Text -- Leviticus 26:1-19 (NET)

Exhortation to Obedience

26:1 “‘You must not make for yourselves idols, so you must not set up for yourselves a carved image or a pillar, and you must not place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down before it, for I am the Lord your God. 26:2 You must keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord.

The Benefits of Obedience

26:3 “‘If you walk in my statutes and are sure to obey my commandments, 26:4 I will give you your rains in their time so that the land will give its yield and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. 26:5 Threshing season will extend for you until the season for harvesting grapes, and the season for harvesting grapes will extend until sowing season, so you will eat your bread until you are satisfied, and you will live securely in your land. 26:6 I will grant peace in the land so that you will lie down to sleep without anyone terrifying you. I will remove harmful animals from the land, and no sword of war will pass through your land. 26:7 You will pursue your enemies and they will fall before you by the sword. 26:8 Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword. 26:9 I will turn to you, make you fruitful, multiply you, and maintain my covenant with you. 26:10 You will still be eating stored produce from the previous year and will have to clean out what is stored from the previous year to make room for new. 26:11 “‘I will put my tabernacle in your midst and I will not abhor you. 26:12 I will walk among you, and I will be your God and you will be my people. 26:13 I am the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from being their slaves, and I broke the bars of your yoke and caused you to walk upright.

The Consequences of Disobedience

26:14 “‘If, however, you do not obey me and keep all these commandments– 26:15 if you reject my statutes and abhor my regulations so that you do not keep all my commandments and you break my covenant– 26:16 I for my part will do this to you: I will inflict horror on you, consumption and fever, which diminish eyesight and drain away the vitality of life. You will sow your seed in vain because your enemies will eat it. 26:17 I will set my face against you. You will be struck down before your enemies, those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when there is no one pursuing you. 26:18 “‘If, in spite of all these things, you do not obey me, I will discipline you seven times more on account of your sins. 26:19 I will break your strong pride and make your sky like iron and your land like bronze.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Wesley: Lev 26:1

Or pillar, that is, to worship it, or bow down to it, as it follows. Otherwise this was not simply prohibited, being practised by holy men, both before and after this law.

Wesley: Lev 26:2

By purging and preserving it from all uncleanness, by approaching to it and managing all the services of it with reverence, and in such manner only as God hath appointed.

Wesley: Lev 26:4

Therefore God placed them not in a land where there were such rivers as the Nile, to water it and make it fruitful, but in a land which depended wholly upon the rain of heaven, the key whereof God kept in his own hand, that so he might the more effectually oblige them to obedience, in which their happiness consisted.

Wesley: Lev 26:5

That is, you shall have so plentiful an harvest, that you shall not be able to thresh out your corn in a little time, but that work will last till the vintage.

Wesley: Lev 26:6

That is, war, as the sword is oft taken. It shall not enter into it, nor have passage through it, much less shall your land be made the seat of war.

Wesley: Lev 26:8

A small number; a certain number for an uncertain.

Wesley: Lev 26:9

That is, actually perform all that I have promised in my covenant made with you.

Wesley: Lev 26:10

Or, cast out, throw them away as having no occasion to spend them, or give them to the poor, or even to your cattle, that you may make way for the new corn, which also is so plentiful, that of itself it will fill up your barns.

Wesley: Lev 26:11

As I have placed it, so I will continue it among you, and not remove it from you, as once I did upon your miscarriage, Exo 33:7.

Wesley: Lev 26:12

As I have hitherto done, both by my pillar of cloud and fire, and by my tabernacle, which have walked or gone along with you in all your journeys, and staid among you in all your stations, to protect, conduct, instruct, and comfort you. And I will own you for that peculiar people which I have singled out of mankind, to bless you here and to save you hereafter.

Wesley: Lev 26:13

With heads lifted up, not pressed down with a yoke. It notes their liberty, security, confidence and glory.

Wesley: Lev 26:15

Break your part of that covenant made between me and you, and thereby discharge me from the blessings promised on my part.

Wesley: Lev 26:16

Two remarkable effects of this distemper, when it continues long. It eminently weakens the sight, and sinks the spirit. All chronical diseases are here included in the consumption, all acute in the burning ague or fever.

Wesley: Lev 26:19

That is, your strength of which you are proud, your numerous and united forces, your kingdom, yea, your ark and sanctuary.

Wesley: Lev 26:19

The heavens shall yield you no rain, nor the earth fruits.

JFB: Lev 26:1

Idolatry had been previously forbidden (Exo 20:4-5), but the law was repeated here with reference to some particular forms of it that were very prevalent among the neighboring nations.

JFB: Lev 26:1

That is, "upright pillar."

JFB: Lev 26:1

That is, an obelisk, inscribed with hieroglyphical and superstitious characters; the former denoting the common and smaller pillars of the Syrians or Canaanites; the latter, pointing to the large and elaborate obelisks which the Egyptians worshipped as guardian divinities, or used as stones of adoration to stimulate religious worship. The Israelites were enjoined to beware of them.

JFB: Lev 26:2

Very frequently, in this Book of the Law, the Sabbath and the sanctuary are mentioned as antidotes to idolatry.

JFB: Lev 26:3

In that covenant into which God graciously entered with the people of Israel, He promised to bestow upon them a variety of blessings, so long as they continued obedient to Him as their Almighty Ruler; and in their subsequent history that people found every promise amply fulfilled, in the enjoyment of plenty, peace, a populous country, and victory over all enemies.

JFB: Lev 26:4

Rain seldom fell in Judea except at two seasons--the former rain at the end of autumn, the seedtime; and the latter rain in spring, before the beginning of harvest (Jer 5:24).

JFB: Lev 26:5

The barley harvest in Judea was about the middle of April; the wheat harvest about six weeks after, or in the beginning of June. After the harvest came the vintage, and fruit gathering towards the latter end of July. Moses led the Hebrews to believe that, provided they were faithful to God, there would be no idle time between the harvest and vintage, so great would be the increase. (See Amo 9:13). This promise would be very animating to a people who had come from a country where, for three months, they were pent up without being able to walk abroad because the fields were under water.

JFB: Lev 26:10

Their stock of old corn would be still unexhausted and large when the next harvest brought a new supply.

JFB: Lev 26:13

A metaphorical expression to denote their emancipation from Egyptian slavery.

JFB: Lev 26:14-15

In proportion to the great and manifold privileges bestowed upon the Israelites would be the extent of their national criminality and the severity of their national punishments if they disobeyed.

JFB: Lev 26:16

The falling sickness [PATRICK].

JFB: Lev 26:16

Some consider these as symptoms of the same disease--consumption followed by the shivering, burning, and sweating fits that are the usual concomitants of that malady. According to the Septuagint, "ague" is "the jaundice," which disorders the eyes and produces great depression of spirits. Others, however, consider the word as referring to a scorching wind; no certain explanation can be given.

JFB: Lev 26:18

That is, with far more severe and protracted calamities.

JFB: Lev 26:19

No figures could have been employed to convey a better idea of severe and long-continued famine.

Clarke: Lev 26:1

Ye shall make you no idols - See note on Exo 20:4, and see the note on Gen 28:18-19 (note), concerning consecrated stones. Not only idolatry in general is forbidden here, but also the superstitious use of innocent and lawful things. Probably the stones or pillars which were first set up, and anointed by holy men in commemoration of signal interposition of God in their behalf, were afterward abused to idolatrous and superstitious purposes, and therefore prohibited. This we know was the case with the brazen serpent, 2Ki 18:4.

Clarke: Lev 26:3

If ye walk in my statutes - For the meaning of this and similar words used in the law, See the note on Lev 26:15.

Clarke: Lev 26:4

Rain in due season - What in Scripture is called the early and the latter rain. The first fell in Palestine at the commencement of spring, and the latter in autumn - Calmet.

Clarke: Lev 26:5

Your threshing shall reach unto the vintage - According to Pliny, Hist. Nat., l. xviii., c. 18, the Egyptians reaped their barley six months, and their oats seven months, after seed time; for they sowed all their grain about the end of summer, when the overflowings of the Nile had ceased. It was nearly the same in Judaea: they sowed their corn and barley towards the end of autumn, and about the month of October; and they began their barley-harvest after the passover, about the middle of March; and in one month or six weeks after, about pentecost, they began that of their wheat. After their wheat-harvest their vintage commenced. Moses here leads the Hebrews to hope, if they continued faithful to God, that between their harvest and vintage, and between their vintage and seed-time, there should be no interval, so great should the abundance be; and these promises would appear to them the more impressive, as they had just now come out of a country where the inhabitants were obliged to remain for nearly three months shut up within their cities, because the Nile had then inundated the whole country. See Calmet. "This is a nervous and beautiful promise of such entire plenty of corn and wine, that before they could have reaped and threshed out their corn the vintage should be ready, and before they could have pressed out their wine it would be time to sow again. The Prophet Amos, Amo 9:13 expresses the same blessing in the same manner: The ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him who soweth seed."- Dodd.

Clarke: Lev 26:11

I will set my tabernacle among you - This and the following verse contain the grand promise of the Gospel dispensation, viz. the presence, manifestation, and indwelling of God in human nature, and his constant in dwelling in the souls of his followers. So Joh 1:14 the Word was made flesh, και εσκηνωσεν εν ἡμιν, and Made His Tabernacle among us. And to this promise of the law St. Paul evidently refers, 2Co 6:16-18 and 2Co 7:1

Clarke: Lev 26:15

If ye shall despise my statutes - abhor my judgments - As these words, and others of a similar import, which point out different properties of the revelation of God, are frequently occurring, I Judge it best to take a general view of them, once for all, in this place, and show how they differ among themselves, and what property of the Divine law each points out

1.    Statutes. חקת chukkoth , from חק chak , to mark out, define, etc. This term seems to signify the things which God has defined, marked, and traced out, that men might have a perfect copy of pure conduct always before their eyes, to teach them how they might walk so as to please him in all things, which they could not do without such instruction as God gives in his word, and the help which he affords by his Spirit

2.    Judgments. שפטים shephatim , from שפט shaphat , to distinguish, regulate, and determine; meaning those things which God has determined that men shall pursue, by which their whole conduct shall be regulated, making the proper distinction between virtue and vice, good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice; in a word, between what is proper to be done, and what is proper to be left undone

3.    Commandments. מצות mitsvoth , from צוה tsavah , to command, ordain, and appoint, as a legislator. This term is properly applied to those parts of the law which contain the obligation the people are under to act according to the statutes, judgments, etc., already established, and which prohibit them by penal sanctions from acting contrary to the laws

4.    Covenant. ברית berith , from בר bar , to clear, cleanse, or purify; because the covenant, the whole system of revelation given to the Jews, was intended to separate them from all the people of the earth, and to make them holy. Berith also signifies the covenant-sacrifice, which prefigured the atonement made by Christ for the sin of the world, by which he purifies believers unto himself, and makes them a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Besides those four, we may add the following, from other places of Scripture

5.    Testimonies. עדות edoth , from עד ad , beyond, farther, besides; because the whole ritual law referred to something farther on or beyond the Jewish dispensation, even to that sacrifice which in the fullness of time was to be offered for the sins of men. Thus all the sacrifices, etc., of the Mosaic law referred to Christ, and bore testimony to him who was to come

6.    Ordinances. משמרות mishmaroth , from שמר shamar , to guard, keep safe, watch over; those parts of Divine revelation which exhorted men to watch their ways, keep their hearts, and promised them, in consequence, the continual protection and blessing of God their Maker

