THERE ARE ‘NICE’ METAPHORS in the Bible and … there are ‘not-so-nice’ ones. For a usually repulsive word, this one occurs on a fairly regular basis throughout scripture. The word “vomit” and its various forms appears some 25 times from Genesis to Revelation, depending on your translation.
Not all instances are used as metaphors, but a number are worth mentioning here, especially those that involve some type of challenge or reproof.
One of the most intriguing—and graphic—instances is found in the book of Leviticus (Leviticus 18:28, Leviticus 20:22). It is another one of those mixed metaphors, for it speaks of a land—in this case, the promised land—actually vomiting out its inhabitants.
Here is God speaking to his people, through Moses:
“24Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. 25Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26But you must keep my decrees and my laws. … 28And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.”
To expand on the obvious, the body removes what doesn’t belong from its system. In this case, it expels that which was not only non-nutritious and therefore useless, but that which was actually poisonous and therefore deadly.
“Creation” or “Nature” is personified here. From the Old Testament through the New Testament, nature is negatively affected by the sinful actions of mankind. It is “cursed” (Genesis 3:17), it is “subject to futility” (Romans 8:20), it is “groaning” (Romans 8:22), and here it is “defiled” (i.e., “unclean” and therefore to be avoided as something abused, unhealthy, or worthless).
The land, in response, appears to become an agent of judgment. Apparently what its inhabitants were doing—in this case, gross sexual sins (with child sacrifice included)—was so ‘against nature’ that nature itself took the opportunity to eject them—or wished it could.
Don’t Blame It on the Giants
Included among the inhabitants, the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, etc., were also the Anakites or “Nephilim,” those enigmatic demi-god figures mentioned earlier in Genesis (4:6). They apparently added an extra layer of evil behavior. However, no matter what supernatural sources of evil they contributed, it was human beings who were held accountable, who bore the guilt, and deserved the … uh … disgorgement.
And, since God’s people were also part of humanity, God also warns them that they could be spewed out also.
Now, this act was different than, say, Jonah’s “great fish” vomiting him out onto dry land after Jonah had learned his lesson from his gastric imprisonment (Jonah 2:10). Perhaps this ‘land vomiting out its inhabitants’ is more reminiscent of transgressors being cast out “into the outer darkness” in God’s final judgment (Matthew 8:12).
No matter what the related imagery, I think we can rightfully conclude that God, in creating the world around us, has built into its very nature such a unity with his own character that he can only be pleased when all its inhabitants exist within his will and reflect his character (in this case, a character of sexual fidelity and purity). Otherwise, there will be rebellion and repulsion.