Reading through the Bible for my second time this year, I arrived at Leviticus again and the word “profane” stood out to me.  It is found 26 times in the Old Testament of the King James Version and seven in the New.  Fifteen of those total times are in Leviticus.

In eighteenth century English dictionaries, to profane something is to violate something sacred.  The Universal English Dictionary in 1706 defines “profane”:

Ungodly, unholy, irreligious, wicked; unhallowed, common, ordinary:  It is often opposed to sacred.

The Hebrew word, translated “profane,” also many times means and is translated “to bore or to pierce.”  Something is added that is not natural to a thing when it is pierced.  It is violated.  I like to use the analogy of a dirty dish placed with the clean dishes.

Here are the fifteen usages of the English word “profane” in Leviticus, all found in five of the chapters.

Leviticus 18:21, And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD.

Leviticus 19:12, And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD.

Leviticus 20:3, And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name.

Leviticus 21:4, But he shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself.

6, They shall be holy unto their God, and not profane the name of their God: for the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and the bread of their God, they do offer: therefore they shall be holy.

7, They shall not take a wife that is a whore, or profane; neither shall they take a woman put away from her husband: for he is holy unto his God.

9, And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire.

12, Neither shall he go out of the sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary of his God; for the crown of the anointing oil of his God is upon him: I am the LORD.

14, A widow, or a divorced woman, or profane, or an harlot, these shall he not take: but he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife.

15, Neither shall he profane his seed among his people: for I the LORD do sanctify him.

23 Only he shall not go in unto the vail, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish; that he profane not my sanctuaries: for I the LORD do sanctify them.

Leviticus 22:2, Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, that they separate themselves from the holy things of the children of Israel, and that they profane not my holy name in those things which they hallow unto me: I am the LORD.

9, They shall therefore keep mine ordinance, lest they bear sin for it, and die therefore, if they profane it: I the LORD do sanctify them.

15, And they shall not profane the holy things of the children of Israel, which they offer unto the LORD.

32, Neither shall ye profane my holy name; but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel: I am the LORD which hallow you.

Profane, you can see, is an adjective, noun, or verb.  As a verb, the Hebrew word (chalal) means, “to be commonly used.”  The Hebrew word is also translated in the King James Version, “pollute” (Numbers 18:32).  An understanding of “profane” must be taken in contrast to sacred, hallowed, or holy.

Something sacred is kept separate, not mixed with the common.  By mixing it with the common, it is profaned or becomes profane, which is the opposite of holy.  By adding something common to something sacred, the sacred is profaned.  It is no longer hallowed or kept separate.  The common is something not sacred, so it is of a different nature than the sacred or the holy.  For something to remain holy, it must be kept distinct, and a difference must be kept between the holy and the profane in order to keep sanctified that what is holy.  This is especially in important in worship and Leviticus is a guidebook for worship.

To keep something hallowed that is sacred, one must understand it’s nature.  What makes it holy?  What is this act, thing, or person in its essence?  Then only something of that essence or of the same kind can be associated with it, brought into contact with it, or linked with it or correlated to it.  It’s worth reading all the usages above from Leviticus.

The first usage in Leviticus of “profane” reads, “neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God.”  It does not explain what that is.  It assumes the reader knows what that is.

“The name of God” is who God is.   It’s what characterizes Him in His Person and Work.  To profane His name is to associate or correlate with Him something that is contrary to His nature.  It disrespects Him.  It dishonors Him. It mischaracterizes Him, and this is very serious to do to God, so God adds, “I am the LORD.”  John Gill writes about this:  “I [am] the Lord; who would avenge such a profanation of his name.”  God isn’t going to allow someone to keep profaning His name.

I’m going to select a few of the above examples to give the sense or understanding of “profane.”  Leviticus 21:12 says, “Neither shall he go out of the sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary of his God.”  To profane the sanctuary is to make it common.  It’s a sacred place and it is treated as a common place, not unique to God.  This is not just profaning God, but profaning God’s sanctuary, something closely associated with God.

Leviticus 22:1-2 say,

1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 2 Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, that they separate themselves from the holy things of the children of Israel, and that they profane not my holy name in those things which they hallow unto me: I am the LORD.

Those who had become common and, therefore, not holy, were not qualified to offer holy sacrifices.  God would be profaned by the unholy offering the holy.   The person himself could profane God and the worship of God and the thing offered could be profaned so as to profane God and the worship of Him.  Common things, which are unholy, are to be kept out of worship.  They may not even be evil — they’re just common.  Something is made common when it is not treated in a unique or sacred manner, but is treated like everything else.

How people understand God in their imagination comes in a major way through association.  Not only does God take offense at it, because it disrespects Him, but it also gives people as much as anything a wrong view of God.  Someone will have a lesser view of God, a diminished understanding of Him, and that will affect a person’s life.  He may not believe in the true God or live in accordance with the true God.

As much as anything today as an application of profane is the mixture in worship in the contemporary churches what is common with what it holy.  Professing churches give God profane worship and they profane God.  They give Him something worldly, lustful, and distorted so as to blaspheme God.  The people then become like their worship.  They themselves are profane and this just results in even further profanity of God and of their lives.  The world doesn’t know God because of the correlation of the common or the profane with God in professing churches.  The people of these professing churches are made common and profane as they blaspheme God with their profanity.