7.    Precepts. פקודים pikkudim , from פקד pakad , to overlook, take care or notice of, to visit; a very expressive character of the Divine testimonies, the overseers of a man’ s conduct, those who stand by and look on to see whether he acts according to the commands of his Master; also the visitors, because God’ s precepts are suited to all the circumstances of human life; some are applicable in adversity, others in prosperity; some in times of temptation and sadness, others in seasons of spiritual joy and exultation, etc., etc. Thus they may be said to overlook and visit man in all times, places, and circumstances

8.    Truth. אמת emeth , from אם am , to support, sustain, confirm; because God is immutable who has promised, threatened, commanded, and therefore all his promises, threatenings, commandments, etc., are unalterable and eternal. Error and falsity promise to direct and sustain, but they fail. God’ s word is supported by his own faithfulness, and it supports and confirms them who conscientiously believe it

9.    Righteousness. צדקה tsedakah , from צדק which, though not used as a verb in the Hebrew Bible, seems to convey, from its use as a noun, the idea of giving just weight or good measure, see Lev 19:36. This is one of the characters which is attributed to the revelation God makes of himself; (see Psa 119:137-144); and by this the impartiality of the Divine testimonies is pointed out. God gives to all their due, and his word distributes to every man according to his state, circumstances, talents, graces, etc.; to none too much, to none too little, to all enough

10.    Word Of Jehovah. דבר יהוה debar Yehovah , from דבר, dabar , to drive, lead, bring forward, hence to bring forward, or utter one’ s sentiments; so the word of God is what God has brought forth to man from his own mind and counsel; it is a perfect similitude of his own righteousness, holiness, goodness, and truth. This Divine law is sometimes expressed by: -

11.    אמרה imrah , speech or word, variously modified from אמר amar , to branch out, because of the interesting details into which the word of God enters in order to instruct man and make him wise unto salvation, or, as the apostle expresses it, "God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake unto the fathers by the prophets," πολυμερως και πολυτροπως, in many distinct parcels, and by various tropes or figures; a curious and elegant description of Divine revelation; Heb 1:1

12.    All these collectively are termed the Law תורה torah , or תורת יהוה torath Yehovah , the law of the Lord, from ירה yarah , to direct, set straight and true, as stones in a building, to teach and instruct, because this whole system of Divine revelation is calculated to direct men to the attainment of present and eternal felicity, to set them right in their notions concerning the supreme God, to order and adjust them in the several departments of civil and religious society, and thus to teach and instruct them in the knowledge of themselves, and in the true knowledge of God. Thus those who receive the truth become the city of the living God - the temple of the Most High, built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. To complete this description of the word law, See the note on Exo 12:49, where other properties of the law of God are specified.

Clarke: Lev 26:16

I will even appoint over you terror, etc. - How dreadful is this curse! A whole train of evils are here personified and appointed to be the governors of a disobedient people. Terror is to be one of their keepers. How awful a state! to be continually under the influence of dismay, feeling indescribable evils, and fearing worse! Consumption, שחפת shachepheth , generally allowed to be some kind of atrophy or marasmus, by which the flesh was consumed, and the whole body dried up by raging fever through lack of sustenance. See the note on Lev 11:16. How circumstantially were all these threatenings fulfilled in this disobedient and rebellious people! Let a deist read over this chapter and compare it with the state of the Jews since the days of Vespasian, and then let him doubt the authenticity of this word if he can.

Calvin: Lev 26:3

ITS REPETITION

3.If ye walk in my statutes. We have now to deal with two remarkable passages, in which he professedly treats of the rewards which the servants of God may expect, and of the punishments which await the transgressors. I have indeed already observed, that whatever God promises us on the condition of our walking in His commandments would be ineffectual if He should be extreme in examining our works. Hence it arises that we must renounce all the compacts of the Law, if we desire to obtain favor with God. But since, however defective the works of believers may be, they are nevertheless pleasing to God through the intervention of pardon, hence also the efficacy of the promises depends, viz., when the strict condition of the law is moderated. Whilst, therefore, they reach forward and strive, reward is given to their efforts although imperfect, exactly as if they had fully discharged their duty; for, since their deficiencies are put out of sight by faith, God honors with the title of reward what He gratuitously bestows upon them. Consequently, “to walk in the commandments of God,” is not precisely equivalent to performing whatever the Law demands; but in this expression is included the indulgence with which God regards His children and pardons their faults. The promise, therefore, is not without fruit as respects believers, whilst they endeavor to consecrate themselves to God, although they are still far from perfection; according to the teaching of the Prophet, “I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him,” (Mal 3:17;) as much as to say, that their obedience would not be acceptable to Him because it was deserving, but because He visits it with His paternal favor. Whence it appears how foolish is the pride of those who imagine that they make God their debtor, as if according to His agreement.

The restriction of the recompense, which is here mentioned, to this earthly and transitory life, is a part of the elementary instruction of the Law; for, just as the spiritual grace of God was represented to the ancient people by shadows and images, so also the same principle applied also both to rewards and punishments. Reconciliation with God was represented to them by the blood of cattle; there were various forms of expiation, but all outward and visible, because their substance had not yet appeared in Christ. For the same reason, therefore, because so clear and familiar an acquaintance with eternal life, and the final resurrection, had not yet been attained by the Fathers, as now shines forth in the Gospel, God for the most part shewed forth by external proofs that He was favorably disposed to His people or offended with them. Because now-a-days God does not openly take vengeance on sins as of old, fanatics infer that He has almost changed His nature; nay, on this pretense, the Manicheans ²⁰⁷ imagined that the God of Israel was different from ours. But this error springs from gross and disgraceful ignorance; for, by not distinguishing His different modes of dealing, they do not hesitate impiously to cut God Himself in two. The earth does not now cleave asunder to swallow up the rebellious: ²⁰⁸ God does not now thunder from heaven as against Sodom: He does not now send fire upon wicked cities as He did in the Israelitish camp: fiery serpents are not sent forth to inflict deadly bites: in a word, such manifest instances of punishment are not daily presented before our eyes to make God terrible to us; and for this reason, because the voice of the Gospel sounds much more clearly in our ears, like the sound of a trumpet, whereby we are summoned to the heavenly tribunal of Christ. Let us then learn to tremble at that sentence, which banishes all the wicked from the kingdom of God. So, on the other hand, God does not appear, as of old, as the rewarder of His people by earthly blessings; and this because we “are dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God;” because it becomes us to be conformed to our Head, and through many tribulations to enter the kingdom of heaven. Thus, the greater are the adversities that oppress us, the more cheerfully it behooves us to lift up our heads, until Christ shall gather us into the fellowship of His glory, and to pursue the course of our calling for the hope which is set before us in heaven; in a word,

“denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Savior Jesus Christ.” ( Titus 2:12, 13.)

I admit, indeed, the truth of what Paul teaches, that “godliness” even now has “the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come,” (1Ti 4:8;) and assuredly believers already taste on earth of that blessedness which they shall hereafter enjoy in its fullness. God also inflicts His judgments on the ungodly in order to remind us of the last judgment; but still the distinction to which I have adverted is obvious, that since God has opened to us the heavenly life in the Gospel, He now calls us directly to it, whereas He led the Fathers to it as it were by steps. For this reason Paul elsewhere teaches, that believers are afflicted in this world as

“a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that they may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which they also suffer, seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense,” etc. (2Th 1:5.)

In short, let us no more wonder that the Israelites were only attracted and alarmed by temporal rewards and punishments, than that the land of Canaan was to them a symbol of their eternal inheritance, in which, nevertheless, they confessed themselves strangers and pilgrims; from whence the Apostle correctly concludes, that they desired a better country. (Gen 47:9; Psa 39:12; Heb 11:16.) And thus the wild absurdity of those is refuted, who suppose that the Fathers were contented with perishable felicity, as if God merely gorged them in a tavern. ²⁰⁹ Still the distinction which I have noted remains, that God manifested Himself more fully as a Father and Judge by temporal blessings and punishments than since the promulgation of the Gospel.

Calvin: Lev 26:4

4.Then I will give you rain in due season. He might in one word have promised great abundance of food, but, that His grace may be more illustrious, the instruments are mentioned which He employs for its supply. He might give us bread as He formerly rained down manna from heaven; but in order that the signs of His paternal solicitude may be constantly before us, after the seed is sown, the earth requires rain from heaven; and thus the order of the seasons is so regulated that every day may renew the memory of God’s bounty. For this reason rain is mentioned, and the increase of the fruits of the earth; and the continued succession of thrashing, the vintage, and sowing-time, indicates a very abundant supply of corn and wine. For, if the harvest be small, there will not be much work to occupy the husbandman; and, if the vintage be light, hence also will arise an unsatisfactory period of leisure. But when God declares that from harvest to sowing-time they shall have constant employment, He bids them expect a fruitful year, as immediately follows, “ye shall eat your bread to the full.” And since no prosperity can be gratifying without peace, He says that they shall be quiet and free from all disturbance. And this must be carefully observed that, so unpalatable are all God’s blessings without the seasoning of tranquillity, nothing is more wretched than inquietude. The sum is, that for the true servants of God not only is there food laid up with Him, but also its peaceful and pleasant enjoyment, since it is in His power and will to drive far from them all annoyances. Still these two things do not seem altogether consistent with each other, that there shall be none to make them afraid, and that they shall subdue their enemies, so that ²¹⁰ ten shall suffice to chase a hundred; for of what use would their military strength be if there were no enemies to trouble them? But if we may take the latter sentence disjunctively, there will be no absurdity, viz., if it should happen that war be brought against them, they should fight successfully. Still the easiest solution of this difficulty is, that it soon afterwards was necessary for them to contend with a great multitude of enemies, in order to obtain possession of the land. We gather from the accommodation by the Prophets of this peculiar blessing of a secure and tranquil life to the kingdom of Christ, that the promises, which from the nature of the Law were of none effect, are still useful for believers; for, when God has reconciled them to Himself, He also liberally bestows upon them what they have not deserved; and yet their obedience, such as it is, is also rewarded.

Calvin: Lev 26:9

9.For I will have respect unto you ²¹¹ God is said to “turn Himself” to the people, whom He undertakes to cherish and preserve; just as also when He forsakes those who have alienated themselves from Him, He is said to be turned away from them. Hence the common exhortation in the Prophets, “Be ye turned to me, and I will be turned to you;” whereby God reminds us that He has not promised in vain what we here read. Therefore the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, to confirm His covenant towards them by watching for their safety. Hence, too, we are also taught, that when we depart from God, His covenant is made void by our own fault; wherewith Jeremiah reproaches the Israelites. (Jer 31:32.) In order, therefore, that God’s covenant should remain firm and effectual, it is not only necessary that the Law should be engraven on our hearts, but also that He should add another grace, and not remember our iniquities. When He says, “Ye shall eat old store,” He again magnifies their abundance; for, whereas scarcity compels us to make immediate use of the new fruits, so it is a great sign of abundance to bring forth old wheat from the granary, and old wine from the cellar. The continuance of His bounty is represented in the end of the verse, where He says that there shall be no place for the new fruits, unless they empty their store-houses; because ²¹² it might happen that, after a year of scarcity, all their storehouses should be empty, and there would be no new corn to succeed in place of the old.

