(22) As with womankind.--This was the sin of Sodom (Genesis 19:5), whence it derived its name, and in spite of the penalty of death enacted by the Law against those who were found guilty of it (see Leviticus 20:13), the Israelites did not quite relinquish this abominable vice (Judges 19:22; 1Kings 14:24), to which the surrounding nations were addicted and which was so prevalent in the time of the Apostles (Romans 1:27; 1Corinthians 6:9; Galatians 5:19; 1Timothy 1:10). By the law of Christ those who are guilty of this sin are excluded from the kingdom of God (1Corinthians 6:9-10), whilst the laws of civilised Europe rightly inflict the severest penalties upon offenders of this kind.

Verse 22. - The fourth prohibition forbids the sin of Sodom (see Genesis 19:5; Judges 11:22; Romans 1:27; 1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Timothy 1:10). The penalty is death (Leviticus 20:13).

18:1-30 Unlawful marriages and fleshly lusts. - Here is a law against all conformity to the corrupt usages of the heathen. Also laws against incest, against brutal lusts, and barbarous idolatries; and the enforcement of these laws from the ruin of the Canaanites. God here gives moral precepts. Close and constant adherence to God's ordinances is the most effectual preservative from gross sin. The grace of God only will secure us; that grace is to be expected only in the use of the means of grace. Nor does He ever leave any to their hearts' lusts, till they have left him and his services.Thou shall not lie with mankind as with womankind,.... By carnal knowledge of them, and carnal copulation with them, and mixing bodies in like manner: this is the sin commonly called sodomy, from the inhabitants of Sodom, greatly addicted to it, for which their city was destroyed by fire: those that are guilty of this sin, are, by the apostle, called "abusers of themselves with mankind", 1 Corinthians 6:9,

it is abomination; it is so to God, as the above instance of his vengeance shows, and ought to be abominable to men, as being not only contrary to the law of God, but even contrary to nature itself, and what is never to be observed among brute creatures.