Back to THE TORAH CONNECTION Table of Contents
Ex. 12:15, 19 eating leavened bread during the Feast of Unleavened Bread
Ex. 30:33 making and using holy anointing oil for secular purposes
Ex. 30:38 making and using holy incense for secular purposes
Ex. 31:14 defiling the Sabbath
Lev. 7:20, 21 eating part of the peace offering while unclean
Lev. 7:25 eating the fat of any offering
Lev. 7:27; 17:14 eating the blood of any animal
Lev. 17:4, 9 killing and sacrificing any animal away from the sanctuary
Lev. 18(:29); 20:17 incest, pornography, homosexuality, bestiality
Lev. 19:5-8 eating part of the peace offering after the 2nd day
Lev. 20:2-5 human sacrifice to Molech
Lev. 20:18 sexual intercourse during menstruation
Lev. 22:3 a priest approaching holy things while unclean
Lev. 23:29 not afflicting the soul during the Day of Atonement
Num. 9:13 not keeping the Passover
Num. 15:30, 31 doing anything against God purposely, rebelliously, presumptuously
Num. 19:13, 20 not purifying after contact with human death
What does it mean to be “cut off?” There is no description given in the Torah except what is implied by the seriousness of the sins that merit this punishment. We can get somewhat of an understanding of what it means by considering what other Old Testament writers describe. It appears to be somewhat similar to what we know of as excommunication. To be “cut off” from fellowship with the commonwealth of Israel was a serious sentence. The person would be considered a “persona non grata” with no home, no family ties, no physical or financial support, a vagabond and “outlaw” (in contrast to being “in the Law and Covenant”). This sentence probably resulted in a slow death by starvation in contrast with the relatively quick death of capital punishment.
Psa 34:16 The face of the LORD is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
Psa 37:9, 10 For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be.
Psa 37:22 For such as be blessed of him shall inherit the earth; and they that be cursed of him shall be cut off.
Psa 37:28 For the LORD loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved for ever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.
Psa 37:38 But the transgressors shall be destroyed together: the end of the wicked shall be cut off.
Psa 94:23 And he shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness; yea, the LORD our God shall cut them off.
Pro 2:21, 22 For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it. But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.
Isa 48:19 Thy seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof; his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me.
Isa 56:5 Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.
Jer 11:19 But I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.
Jer 44:7, 8 Therefore now thus saith the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel; Wherefore commit ye this great evil against your souls, to cut off from you man and woman, child and suckling, out of Judah, to leave you none to remain; In that ye provoke me unto wrath with the works of your hands, burning incense unto other gods in the land of Egypt, whither ye be gone to dwell, that ye might cut yourselves off, and that ye might be a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth?
Jer 44:11 Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will set my face against you for evil, and to cut off all Judah.
Eze 14:8 And I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
Zec 13:2 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land.
Mat 3:12 (also Luk 3:17) Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Mat 13:30, 40-42 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn. . . . As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Mat 25:31-33, 41 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. . . . Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
Joh 15:6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
Rom 11:19-22 Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
Rev 2:5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
Rev 3:5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
There are some similarities between being “cut off” and the final fate of those who are not saved, what is referred to as the “second death.”
Rev 2:11 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.
Rev 20:6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
Rev 20:14, 15 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Rev 21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
For an Israelite, to be “cut off” was a terrible, heart-wrenching, hopeless sentence of judgment. It was a sentence of slow death with mental as well as physical suffering because he had time to ponder his sin and its result. It is understood that Christ, in vicariously suffering the sinner’s fate, went through the experience of the “second death.” His suffering, from His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane to His death on Calvary, included much intense mental anguish—being abandoned by God, the load of guilt He carried, the wrath of God against sin, etc. Unrepentent, unsaved sinners will go through that suffering for themselves.
They who have been “accounted worthy” of the resurrection of life are “blessed and holy.” “On such the second death hath no power.” Revelation 20:6. But those who have not, through repentance and faith, secured pardon, must receive the penalty of transgression–“the wages of sin.” They suffer punishment varying in duration and intensity, “according to their works,” but finally ending in the second death. Since it is impossible for God, consistently with His justice and mercy, to save the sinner in his sins, He deprives him of the existence which his transgressions have forfeited and of which he has proved himself unworthy. Says an inspired writer: “Yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be.” And another declares: “They shall be as though they had not been.” Psalm 37:10; Obadiah 16. Covered with infamy, they sink into hopeless, eternal oblivion. GC 544, 545
The wicked receive their recompense in the earth. Proverbs 11:31. They “shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts.” Malachi 4:1. Some are destroyed as in a moment, while others suffer many days. All are punished “according to their deeds.” The sins of the righteous having been transferred to Satan, he is made to suffer not only for his own rebellion, but for all the sins which he has caused God’s people to commit. His punishment is to be far greater than that of those whom he has deceived. After all have perished who fell by his deceptions, he is still to live and suffer on. In the cleansing flames the wicked are at last destroyed, root and branch–Satan the root, his followers the branches. The full penalty of the law has been visited; the demands of justice have been met; and heaven and earth, beholding, declare the righteousness of Jehovah. GC 673