Calvin: Lev 26:11

11.And I will set my tabernacle among you. He alludes, indeed, to the visible sanctuary in which He was worshipped; still He would shew them that it should be effectually manifested, that He had not chosen His home amongst them in vain, inasmuch as He would exert His power by sure proofs to aid and preserve them. In a word, He signifies that the sanctuary would not be an empty sign of His presence, but that the reality should correspond with the sign; and this He further confirms in the next verse, where He says that He would “walk among” them. For as yet they had not arrived at their place of rest, and therefore had need of Him as their Leader, in order that their journey might be prosperous. Although He does not say in express terms that they should be spiritually blessed, still there is no doubt but that He lifts their thoughts above the world when He promises that He would be their God; for this expression, “I will be your God,” contains, as Christ interprets it, the hope of eternal immortality; because He is the fountain of life, and “not the God of the dead.” (Mat 22:32.) The true and solid felicity, then, is now promised, which was typically represented. For this reason David, although he greatly magnifies the earthly blessings of God, yet, by the conclusion which he adds, demonstrates that he did not stop short with them;

“God’s mercy (he says) shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord, to length of days.” ²¹³ (Psa 23:6.)

And elsewhere, when he had said that they are happy, to whom God abundantly supplies all things (needful, ²¹⁴) presently adds, as if in explanation,

“Happy is that people, whose God is the Lord.”
(Psa 144:15.)

Finally, He recalls to their recollection that He had been their Deliverer, that they may assuredly gather from what was past, that the flow of His grace would be continuous, if only they themselves do run the course unto which He had called them.

Calvin: Lev 26:14

14.But if ye will not hearken unto me. Thus far a kind invitation has been set before the people in the shape of promises, in order that the observance of the Law might be rendered pleasant and agreeable; since, as we have already seen, our obedience is then only approved by God when we obey willingly. But, inasmuch as the sluggishness of our flesh has need of spurring, threatenings are also added to inspire terror, and at any rate to extort what ought to have been spontaneously performed. It may seem indeed that it may thus be inferred that threats are absurdly misplaced when applied to produce obedience to the Law, which ought to be voluntary; for he who is compelled by fear will never love God; and this is the main point in the Law. But what I have already shewn, will in some measure avail to solve this difficulty, viz., that the Law is deadly to transgressors, because it holds them tight under that condemnation from which they would wish to be released by vain presumptions; whilst threats are also useful to the children of God for a different purpose, both that they may be prepared to fear God heartily before they are regenerate, and also that, after their regeneration, their corrupt affections may be daily subdued. For although they sincerely desire to devote themselves altogether to God, still they have to contend continually with the remainders of their flesh. Thus, then, although the direct object of threats is to alarm the reprobate, still they likewise apply to believers, for the purpose of stimulating their sluggishness, inasmuch as they are not yet thoroughly regenerate, but still burdened with the remainders of sin.

Calvin: Lev 26:15

15.And if ye shall despise my statutes. This seems only to apply to ungodly and depraved apostates, who deliberately revolt from the service and worship of God: for if a person falls through infirmity, and offends from levity and inconsideration, he will not be said to have despised God’s Law, or to have made void His covenant. And certainly it is probable that God designedly spoke of gross rebellion, which could not be extenuated under the pretense of error. Still it must be borne in mind that all transgressors, whether they have violated the Law in whole or in part, are brought under the curse. But God would remind His people betimes to what lengths those at last proceed who assume the liberty of sinning; and also from what source all transgressions arise. For, although every one who turns out of the right path into sin does not altogether repudiate or abominate the Law, yet all sins betray contempt of the Law, and tend to break the covenant of God. He justly, therefore, denounces them as covenant-breakers, and proud despisers, unless they obey His commandments: and, first, He threatens that He will destroy them with “terror, consumption,” and other diseases; and then adds external calamities, such as scarcity of corn, violent invasions of enemies, and the plunder of their goods; of which it will be more convenient to speak more fully in expounding the passage in Deuteronomy.

Calvin: Lev 26:18

18.And if ye will not yet for all this hearken. The gradation of punishments, which is here mentioned, shews that they are so tempered by God’s kindness, that He only lightly chastises those whose stupidity or hardness of heart he has not yet proved; but when obstinacy in sin is superadded, the severity of the punishments is likewise increased; and justly so, because those who, being admonished, care not to repent, wage open war with God. Hence the more moderately He deals with us, the more attentive we ought to be to His corrections, in order that even the gentle strokes, which He in His kindness softens and tempers, may be enough. Paul says that hypocrites heap up to themselves a treasure of greater vengeance, if they take occasion from His forbearance to continue unmoved, ( Rom 2:4;) for those who do not repent, when admonished by light chastisements, are the less excusable. Wherefore let us give heed to that exhortation of David, that we “be not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle;” because “many sorrows shall be to the wicked.” ( Psa 32:9.) In sum, as soon as God has begun to put forth His hand to smite us, there is one remedy whereby He may be appeased, i e. , teachableness. It would be more prudent of us to anticipate Him, and to return to Him of our own accord, though He should withhold punishment; but when we are smitten without profit, it is a sin of obstinate wickedness. He threatens, therefore, that unless they repent when smitten with the ferule, He will use the rod to correct them. When He says, “I will punish you seven times more,” He does not mean to define the number, but, according to the common phrase of Scripture, uses the number seven, by way of amplification. In the next verse He shews that there is a just cause for His becoming more severe, because they cannot be subdued except by violent means; for although the word גאון , ²²⁵ geon, is not always used in a bad sense, still, in this passage, it signifies that they are disobedient, being puffed up to be proud by their power; for, as Moses says elsewhere, Israel “waxed fat, and kicked” against God, just as horses grow restive by being overfed. He therefore calls their obstinacy, wherein they became more hardened, although God spared them, “the pride of their power;” for prosperity begets security, in which stubborn men try their strength against the scourges of God.

TSK: Lev 26:1

Ye shall : Lev 19:4; Exo 20:4, Exo 20:5, Exo 20:23, Exo 23:24, Exo 34:17; Deu 4:16-19, Deu 5:8, Deu 5:9, Deu 16:21, Deu 16:22, Deu 27:15; Psa 97:7, Psa 115:4-8; Isa 2:20, Isa 44:9-20, Isa 48:5-8; Jer 10:3-8; Act 17:29; Rom 2:22, Rom 2:23; 1Co 10:19, 1Co 10:20; Rev 13:14, Rev 13:15, Rev 22:15

standing image : or, pillar

image of stone : or, figured stone, Heb. a stone of picture

TSK: Lev 26:2

Lev 19:30

TSK: Lev 26:3

Lev 18:4, Lev 18:5; Deu 11:13-15, Deu 28:1-14; Jos 23:14, Jos 23:15; Jdg 2:1, Jdg 2:2; Psa 81:12-16; Isa 1:19, Isa 48:18, Isa 48:19; Mat 7:24, Mat 7:25; Rom 2:7-10; Rev 22:14

TSK: Lev 26:4

Then I : Deu 28:12; 1Ki 17:1; Job 5:10, Job 37:11-13, Job 38:25-28; Psa 65:9-13, Psa 68:9; Psa 104:13; Isa 5:6, Isa 30:23; Jer 14:22; Eze 34:26, Eze 34:27; Joe 2:23, Joe 2:24; Amo 4:7, Amo 4:8; Mat 5:45; Act 14:17; Jam 5:7, Jam 5:17, Jam 5:18; Rev 11:6

the land : Lev 25:21; Psa 67:6, Psa 85:12; Eze 34:27, Eze 36:30; Hag 2:18, Hag 2:19; Zec 8:12

TSK: Lev 26:5

threshing : Amo 9:13; Mat 9:37, Mat 9:38; Joh 4:35, Joh 4:36

eat your : Lev 25:19; Exo 16:8; Deu 11:15; Joe 2:19, Joe 2:26; Act 14:17; 1Ti 6:17

dwell : Lev 25:18; Job 11:18, Job 11:19; Psa 46:1-7, Psa 90:1, Psa 91:1-14; Pro 1:33, Pro 18:10; Jer 23:6; Eze 34:25-28; Mat 23:37; 1Pe 1:5

TSK: Lev 26:6

I will : 1Ch 22:9; Psa 29:11, Psa 147:14; Isa 9:7, Isa 45:7; Jer 30:10; Hos 2:18; Mic 4:4; Hag 2:9; Zec 9:10; Joh 14:27; Rom 5:1; Phi 4:7-9

ye shall : Job 11:19; Psa 3:5, Psa 4:8, Psa 127:1, Psa 127:2; Pro 3:24, Pro 6:22; Isa 35:9; Jer 30:10; Jer 31:26; Eze 34:25; Zep 3:13; Act 12:6

rid : Heb. cause to cease, Exo 23:29; 2Ki 2:24, 2Ki 17:25, 2Ki 17:26; Job 5:23; Isa 35:9; Eze 5:17; Eze 14:15, Eze 14:21

shall the sword : Eze 14:17

TSK: Lev 26:8

Num 14:9; Deu 28:7, Deu 32:30; Jos 23:10; Jdg 7:19-21; 1Sa 14:6-16; 1Sa 17:45-52; 1Ch 11:11, 1Ch 11:20; Psa 81:14, Psa 81:15

TSK: Lev 26:9

for I : Exo 2:25; 2Ki 13:23; Neh 2:20; Psa 89:3, Psa 138:6, Psa 138:7; Jer 33:3; Heb 8:9

make you : Gen 17:6, Gen 17:7, Gen 17:20, Gen 26:4, Gen 28:3, Gen 28:14; Exo 1:7; Deu 28:4, Deu 28:11; Neh 9:23; Psa 107:38

establish : Gen 6:18, Gen 17:7; Exo 6:4; Isa 55:3; Eze 16:62; Luk 1:72

TSK: Lev 26:10

Lev 25:22; Jos 5:11; 2Ki 19:29; Luk 12:17

TSK: Lev 26:11

I will : Exo 25:8, Exo 29:45; Jos 22:19; 1Ki 8:13, 1Ki 8:27; Psa 76:2, Psa 78:68, Psa 78:69; Psa 132:13, Psa 132:14; Eze 37:26-28; Eph 2:22; Rev 21:3

abhor : Lev 20:23; Deu 32:19; Psa 78:59, Psa 106:40; Jer 14:21; Lam 2:7; Zec 11:8

TSK: Lev 26:12

I will : Gen 3:8, Gen 5:22, Gen 5:24, Gen 6:9; Deu 23:14; 2Co 6:16; Rev 2:1

will be : Gen 17:7; Exo 3:6, Exo 6:7, Exo 19:5, Exo 19:6; Psa 50:7, Psa 68:18-20; Isa 12:2, Isa 41:10; Jer 7:23, Jer 11:4, Jer 30:22, Jer 31:33, Jer 32:38; Eze 11:20, Eze 36:38; Joe 2:27; Zec 13:9; Mat 22:32; Heb 11:16; Rev 21:7

TSK: Lev 26:13

Exo 20:2; Psa 81:6-10; 1Co 6:19, 1Co 6:20

I am : Lev 25:38, Lev 25:42, Lev 25:55

and I have : Psa 116:16; Isa 51:23; Jer 2:20; Eze 34:27

TSK: Lev 26:14

Lev 26:18; Deut. 28:15-68; Jer 17:27; Lam 1:18, Lam 2:17; Mal 2:2; Act 3:23; Heb 12:25

