338 Paul Heger sanctuary and profanes God’s Holy Name. Defiling the land has a “direct” impact on the Deity (cfr. Num 35,34). Scripture emphasizes the defilement of the land as the manifest consequence of sexual misconduct with numerous citations. The term amf “polluted” used in these occurrences suggests a completely different concept than the impurity that results from touching human bodies, carcasses of unclean creatures, people suffering from skin diseases and various discharges, or buildings and cloth stricken by mildew. The one expresses defilement, and the other merely uncleanness. The LXX translates the countless scriptural terms referring to the latter type (except in a few instances that may be due to a particular emphasis or a matter of style) as ajkavqarto" “unclean”, while all the occurrences referring to sexual misconduct, spilling of blood or idolatry have the term maivnw “defile”, “sully”, “stain”. We encounter this defilement terminology for all types of sexual misconduct: in Gen 34 in the Dinah narrative, in abundance in Lev 18 in the concluding admonitions after the sexual prohibitions, in Num 5 concerning the unfaithful wife, and in Deut 24,4 in the prohibition against remarrying one’s divorced wife after having married another. Finally, Lev 20,15-16, regarding sexual misdemeanours with animals, has in common with Exod 21,28-29 the disruption of the divine order; in both occurrences the animals must be killed. Even adultery is against the order of creation (61). The defilements caused by these particular misdeeds offend the Deity and it is within His exclusive domain to establish the rules and the penalties for their transgression. It would be inconceivable to assume that the husband, or human authorities, king or court, could change or entirely annul these divine decrees for whatever rational or practical motive. Thus, for instance, the plight of a wife whose husband has been taken captive could not override the divine rule against adultery. In Mesopotamian law, in contrast, human problems and judgment prevail, and the woman is permitted to go and live with another man (LH 135). This biblical priority of God’s decrees over human interests is the primary philosophical basis of the Israelite law, the indicator of its distinct character, and the foundation of the Jewish fundamentalist’s Weltanschauung and comportment. The Book of the Covenant, within its scholarly-established boundary, includes only one explicit sexual prohibition, regarding sex (61) CARMICHAEL, Origins, 39-42 asserts that adultery invalidates marriage, the sexual union that restores the original male-female oneness that was Adam.