser penalty. Then for the animal, a different verb appears: harag, meaning to kill, to slay. It is a straightforward command to the community: you will kill it. Why? Not because the animal bears moral guilt, but because the act defiled it, and God would have nothing in His camp that had been used for such a perversion. The sheer weight of these words, “give,” “surely die,” “kill”, shows that this is not a minor boundary. It is a violation that unravels the created order itself.

Christians across traditions have offered reasons for the animal's death. The Baptist commentator John Gill pointed to the Mishnah's reasoning: the animal was a means of ruin, and destroying it prevented public shame and discouraged others. The Methodist John Wesley added two practical grounds: preventing monstrous births and blotting out the memory of so loathsome a crime. Matthew Poole, a Puritan, suggested it punished the owner for negligence in not keeping the animal confined. These explanations share a common thread: the animal's death served as a deterrent and a public statement that such sin could not be tolerated. The early church also condemned this practice universally. While the specific penalty is not enforced in civil law today, the principle, that some acts so deeply violate God's design that they cannot be treated lightly, remains.

Some read this as God punishing an innocent animal for no reason. In fact, the animal was killed as a deterrent and to remove the defilement. Commentators like Wesley and Gill note that it prevented further sin and blotted out the memory of the crime. The animal was not morally guilty; its death was a legal and symbolic act that underscored the gravity of the violation.