TSK: Lev 26:15

despise : Lev 26:43; Num 15:31; 2Sa 12:9, 2Sa 12:10; 2Ki 17:15; 2Ch 36:16; Pro 1:7, Pro 1:30; Jer 6:19; Zec 7:11-13; Act 13:41; 1Th 4:8

soul : Psa 50:17; Pro 5:12; Rom 8:7

break : Gen 17:14; Exo 19:5, Exo 24:7; Deu 31:16; Isa 24:5; Jer 11:10, Jer 31:32; Eze 16:59; Heb 8:9

TSK: Lev 26:16

appoint : Psa 109:6

over you : Heb. upon you

terror : Deu 28:65-67, Deu 32:25; Job 15:20, Job 15:21, Job 18:11, Job 20:25; Psa 73:19; Isa 7:2; Jer 15:8, Jer 20:4; Heb 10:31

consumption : Exo 15:26; Deu 28:21, Deu 28:22, Deu 28:35

consume : Deu 28:32, Deu 28:34, Deu 28:67; 1Sa 2:33; Psa 78:33; Eze 33:10; Zec 14:12

and ye shall : Deu 28:33, Deu 28:51; Jdg 6:3-6, Jdg 6:11; Job 31:8; Isa 65:22-24; Jer 5:17, Jer 12:13; Mic 6:15; Hag 1:6

for your : Isa 10:4

TSK: Lev 26:17

set : Lev 17:10, Lev 20:5, Lev 20:6; Psa 68:1, Psa 68:2

ye shall be : Deu 28:25; Jdg 2:14; 1Sa 4:10, 1Sa 31:1; Neh 9:27-30; Psa 106:41, Psa 106:42; Jer 19:7; Lam 1:5

shall flee : Lev 26:36; Psa 53:5; Pro 28:1

TSK: Lev 26:18

seven times : Lev 26:21, Lev 26:24, Lev 26:28; 1Sa 2:5; Psa 119:164; Pro 24:16; Dan 3:19

TSK: Lev 26:19

will break : 1Sa 4:3, 1Sa 4:11; Isa 2:12, Isa 25:11, Isa 26:5; Jer 13:9; Eze 7:24, Eze 30:6; Dan 4:37; Zep 3:11

make : Deu 28:23; 1Ki 17:1; Jer 14:1-6; Luk 4:25

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Lev 26:1

Idols - literally, "things of nought."Hebrew אלילים 'ĕlı̂ylı̂m . There appears to have been a play on the similarity in sound of this word to אלהים 'ĕlohı̂ym (God). Compare 1Co 8:4.

Standing image - Either an upright statue, or a pillar, such as an obelisk or a Celtic menhir, set up for an idolatrous purpose (compare Exo 34:13 note). The public worship of Yahweh required, first, the exclusion of all visible symbols of deity as well as of all idolatrous objects, and next Lev 26:2, the keeping holy the times and the place appointed by the Law for His formal service. The word "sabbaths"must here include the whole of the set times. See Lev 23:3 note.

Barnes: Lev 26:3-45

As "the book of the covenant"Exo. 20:22\endash 23:33 concludes with promises and warnings Exo 23:20-33, so does this collection of laws contained in the Book of Leviticus. But the former passage relates to the conquest of the land of promise, this one to the subsequent history of the nation. The longer similar passage in Deuteronomy Deut. 27\endash 30 is marked by broader and deeper promises and denunciations having immediate reference not only to outward consequences, but to the spiritual death incurred by transgressing the divine will.

Lev 26:4

Rain in due season - The periodical rains, on which the fertility of the holy land so much depends, are here spoken of. There are two wet seasons, called in Scripture the former and the latter rain Deu 11:14; Jer 5:24; Joe 2:23; Hos 6:3; Jam 5:7. The former or Autumn rain falls in heavy showers in November and December. In March the latter or Spring rain comes on, which is precarious in quantity and duration, and rarely lasts more than two days.

Lev 26:5

Compare the margin reference; Joe 2:19; Job 11:18.

Lev 26:8

Five of you shall chase - A proverbial mode of expression for superiority in warlike prowess Deu 32:30; Isa 30:17.

Lev 26:9

Establish my covenant - All material blessings were to be regarded in the light of seals of the "everlasting covenant."Compare Gen 17:4-8; Neh 9:23.

Lev 26:10

Bring forth the old because of the new - Rather, clear away the old before the new; that is, in order to make room for the latter. Compare the margin reference.

Lev 26:16

The first warning for disobedience is disease. "Terror"(literally trembling) is rendered trouble in Psa 78:33; Isa 65:23. It seems here to denote that terrible affliction, an anxious temperament, the mental state ever at war with Faith and Hope. This might well be placed at the head of the visitations on a backslider who had broken the covenant with his God. Compare Deu 32:25; Jer 15:8; Pro 28:1; Job 24:17; Psa 23:4.

Consumption, and the burning ague - Compare the margin reference. The first of the words in the original comes from a root signifying to waste away; the latter (better, fever), from one signifying to kindle a fire. Consumption is common in Egypt and some parts of Asia Minor, but it is more rare in Syria. Fevers of different kinds are the commonest of all diseases in Syria and all the neighboring countries. The opposite promise to the threat is given in Exo 15:26; Exo 23:25.

Lev 26:18

For all this - i. e. for all the afflictions in Lev 26:16-17.

Seven times - The sabbatical number is here proverbially used to remind the people of the covenant. Compare Gen 4:15, Gen 4:24; Psa 119:164; Pro 24:16; Luk 17:4.

Lev 26:19, Lev 26:20

The second warning is utter sterility of the soil. Compare Deu 11:17; Deu 28:18; Eze 33:28; Eze 36:34-35.

Lev 26:21, Lev 26:22

The third warning is the multiplication of destructive animals, etc. Compare Deu 32:24; Eze 5:17; Eze 14:15; Jdg 5:6-7; Isa 33:8.

Lev 26:23-26

The fourth warning. Yahweh now places Himself as it were in a hostile position toward His people who "will not be reformed"(rather, brought unto God: Jer 2:30). He will avenge the outraged cause of His covenant, by the sword, pestilence, famine, and captivity.

Lev 26:26

Omit "and.""To break the staff of bread,"was a proverbial expression for cutting off the supply of bread, the staff of life (Psa 105:16; Eze 4:16; Eze 5:16; Eze 14:13; compare Isa 3:1). The supply was to be so reduced that one oven would suffice for baking the bread maple by ten women for ten families, and when made it was to be dealt out in sparing rations by weight. See 2Ki 6:25; Jer 14:18; Lam 4:9; Eze 5:12; Hos 4:10; Mic 6:14; Hag 1:6.

Lev 26:27-33

The fifth warning. For Lev 26:29 see 2Ki 6:28-29; Jer 19:8-9; Lam 2:20; Lam 4:10; Eze 5:10, for Lev 26:30 see 2Ch 34:3; Eze 6:4; Jer 14:19, for Lev 26:31 see 2Ki 25:9; Psa 74:6-7 : for Lev 26:32-33 see Deu 28:37; Psa 44:11; Jer 9:16; Jer 18:16; Ezek. 5:1-17; Jer 4:7; Eze 9:6; Eze 12:15; Zec 7:14.

Lev 26:30

High places - There is no doubt that the word here denotes elevated spots dedicated to false worship (see Deu 12:2), and especially, it would seem, to that of Baal Num 22:41; Jos 13:17. Such spots were, however, employed and approved for the worship of Yahweh, not only before the building of the temple, but afterward (Jdg 6:25-26; Jdg 13:16-23; 1Sa 7:10; 1Sa 16:5; 1Ki 3:2; 1Ki 18:30; 2Ki 12:3; 1Ch 21:26, etc.). The three altars built by Abraham at Shechem, between Bethel and Ai, and at Mamre, appear to have been on heights, and so was the temple.

The high places in the holy land may thus have been divided into those dedicated to the worship of Yahweh, and those which had been dedicated to idols. And it would seem as if there was a constant struggle going on. The high places polluted by idol worship were of course to be wholly condemned. They were probably resorted to only to gratify a degraded superstition. See Lev 19:31; Lev 20:2-5. The others might have been innocently used for prayer and religious teaching. But the temptation appears to have been too great for the temper of the people. They offered sacrifice and burnt incense on them; and hence, thorough reformers of the national religion, such as Hezekiah and Josiah, removed the high places altogether 2Ki 18:4; 2Ki 23:5.

Your images - The original word is rendered in the margin of our Bible sun images (2Ch 14:5; Isa 17:8; Eze 6:4, etc.). Phoenician inscriptions prove that the word was commonly applied to images of Baal and Astarte, the god of the sun and the goddess of the moon. This exactly explains 2Ch 34:4 following.

Idols - The Hebrew word here literally means things which could be rolled about, such as a block of wood or a lump of dirt. It was no doubt a name given in derision. Compare Isa 40:20; Isa 44:19; 2Ki 1:2.

Lev 26:31

Sanctuaries - The holy places in the tabernacle and the temple (Psa 68:35. Compare Psa 74:7).

I will not smell the savor ... - See Lev 1:9.

Lev 26:35

More literally: All the days of its desolation shall it rest that time which it rested not in your Sabbaths while ye dwelt upon it. That is, the periods of rest of which the land had been deprived would be made up to it. Compare 2Ch 36:20-21.

Lev 26:38

The land of your enemies shall eat you up - Compare Num 13:32; Eze 36:13.

Lev 26:39

Iniquity - The meaning here is, in the punishment of their iniquity, and, in the next clause, in the punishment of the iniquity (as in Lev 26:41, Lev 26:43) of their fathers. In the next verse the same Hebrew word is properly represented by "iniquity."Our translators have in several places put one of the English words in the text and the other in the margin (Gen 4:13; Gen 19:15; 2Ki 7:9; Psa 69:27, etc.). The language of Scripture does not make that trenchant division between sin and punishment which we are accustomed to do. Sin is its own punishment, having in itself, from its very commencement, the germ of death. "Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death"Jam 1:15; Rom 2:5; Rom 5:12.

Lev 26:40

trespass - The Hebrew word signifies an injury inflicted on the rights of a person, as distinguished from a sin or iniquity regarded as an outrage of the divine law. Every wrong act is of course both a sin and a trespass against God. In this place Yahweh takes the breach of the covenant as a personal trespass.

Lev 26:41

Uncircumcised hearts - The outward sign of the covenant might be preserved, but the answering grace in the heart would be wanting (Act 7:51; Rom 2:28-29; Jer 6:10; Jer 9:26; compare Col 2:11).

Accept of the punishment of their iniquity - literally, enjoy their iniquity. The word here and in Lev 26:43 rendered "accept"in this phrase, is the same as is rendered "enjoy"in the expression "the land shall enjoy her sabbaths"Lev 26:34. The antithesis in Lev 26:43 is this: The land shall enjoy her sabbaths - and they shall enjoy the punishment of their iniquity. The meaning is, that the land being desolate shall have the blessing of rest, and they having repented shall have the blessing of chastisement. The feelings of a devout captive Israelite are beautifully expressed in Tobit 13:1-18.

Poole: Lev 26:1

A standing image or, pillar , to wit, to worship it, or bow down to it, as it follows. Otherwise this was not simply prohibited, being practised by holy men both before and after this law. Compare Exo 23:24 Deu 16:22 . So Exo 20:4 . They are forbidden to make images, not simply or for any use, but for worship.

Poole: Lev 26:2

Reverence my sanctuary by purging and preserving it from all uncleanness, by approaching to it, and managing all the services of it, with reverence, and in such manner only as God hath appointed.

Poole: Lev 26:4

I will give you rain therefore God placed them not in a land where there were such rivers as Nilus to water it and make it fruitful, but in a land which depended wholly upon the rain of heaven, the key whereof God kept in his own hand, that so he might the more effectually oblige them to obedience, in which their happiness consisted.

Poole: Lev 26:5

Your threshing shall reach unto the vintage i.e. you shall have so plentiful a harvest, that you shall not be able to thresh out your corn in a little time, but that work will last till the vintage.

Poole: Lev 26:6

Neither shall the sword go through your land i.e. war, as the sword is oft taken, as Num 14:3 2Sa 12:10 . Otherwise there is the sword of justice. It shall not enter into it, nor have passage through it, much less shall your land be made the seat of war.

Poole: Lev 26:8

Five of you i.e. a small number; a certain number for an uncertain.

Poole: Lev 26:9

i.e. Actually perform all that I have promised you in my covenant made with you,

Poole: Lev 26:10

Bring forth the old or, cast out , throw them away, as having no occasion to spend them, or give them to the poor, or even to your cattle, that you may make way for the new corn, which also is so plentiful, that of itself will fill up your barns.

Poole: Lev 26:11

As I have placed it, so I will continue it among you, and not remove it from you, as once I did upon your miscarriage, Exo 33:7 .

Poole: Lev 26:12

I will walk among you as I have hitherto done, both by my pillar of cloud and fire, and by my tabernacle, which have walked or gone along with you in all your journeys, and stayed among you in all your stations, to protect, conduct, instruct, and comfort you.

Ye shall be my people I will own you for that peculiar people which I have singled out of the mass of mankind, to bless you here, and to save you hereafter.

Poole: Lev 26:13

With heads lifted up, not pressed down with a yoke. It notes their liberty, security, confidence, and glory. See Exo 14:8 Num 33:3 .

Poole: Lev 26:15

i.e. Break your part or conditions of that covenant made between me and you, and thereby discharge me from the blessings promised on my part.

Poole: Lev 26:16

I will even appoint over you I will give them power over you, that you shall not be able to avoid or resist them. Shall consume the eyes, by the decay of spirits, and affluence of ill humours.

Poole: Lev 26:19

The pride of your power i.e. your strength, of which you are proud, your numerous and united forces, your kingdom, yea, your ark and sanctuary.

Your earth as brass the heavens shall yield you no rain, nor the earth fruits.

Haydock: Lev 26:1

To adore it. This explains the prohibition of making graven things, &c. The Protestants translate as usual, "Ye shall make you no idols, nor graven image, neither rear ye up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land to bow down unto it." They seem terribly afraid of images, as if they were all idols. See Exodus xx. 4. (Haydock) ---

Pillars. Hebrew mattseba, "statue, or monument." Such were erected by Jacob, Josue, and even by Moses himself, without any offence or danger of idolatry. (Genesis xxviii. 8; Josue iv. 4; Exodus xxiv. 4.) Apuleius (Flor.) makes mention, among other species of superstition, "of a stone anointed, and of an altar crowned with flowers." ---

The stone, which is here condemned, is one set up "for adoration." (Onkelos) ---

Hebrew, "a stone of sight," placed on some eminence, or on the high roads. Strabo, (xvii.) speaking of those which he had seen in Egypt along the roads, says, "they are lofty, polished, and almost like a sphere, some 12 feet in diameter. There are sometimes three, of different dimensions, one upon another. Some were to be seen upon Mount Libanus. They were objects of adoration." The Greeks raised heaps of stones on the high roads, in honour of Mercury. (Proverbs xxvi. 7.) (Calmet) ---

We are not forbidden to place land-marks, &c.: but we must not adore them. (Du Hamel)

Haydock: Lev 26:2

Reverence. The Rabbins inform us, with what respect their ancestors appeared in the temple. They left their sticks and shoes behind them, and washed their feet; entering solely to perform some act of religion, and not to go a shorter road to another street. When they had ended their devotions, they retired slowly without turning their back to the sanctuary. (Outram, Sacrif. lib. 3. n. 7.)

Haydock: Lev 26:3

Due seasons. Before harvest, in spring; and after that in autumn, when they sow their wheat and barley in Palestine. (Calmet)

Haydock: Lev 26:5

Time. So great shall be the abundance, that you will scarcely have time to get all the work done before you will be called off to something else. (Haydock) ---

These promises would be so much the more agreeable to them, as in Egypt they had been forced to keep in their houses two or three months together, on account of the overflowing of the Nile. In that country, as well as in Greece and Palestine, people sow both wheat and barley about October; while in other countries the latter is sown in spring. The harvest is ready in about six months, and that of wheat in seven. (Pliny, [Natural History?] xiii. 19.; Hesiod, ep. 2.) (Calmet)

Haydock: Lev 26:8

Five. Thus Gedeon's 300 men put to flight the great army of the Madianites; (Judges vii. 22,) and the Machabees destroyed vast numbers with a small force.

Haydock: Lev 26:10

Old; Being unable to consume all. (Menochius) ---

Hebrew, "ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new." Septuagint, "you shall eat the old of old, and you shall bring out the old from the face of the new." Like a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasury new things and old, Matthew xiii. 52. (Haydock)

Haydock: Lev 26:13

Upright; and be no longer bowed down with a heavy yoke, like oxen. "I have broken the locks of your prison, and have set you at liberty," Arabic. (Calmet) ---

A Greek proverb says, "Never was a slave's head right, but always crooked, like his neck." (Menochius)

Haydock: Lev 26:16

Heat. Hebrew kaddachath, is rendered "scab and jaundice," by the Septuagint: and by others "a dangerous wind," like that which causes so many diseases in Egypt. The precise meaning of some terms in this verse is not well known.

Haydock: Lev 26:18

More, ( septuplum. ) "Very often, or very much;" in which sense it is used in this chapter. (Calmet)

Haydock: Lev 26:19

As brass (æneam ). "Brazen," without moisture, and barren. (Onkelos)

Gill: Lev 26:1

Ye shall have no idols, or graven image,.... Some of the Jewish writers, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra, think this law against idolatry is mentioned on account of the Israelite sold to a stranger, spoken of in the latter part of the preceding chapter, lest he should be drawn into idolatry; See Gill on Lev 25:48; but this is rather mentioned as being a principal law, respecting the honour and glory of God, and the foundation of all religion and godliness, and the breach of it a capital crime, and which led on to other sins, and exposed to the displeasure and resentment of God, and brought on all the calamities after mentioned in this chapter. "Idols" here signify "things of nought", as an idol is nothing in the world, 1Co 8:4; and a "graven image", any likeness of man or beast cut out of wood, or stone; and may include any molten image of gold, silver, or brass, and then engraven with a tool, as the golden calf was, Exo 32:4,

neither rear you up a standing image; or pillar ^g; an heap of rude stones, set up pillar, not bearing the likeness of any creature; otherwise graven and molten images were standing ones, but these were statues without any figure; such as the Arabians used to worship; the god Mars, worshipped in Arabia Petraea, was no other than a black stone four square, unformed, four feet high, and two broad, and was placed on a basis of gold ^h:

neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto; any "figured stone", as the Targum and Aben Ezra interpret it, which had figures and representations of creatures cut in it, in order to bow down unto and worship: the word has the signification of covering, as they cover a floor with a pavement of stones:

for I am the Lord your God; who is the alone object of religious worship and adoration.

Gill: Lev 26:2

Ye shall keep my sabbaths,.... The seventh day sabbaths, and the seventh year sabbaths; especially the former are meant, in which religious worship was given to the one true and living God, and therefore the observance of them is strictly enjoined; and hence this law follows closely upon the former, though Aben Ezra restrains it to the sabbatical years, or seventh year sabbaths, as he applies the sanctuary in the following clause to the jubilee year, which is said to be holy, Lev 26:12; supposing that this refers unto and stands in strict connection with the laws of the preceding chapter, concerning the sabbatical, Lev 25:1, and jubilee years, Lev 25:8,

and reverence my sanctuary; by attending in it, and on the worship in it, with reverence and godly fear, see Lev 19:30,

I am the Lord; who had a right to such religious worship, and to command such things, in which he ought to be obeyed, his sabbaths kept, and sanctuary reverenced.

Gill: Lev 26:3

If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them. Both moral, ceremonial, and judicial, which had been delivered unto them, and now completely recorded in this and the preceding book; for what follow in the two next are chiefly repetitions of what are contained in these.

Gill: Lev 26:4

Then I will give you rain in due season,.... The former and latter rain, in the two seasons of the year in which rain usually fell, and the Scriptures frequently speak of; and when the land of Israel, which required rain, not being watered with a river, as Egypt, was blessed with it; the one was at the sowing of their seed, or a little after it, and the other a little before harvest; and when it was had in those times it was had in due season, and hence the word is in the plural number, "your rains" ⁱ; unless showers of rain are meant: to encourage to keep the commands of God, promises of many outward good things are made; and this is the first, being a principal blessing, and which only God, and not all the vanities of the Gentiles, could give:

and the land shall yield her increase; which is greatly owing to seasonable showers of rain, by which means the earth brings forth bread to the eater and seed to the sower, corn and grass for man and beast:

and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit; vines, olives, pomegranates, figs, &c. are meant, with which the land of Israel abounded, Deu 8:8.

Gill: Lev 26:5

And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time,.... Signifying that there should be such plentiful harvests of barley and wheat, the first of which began in March, as would employ them in threshing them out unto the time of vintage, which may be supposed to, be in the month of July; for on the twenty ninth of Sivan, which was about the middle of June, was the time of the first ripe grapes, as appears; see Gill on Num 13:20; and that they should have such quantities of grapes on their vines, as would employ them in gathering and pressing them until seedtime, which was usually in October, see Amo 9:13,

and ye shall eat your bread to the full; which is put for all provisions; and the meaning is, they should have plenty of food, eat full meals, or however, what they ate, whether little or much, should be satisfying and refreshing to them, having it with a divine blessing:

and dwell in your land safely; would have no need to go out of it into other lands for the sake of food, and would be in no danger from enemies invading them and carrying off their substance; plenty without safety would not be so great a blessing as with it, since, though they had it, they might be deprived of it, wherefore security from enemies is promised.

Gill: Lev 26:6

And I will give peace in the land,.... Among yourselves, as Aben Ezra; that as safety from enemies is promised before, here it is assured they should be free from insurrections and from riots, broils, contentions, and civil wars among themselves:

and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid; that is, lie down upon their beds, and sleep quietly and comfortably, and not be in any fear of thieves and robbers breaking in upon them, Psa 3:5,

and I will rid evil beasts out of the land: out of the land of Israel, as the Targum of Jonathan, not out of the world, such as lions, bears, wolves, &c. which were sometimes troublesome and mischievous in the land:

neither shall the sword go through your land; either the sword of the enemy, which if it entered should not be suffered to proceed, much less to pervade the land and destroy the inhabitants of it: so the Targum of Jonathan,"they that draw the sword shall not pass through your land,''or the sword of the Lord, that is, the pestilence, 1Ch 21:12; as Ainsworth suggests; though the Jews ^k commonly understand it of the sword of peace, as they call it, though that is of one that is not an enemy, but passes through one country to destroy another; which yet is distressing to the country he passes through, as in the case of Pharaoh Necho, whom Josiah went out to meet, 2Ch 35:20; though, by what follows, it seems rather to be the first of these.

Gill: Lev 26:7

And ye shall chase your enemies,.... Who being overcome in battle, and put to the flight, should be pursued:

and they shall fall before you by the sword; not by the sword of one another, as the Midianites did, Jdg 7:21, so Jarchi; but rather by the sword of the Israelites, for oftentimes multitudes of the enemy are killed in a pursuit.

Gill: Lev 26:8

And five of you shall chase an hundred,.... One man chase twenty:

and an hundred of you put ten thousand to flight; which, had it been in proportion to the other number, should have been two thousand, as in Deu 32:30; where there is a proportion observed; and Abendana observes, there are some that give the sense of it thus, an hundred of you, an hundred times five, that is, five hundred, and so it comes up to a right computation; but here it seems to be a certain number for an uncertain, and only a proverbial expression, signifying that a very few, under the blessing of divine Providence, should get the advantage over a large number, and oblige them to retire, and pursue them closely: instances we have of large bodies of the enemy being defeated by a small number of Israelites, Jdg 7:21; and even many by a single person or two, 1Sa 14:13,

and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword; See Gill on Lev 26:7.

Gill: Lev 26:9

For I will have respect unto you,.... Look at them with delight and pleasure, and with a careful eye on them, watch over them to do them good, and protect them from all evil; or turn himself to them from all others, having a particular regard for them and special care of them:

and make you fruitful and multiply you; increase their number, as he did in Egypt, even amidst all their afflictions; and much more might they expect this blessing in the land of Canaan, when settled there, which is the original blessing of mankind, see Gen 1:28,

and establish my covenant with you; not the new covenant spoken of in Jer 31:31; as Jarchi and other Jewish writers ^l suggest; for that was not to take place but in future time, under the Gospel dispensation; but rather the covenant made with them at Sinai, though perhaps it chiefly respects the covenant made with their ancestors concerning multiplication of their seed as the stars of heaven and the sand of the sea, Gen 15:5, since it follows upon the promise of an increase of them.

Gill: Lev 26:10

And ye shall eat old store,.... What is very old, corn of three years old, as Jarchi and Kimchi ^m interpret it; such plenty should they have that it would be so long consuming:

and bring forth the old because of the new; out of their barns and granaries, to make room for the new, which they should have great quantities of, and scarce know where to bestow them; and therefore should empty their treasures and garners of the old, and fill them with new; or they should bring them forth out of their barns into their houses, to make use of themselves, or into their markets to expose to sale, being under no temptation to withhold against a time of scarcity in order to make more of it, see Pro 11:26; now all these temporal blessings promised may be emblems of spiritual things, and might be so understood by such who were spiritually enlightened; as of the rain of divine grace, and the blessings of it, and of the doctrines of the Gospel, sometimes compared thereunto, Deu 32:2; and of great fruitfulness in grace and good works, and of internal peace in the minds of good men, and of their safety and security from spiritual enemies; of fulness of spiritual provisions, even of things new and old, and which are laid up for them, Son 7:13; thus promises of a spiritual nature more manifestly follow.

Gill: Lev 26:11

And I will set my tabernacle amongst you,.... Which God had directed them to make, and they had made, and also erected; but here he promises to fix and establish it among them, that so it might continue as a place for the public worship of him, and where he would take up his residence, and grant them his presence; so the Targum of Jonathan,"I will put the Shechinah of my glory among you:"

and my soul shall not abhor you; though in themselves, and because of their sins, loathsome and abominable; the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan are,"my Word shall not abhor you;''and the whole may have respect to Christ, the Word made flesh, and tabernacling among them; the tabernacle being a type and emblem of the human nature of Christ, in which the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, and is the true tabernacle which God pitched and not man, Joh 1:14.

Gill: Lev 26:12

And I will walk among you,.... As they journeyed from place to place, he walked among them, in the tabernacle built for him, see 2Sa 7:6; it may be expressive of the familiarity and communion which the Lord grants to his people, in and through Christ:

and will be your God; to provide for them, and supply them with all the blessings of his goodness, both in providence and grace; and to protect and defend them against all their enemies, temporal and spiritual:

and ye shall be my people; appear to be a special and peculiar people of his, chosen, redeemed, and sanctified by him, and to whom he bore a special love, and took special care of; see 2Co 6:16; the Targum of Jonathan of the whole is,"I will make the glory of my Shechinah dwell among you, and my Word shall be unto you for God the Redeemer, and ye shall be to my name for a people of Holy Ones.''

Gill: Lev 26:13

I am the Lord your Lord, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt,.... Who, having done that, was able to fulfil the above promises; and which may be considered as an earnest and pledge of them, as well as be a motive to the Israelites, and an obligation upon them to obey the commandments of God, and walk in his statutes:

that ye should not be their bondmen; this was the end of their being brought out of Egypt, that they might be no longer in a state of bondage to the Egyptians, nor to any other, but to serve the Lord their God, by whom they were delivered; as those who are redeemed by Christ from worse than Egyptian bondage, from sin, Satan, and the law, are redeemed, that they might not be the servants of any, but be a peculiar people, zealous of good works to serve the Lord Christ:

and I have broken the bands of your yoke; which fastened it on their shoulders, that is, set them at full liberty, from the yoke of all their enemies, particularly the Egyptians, who made their lives bitter in hard bondage, making the yoke of it heavy upon them; as Christ has broken the yoke of spiritual enemies from off the shoulders and necks of his people, Isa 10:27,

and made you go upright; who before stooped under the yoke, as well as were of dejected countenances, but now were made to walk in an erect stature, as the Targum of Jonathan, and so Jarchi and Aben Ezra, or in liberty, as Onkelos; see Gal 5:1; and with heads lift up and countenances cheerful.

Gill: Lev 26:14

But if ye will not hearken unto me,.... To his commandments, as the rule of their duty, and to his promises, as an encouragement to it, or to his prophets and ministers, explaining and enforcing his law, and exhorting to a cheerful obedience to it; so the Targum of Jonathan,"if ye will not hearken to the doctrine of them that teach my laws;''which was the sin of the Jews in later times, for which captivity and other calamities befell them, Jer 7:25,

and will not do all these commandments; which he had delivered to them by Moses, whether moral, ceremonial, or judicial, recorded in this book and in the preceding; even all of them were to be respected, attended to, and performed, for the law curses everyone that does not do all things it requires, Gal 3:10.

Gill: Lev 26:15

And if ye shall despise my statutes,.... Which is an aggravated sin; to be negligent hearers of the commands of God is bad, not to be doers of them worse, but to treat them with contempt is worse still:

or if your soul abhor my judgments: which is worst of all, to despise them as if not wisely or righteously made is a dreadful reflection upon the Maker of them; but to abhor them as bad things, not fit to be regarded, but to be had in the utmost detestation, is shocking impiety:

so that ye will not do all my commandments; nor any of them, but are set against them, and determined and resolved on the contrary:

but that ye break my covenant; the covenant made with them at Sinai, when they promised, on their part, that they would hearken and be obedient, Exo 24:7.

Gill: Lev 26:16

I also will do this unto you,.... Henceforward follow threatenings of dreadful evils to the transgressors and despisers of the commandments of God, which thus begin:

I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart; some, as Aben Ezra observes, take these to design what may affect the seed sown and the increase of it, such as blasting and mildew, because it follows: "ye shall sow in vain"; but no doubt diseases of the body are intended; for what we translate "terror" does not signify terror of mind, but some sudden, hasty, terrible distemper; perhaps the pestilence, as the Targum of Jonathan; some have thought of the falling sickness, as Bishop Patrick, because the word has the signification of haste and precipitance; and the second is a disease well known among us, and so called from its wasting and consuming nature; Jarchi interprets it of a disease which swells the flesh, either fills it with tumours and pustules, the Septuagint calls it the itch; or with wind or water, which has led some to think of the dropsy; and the last of them seems to be rightly rendered a burning ague or fever, though the Septuagint takes it for the jaundice, but that seems not to be so threatening, terrible, and dangerous, as what may be here supposed: now these diseases and all others are by the appointment of God, they come and go by his order, and while they continue have the power over persons, nor can they rid themselves of them at pleasure; and these have such an effect on persons seized by them, as to cause dimness of sight, a hollowness of their eyes, which sink into the head, as well as fill the heart with grief and sorrow; either through present pains and agonies, or in a view of future judgment and wrath to come:

and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it; either eat it up for forage before it is ripe, or, if ripe and gathered in the barn, should come and besiege their cities and plunder their granaries.

Gill: Lev 26:17

And I will set my face against you,.... Exert his power, and stir up his wrath and indignation against them, as enemies of his, to cut them off; see Psa 34:16; which is the reverse of having respect to them, Lev 26:9,

and ye shall be slain before your enemies; as they were sometimes by the Philistines and others:

and they that hate you shall reign over you; as did the Chaldeans and Babylonians; see Psa 106:41,

and ye shall flee when none pursueth you; of such pusillanimous spirits should they be, and filled with such dread and terror of their enemies, so contrary from what is promised them on their obedience, Lev 26:8.

Gill: Lev 26:18

And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me,.... If such corrections by diseases of body, and by giving them up into the hands of their enemies, should be ineffectual to reform them, and bring them to obedience to the statutes and commandments of God, but should continue in their disobedience to him, and rebellion against him:

then I will punish you seven times more for your sins; that is, abundantly more, with sorer punishments, and these more frequently repeated.

Gill: Lev 26:19

And I will break the pride of your power,.... Which the Targum of Jonathan and Jarchi interpret of the sanctuary, which they were proud of, trusted in, and boasted of; but was broke or destroyed, first by Nebuchadnezzar, then by the Romans: but it may rather signify their country, the glory of all lands for its fruitfulness, which for their sins should become barren, as follows; or the multitude of their forces, and the strength of their mighty men of war, in which they put their confidence; it may take in everything, civil and ecclesiastical, they prided themselves with, and had their dependence on, thinking themselves safe on account of them, but should be broken to shivers, and be of no service to them:

and I will make your heaven as iron; so that neither dew nor rain shall descend from thence to make the earth fruitful; but, on the contrary, an heat should be reflected, which would parch it, and make it barren:

and your earth as brass; that the seed could not be cast into it, nor anything spring out of it, for the service of man and beast, so that a famine must unavoidably follow.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Lev 26:1

¹ sn For the literature regarding the difficult etymology and meaning of the term for “idols” (אֱלִילִם, ’elilim), see the literature cited in the note on Lev 19:4. It appears to be a diminutive play on words with אֵל (’el, “god, God”) and, perhaps at the same time, recalls a common Semitic word for “worthless, weak, powerless, nothingness.” Snaith suggests a rendering of “worthless godlings.”

² tn Heb “on.” The “sculpted stone” appears to be some sort of stone with images carved into (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 181, and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 449).

NET Notes: Lev 26:2

¹ tn Heb “and my sanctuary you shall fear.” Cf. NCV “respect”; CEV “honor.”

NET Notes: Lev 26:3

¹ tn Heb “and my commandments you shall keep and do them.” This appears to be a kind of verbal hendiadys, where the first verb is a modifier of the action of the second verb (see GKC 386 §120.d, although שָׁמַר [shamar, “to keep”] is not cited there; cf. Lev 20:8; 25:18, etc.).

NET Notes: Lev 26:4

¹ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

² tn Heb “the tree of the field will give its fruit.” As a collective singular this has been translated as plural.

NET Notes: Lev 26:5

¹ tn Heb “will reach for you the vintage season.”

² tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

³ tn Heb “to satisfaction”; KJV, ASV, NASB “to the full.”

NET Notes: Lev 26:6

¹ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

² tn Heb “and there will be no one who terrifies.” The words “to sleep” have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

³ tn Heb “harmful animal,” singular, but taken here as a collective plural (so almost all English versions).

⁴ tn Heb “no sword”; the words “of war” are supplied in the translation to indicate what the metaphor of the sword represents.

NET Notes: Lev 26:7

¹ tn Heb “to the sword.”

NET Notes: Lev 26:9

¹ tn Heb “cause to arise,” but probably used here for the Lord’s intention of confirming or maintaining the covenant commitment made at Sinai. Cf. KJV “establish”; NASB “will confirm”; NAB “carry out”; NIV “will keep.”

NET Notes: Lev 26:10

¹ tn Heb “old [produce] growing old.”

² tn Heb “and old from the presence of new you will bring out.”

NET Notes: Lev 26:11

¹ tn LXX codexes Vaticanus and Alexandrinus have “my covenant” rather than “my tabernacle.” Cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV “my dwelling.”

² tn Heb “and my soul [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh] will not abhor you.”

NET Notes: Lev 26:13

¹ tn Heb “from being to them slaves.”

² tn In other words, to walk as free people and not as slaves. Cf. NIV “with (+ your CEV, NLT) heads held high”; NCV “proudly.”

NET Notes: Lev 26:14

¹ tn Heb “And if.”

² tn Heb “and do not do.”

NET Notes: Lev 26:15

¹ tn Heb “to not do.”

NET Notes: Lev 26:16

¹ tn Or “I also” (see HALOT 76 s.v. אַף 6.b).

² tn Heb “soul.” These expressions may refer either to the physical effects of consumption and fever as the rendering in the text suggests (e.g., J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 452, 454, “diminishing eyesight and loss of appetite”), or perhaps the more psychological effects, “which exhausts the eyes” because of anxious hope “and causes depression” (Heb “causes soul [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh] to pine away”), e.g., B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 185.

³ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have causal force here.

⁴ tn That is, “your enemies will eat” the produce that grows from the sown seed.

NET Notes: Lev 26:18

¹ tn Heb “And if until these.”

² tn Heb “I will add to discipline you seven [times] on your sins.”

Geneva Bible: Lev 26:4

Then I will give you ^{( a )} rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

^{( a )} By promising abundance of earthly things, he stirs the mind to consider the rich treasures of the spiritual blessings.

Geneva Bible: Lev 26:6

And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make [you] afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the ^{( b )} sword go through your land.

^{( b )} You shall have no war.

Geneva Bible: Lev 26:9

For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and ^{( c )} establish my covenant with you.

^{( c )} Perform that which I have promised.

Geneva Bible: Lev 26:11

And I will set my ^{( d )} tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you.

^{( d )} I will be daily present with you.

Geneva Bible: Lev 26:13

I [am] the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the ^{( e )} bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.

^{( e )} I have set you at full liberty, while before you were as beasts tied in bands.

Geneva Bible: Lev 26:15

And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, [but] that ye break my ^{( f )} covenant:

^{( f )} Which I made with you in choosing you to be my people.

Geneva Bible: Lev 26:17

And I will set ^{( g )} my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.

^{( g )} Read (Lev 17:10).

Geneva Bible: Lev 26:18

And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you ^{( h )} seven times more for your sins.

^{( h )} That is, more extremely.

Geneva Bible: Lev 26:19

And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as ^{( i )} iron, and your earth as brass:

^{( i )} You shall have drought and barrenness.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Lev 26:1-46

1 Of idolatry.

2 Religiousness.

3 A blessing to them that keep the commandments.

14 A curse to those that break them.

40 God promises to remember them that repent.

Maclaren: Lev 26:10

Lev. 26:10

"Ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new.' Lev. 26:10.

This is one of the blessings promised to obedience. No doubt it, like the other elements of that prosperity' which is the blessing of the Old Testament,' presupposes a supernatural order of things, in which material well-being was connected with moral good far more closely and certainly than we see to be the case. But the spirit and heart of the promise remain, however the form of it may have passed away. It is a picturesque way of saying that the harvest shall be more than enough for the people's wants. All through the winter, and the spring, and the ripening summer, their granaries shall yield supplies. There will be no season of scarcity such as often occurs in countries whose communications are imperfect, just before harvest, when the last year's crop is exhausted, and it is hard to get anything to live on till this year's is ready. But when the new wheat comes in they will have still much of the old, and will have to bring it forth' to empty their barns, to make room for the fresh supplies which the blessing of God has sent before they were needed. The same idea of superabundant yield from the fields is given under another form in a previous verse of this chapter (Lev. 26:5): Your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time, and ye shall eat your bread to the full': which reminds one of the striking prophecy of Amos: Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the trader of grapes him that soweth seed.' So rapid the growth, and so large the fruitfulness, that the gatherer shall follow close on the heels of the sower, and will not have accomplished his task before it is again time to sow. The prophet clearly has in his mind the old promise of the law, and applies it to higher matters, even to the fields white to harvest, where he that soweth and he that reapeth shall rejoice together.' In the same way we may take these words, and gather from them better promises and larger thoughts than they originally carried.

There is in them a promise as to the fullness of the divine gifts, which has a far wider reach and nobler application than to the harvests and granaries of old Palestine.

We may take the words in that aspect, first, as containing God's pledge that these outward gifts shall come in unbroken continuity. And have they not so come to us all, for all these long years? Has there ever been a gap left yawning? has there ever been a break in the chain of mercies and supplies? has it not rather been that one post ran to meet another,' that before one of the messengers had unladed all his budget, another's arrival has antiquated and put aside his store? True, we are often brought very low; there may not be much in the barn but sweepings, and a few stray grains scattered over the floor. We may have but a handful of meal in the barrel, and be ready to dress it that we may eat it, and die.' But it never really comes to that. The new ever comes before the old is all eaten up; or if it be delayed even beyond that time, it comes before the hunger reaches inanition. It may be good that we should have to trust Him, even when the storehouse is empty; it may be good for us to know something of want, but that discipline comes seldom, and is never carried very far. For the most part He anticipates wants by gifts, and His good gifts overlap each other in our outward lives as slates on a roof, or scales on a fish.

We wonder at the smooth working of the machinery for feeding a great city; and how, day by day, the provisions come at the right time, and are parted out among hundreds of thousands of homes. But we seldom think of the punctual love, the perfect knowledge, the profound wisdom which cares for us all, and is always in time with its gifts. It was that quality of punctuality extended over a whole universe which seemed so wonderful to the Psalmist: The eyes of all wait upon Thee, and Thou givest them their meat in due season.' God's machinery for distribution is perfect, and its very perfection, with the constancy of the resulting blessings, robs Him of His praise, and hinders our gratitude. By assiduity He loses admiration.

Things grown common lose their dear delight.' If ill His gifts and benefits He were more sparing and close-handed,' said Luther, we should learn to be thankful.' But let us learn it by the continuity of our joys, that we may not need to be taught it by their interruption; and let us still all tremulous anticipation of possible failure or certain loss by the happy confidence which we have a right to cherish, that His mercies will meet our needs, continuous as they are, and be strung so close together on the poor thread of our lives that no gap will be discernible in the jeweled circle.

May we not apply that same thought of the unbroken continuity of God's gifts to the higher region of our spiritual experience? His supplies of wisdom, love, joy, peace, power, to our souls are always enough and more than enough for our wants. If ever men complain of languishing vitality in their religious emotions, or of a stinted supply of food for their truest self, it is their own fault, not His. He means that there should be no parentheses of famine in our Christian life. It is not His doing if times of torpor alternate with seasons of quick energy and joyful fullness of life. So far as He is concerned the flow is uninterrupted, and if it come to us in jets and spurts as from an intermittent well, it is because our own fault has put some obstacle to choke the channel and dam out His Spirit from our spirits. We cannot too firmly hold, or too profoundly feel, that an unbroken continuity of supplies of His grace--unbroken and bright as a sunbeam reaching in one golden shaft all the way from the sun to the earth--is His purpose concerning us. Here, in this highest region, the thought of our text is most absolutely true; for He who gives is ever pouring forth His own self for us to take, and there is no limit to our reception but our capacity and our desire; nor any reason for a moment's break in our possession of love, righteousness, peace, but our withdrawal of our souls from beneath the Niagara of His grace. As long as we keep our poor vessels below that constant downpour they will be full. It is all our own blame if they are empty. Why should Christian people have these dismal times of deadness, these parentheses of paralysis? as if their growth must be like that of a tree with its alternations of winter sleep and summer waking? In regard to outward blessings we are, as it were, put upon rations, and that He gives' us we gather.' There He sometimes does, in love and wisdom, put us on very short allowance, and even now and then causes' the fields to yield no meat.' But never is it so in the higher region. There He puts the key of the storehouse into our own hands, and we may take as much as we will, and have as much as we take. There the bread of God is given for evermore, and He wills that in uninterrupted abundance' the meek shall eat and be satisfied.'

The source is full to overflowing, and there are no limits to the supply. The only limit is our capacity, which again is largely determined by our desire. So after all His gifts there is more yet unreceived to possess. After all His Self-revelation there is more yet unspoken to declare. Great as is the goodness which He has wrought before the sons of men for them that trust in Him,' there are far greater treasures of goodness laid up' in the deep mines of God for them that fear Him.' Bars of uncoined treasure and ingots of massy gold lie in His storehouses, to be put into circulation as soon as we need, and can use, them. Hence we have the right to look for an endless increase in our possession of God; and from the consideration of an Infinite Spirit that imparts Himself, and of finite but indefinitely expansible spirits that receive, the certainty arises of an endless life for us of growing glory; a heaven of ceaseless advance, where in constant alternation desire shall widen capacity, and capacity increase fruition, and fruition lead in, not satiety, but quickened appetite and deeper longing.

But we may also see in this text the prescription of a duty as well as the announcement of a promise. There is direction here as to our manner of receiving God's gifts, as well as large assurance as to His manner of bestowing them. It is His to substitute the new for the old. It is ours gladly to accept the exchange, a task not always easy or pleasant.

No doubt there is a natural love of change deep in us all, but that is held in check by its opposite, and all poetry and human life itself are full of the sadness born of mutation. Our Lord laid bare a deep tendency, when He said,' No man having tasted old wine, straightway desireth new; because he saith the old is better.' We cling to what is familiar, in the very furniture of our houses; and yet we are ever being forced to accept what is strange and new, and, like some fresh article in a room, is out of harmony with the well-worn things that we have seen standing in their corners for years. It takes some time for the raw look to wear off, and for us to get used to it,' as we say. So is it, though often for deeper reasons, in far more important things. A man, for instance, has been engaged in some kind of business for years, and at last God shows him, by clear indications, that he must turn to something else. How slow he is to see it, how reluctant to do it l How he cleaves to the' old store'! How he shrinks from clearing out the barn, to bring in the new! Or a household has been going on for many days unbroken, and at last a time comes when some of its members have to pass out into new circumstances; a son to push his way in the world, a daughter to brighten another fireside. It is hard for the parents to enter fully into the high hopes of their children, and to accept the new condition, without many vain longings for the old days that can never come back any more. So, all through our lives, wisdom and faith say, Bring forth the old because of the new.' Accept cheerfully the law of constant change under which God's love has set us. Do not let the pleasant bonds of habit tie down your hearts so tightly to the familiar possessions that you shrink from the introduction of fresh elements. Be sure that the new comes from the same loving hand which sent the old in its season, and that change is meant to be progress. Do not confine yourselves within any mill-horse round of associations and occupations. Front the vicissitudes of life, not merely with brave patience, but with happy confidence, for they all come from Him whose love is older than your oldest blessings, and whose mercies, new every morning, express themselves afresh through every change. Welcome the new, treasure the old, and in both see the purpose of that loving Father who, Himself unchanged, changeth all things, and fulfils Himself in many ways.

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.'

In higher matters than these our text may give us counsel as to our duty. God hath more light yet to break forth from His holy word.' We are bound to welcome new truth, so soon as to our apprehensions it has made good its title, and not to refuse it lodgment in our minds because it needs the displacement of their old contents. In the regions of our knowledge and of our Christian life, most chiefly, are we under solemn obligations to bring forth the old store because of the new'; if we would not be unfaithful to God's great educational process that goes on through all our lives. It is often difficult to adjust the relations of our last lesson with our previous possessions. There is always a temptation to make too much of a new truth, and to fancy that it will produce more change in our whole mental furniture than it really will do. No man is less likely to come to the knowledge of the truth than he who is always deep in love with some new thought, the Cynthia of the minute,' and ever ready to barter old lamps for new ones.' But all these things admitted, still it remains true that we are here to learn, that our education is to go on all our days, and that here on earth it can only be carried out by our parting with the old store, which may have become musty by long lying in the granaries, to make room for the new, just gathered in tile ripened field. The great central truths of God in Christ are to be kept for ever; but we shall come to grasp them in their fullness only by joyfully welcoming every fresh access of clearer light which falls upon them; and gladly laying aside our inadequate thoughts of God's permanent revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ, to house and garner in heart and spirit the fuller knowledge which it may please Him to impart.

So the law for life is thankful enjoyment of the old store, and openness of mind and freedom of heart which permit its unreluctant surrender when newer harvests ripen. And the highest form of the promise of our text will be when we pass into another, world, and its rich abundance is poured out into our laps. Blessed are they who can willingly put away the familiar blessings of earth, and stretch out, willingly emptied, expectant hands to meet the new store' of Heaven!

Maclaren: Lev 26:13

Lev. 26:13

I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.'--Lev. 26:13.

The history of Israel is a parable and a prophecy as well as a history.

The great central word of the New Testament has been drawn from it, viz. redemption,' i.e. a buying out of bondage.

The Hebrew slaves in Egypt were delivered.' The deliverance made them a nation. God acquired them for Himself, and they became His servants.

The great truths of the gospel are all there. Henceforth the fact of their deliverance became the basis of all His appeals to them; the ground of His law; the reason for their obedience. In the previous context it has shaped the institution of slavery. Here it is the foundation of a general exhortation to obedience. The emphatic picture of the men stooping beneath the yoke, and then straightening themselves up, erect, illustrates the joyful freedom which Christ gives. That freedom is our subject.

I. Jesus Gives Freedom From The Slavery Of Sin.

Freedom consists in power to follow unhindered the law of our being. So sin is slavery because it is contrary to that law.

When Jesus promised freedom through the truth, the Jews indignantly spurned the offer with the proud boast, which the presence of a Roman garrison in Jerusalem should have made to stick in their throats: We were never in bondage to any man.' A like hardy shutting of eyes to plain facts characterizes the attitude of multitudes to the Christian view of man's condition. Jesus answered the Jews by the deep saying: He that committeth sin is the servant of sin.' A man fancies himself showing off his freedom by throwing off the restraints of morality or law, and by doing as he likes,' but he is really showing his servitude. Self-will looks like liberty, but it is serfdom. The libertine is a slave. That slavery under sin takes two forms. The man who sins is a slave to the power of sin. Will and conscience are meant to guide and impel us, and we never sin without first coercing or silencing them and subjecting them to the upstart tyranny of desires and senses which should obey and not command. The beggars' are on horseback, and the princes' walking. There is a servile revolt, and we know what horrors accompany that.

But that slavery under sin is shown also by the terrible force with which any sin, if once committed, appeals to the doer to repeat it. It is not only in regard to sensual sins that the awful insistence of habit grips the doer, and makes it the rarest thing that evil once done is done only once.

But he who sins is also a slave to the guilt of sin. True, that sense of guilt is for the most part and in most men dormant, but the snake is but hibernating, and often wakes and stings at most unexpected moments. The deceitfulness of sin' lies to the sinner, so that for the most part he wipes his mouth, saying I have done no harm,' but some chance incident may at any time, and certainly something will at some time, dissipate the illusion, as a stray sunbeam might scatter a wisp of mist and show startled eyes the grim fact that had always been there. And even while not consciously felt, guilt hampers the soul's insight into divine realities, clips its wings so that it cannot soar, paralyses its efforts after noble aims, and inclines it to ignoble groveling as far away from thoughts of God and goodness as may be.

Christ makes the man bound and tied by the cords of his sins lift himself up and stand erect. By His death He brings forgiveness which removes guilt and the consciousness of it. By His inbreathed life He gives a new nature akin to His own, and brings into force a new motive, even transforming love, which is stronger than the death with which sin has cursed its doers. The law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.'

II. Jesus Gives Freedom From A Slavish Relation To God.

Apart from Him, God, if recognized at all, is for the most part thought of as austere, reaping where He did not sow,' and His commandments as grievous. Men may sullenly recognize that they cannot resist, but they do not submit. They may obey in act, but there is no obedience in their wills, nor any cheerfulness in their hearts. The elder brother in the parable could say, Neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment,' but his service had been joyless, and he never remembered having received gifts that made him merry with his friends.'

But from all such slavish, and therefore worthless, obedience, and all such reluctant, and therefore unreal, submission, Jesus liberates those who believe on Him and abide in His word. He declares God as our loving Father, and through Him we have authority to become sons of God. He sends forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts,' and that makes us to be no more slaves but sons. Sullen obedience becomes glad choice, and it is the inmost desire, and the deepest delight, of the loving child to do always the things that please the loving Father. I ought' and I will' coalesce, and so there is no slavery, but perfect freedom, in recognizing and bowing to the great I must' which sweetly rules the life.

III. Christ Gives Deliverance From Servility To Men.

We need not touch on the historical connection, plain as that is, between modern conceptions of individual freedom and the influence of Christ's teaching. Modern democracy is rooted in Christ, though it is often unaware of its genesis, and blindly attacks the force to which it owes its existence.

Because all men are redeemed by Christ, because by that redemption all stand in the same relation to Him, because all have equal access to Him, and are taught and guided by His Spirit, because we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ,' therefore class prerogatives and subject classes fade away, and there is neither bond nor free,' but all are one in Christ Jesus.'

But there are other ways in which men tyrannize over men and in which Christ's redemption sets us free.

There is the undue authority of favorite teachers and examples.

There is the tyranny of public opinion.

There is undue regard to human approbation. There is the sway of priestcraft.

How does Christianity deliver from these? It makes Christ's law our unconditional duty. It makes His approbation our highest joy. It gives legitimate scope to the instinct of loyalty, submission, and imitation, and of subjection to authority. It reduces to insignificance men's judgment, and all their loud voices to a babble of nothings. With me it is a very small matter to be judged of man's judgment.' It brings the soul into direct communion with God, and sweeps away all intermediaries.

Not for that we have dominion over your faith but are helpers of your joy; for by faith ye stand.'

So personal independence and individuality of character are the result of Christianity. ! have made you go upright.

IV. Christ Gives Us Freedom From The Power Of Circumstances.

Most men are made by these. We need not here enter on questions of the influence of their environment on all men's development.

But Christ gives us,

(a) A great aim for our lives high above these.

(b) A foothold in Him outside of them. We are not the slaves of our circumstances, but their masters.

(c) The power to utilize them.

So Christians are free' in all senses of the word. The great Act of Emancipation has been passed for us all. Only Christ has rule over us, and we have our perfect freedom in His service. We have been sitting in the prison-house, and He has come and declared The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me to proclaim liberty to the captives.'

THE END

Numbers

MHCC: Lev 26:1-13

This chapter contains a general enforcement of all the laws given by Moses; by promises of reward in case of obedience, on the one hand; and threatenings of punishment for disobedience, on the other. While Israel maintained a national regard to God's worship, sabbaths, and sanctuary, and did not turn aside to idolatry, the Lord engaged to continue to them temporal mercies and religious advantages. These great and precious promises, though they relate chiefly to the life which now is, were typical of the spiritual blessings made sure by the covenant of grace to all believers, through Christ. 1. Plenty and abundance of the fruits of the earth. Every good and perfect gift must be expected from above, from the Father of lights. 2. Peace under the Divine protection. Those dwell in safety, that dwell in God. 3. Victory and success in their wars. It is all one with the Lord to save by many or by few. 4. The increase of their people. The gospel church shall be fruitful. 5. The favour of God, which is the fountain of all Good. 6. Tokens of his presence in and by his ordinances. The way to have God's ordinances fixed among us, is to cleave closely to them. 7. The grace of the covenant. All covenant blessings are summed up in the covenant relation, I will be your God, and ye shall be my people; and they are all grounded upon their redemption. Having purchased them, God would own them, and never cast them off till they cast him off.

MHCC: Lev 26:14-39

After God has set the blessing before them which would make them a happy people if they would be obedient, he here sets the curse before them, the evils which would make them miserable, if they were disobedient. Two things would bring ruin. 1. A contempt of God's commandments. They that reject the precept, will come at last to renounce the covenant. 2. A contempt of his corrections. If they will not learn obedience by the things they suffer, God himself would be against them; and this is the root and cause of all their misery. And also, The whole creation would be at war with them. All God's sore judgments would be sent against them. The threatenings here are very particular, they were prophecies, and He that foresaw all their rebellions, knew they would prove so. TEMPORAL judgments are threatened. Those who will not be parted from their sins by the commands of God, shall be parted from them by judgments. Those wedded to their lusts, will have enough of them. SPIRITUAL judgments are threatened, which should seize the mind. They should find no acceptance with God. A guilty conscience would be their continual terror. It is righteous with God to leave those to despair of pardon, who presume to sin; and it is owing to free grace, if we are not left to pine away in the iniquity we were born in, and have lived in.

Matthew Henry: Lev 26:1-13

Here is, I. The inculcating of those precepts of the law which were of the greatest consequence, and by which were of the greatest consequence, and by which especially their obedience would be tried, Lev 26:1, Lev 26:2. They are the abstract of the second and fourth commandments, which, as they are by much the largest in the decalogue, so they are most frequently insisted on in other parts of the law. As, when a master has given many things in charge to his servant, he concludes with the repetition of those things which were of the greatest importance, and which the servant was most in danger of neglecting, bidding him, whatever he did, be sure to remember those, so here God by Moses, after many precepts, closes all with a special charge to observe these two great commandments. 1. "Be sure you never worship images, nor ever make any sort of images or pictures for a religious use,"Lev 26:1. No sin was more provoking to God than this, and yet there was none that they were more addicted to, and which afterwards proved of more pernicious consequence to them. Next to God's being, unity, and universal influence, it is necessary that we know and believe that he is an infinite Spirit; and therefore to represent him by an image in the making of it, to confine him to an image in the consecrating of it, and to worship him by an image in bowing down to it, changes his truth into a lie and his glory into shame, as much as any thing. 2. "Be sure you keep up a great veneration for sabbaths and religious assemblies,"Lev 26:2. As nothing tends more to corrupt religion than the use of images in devotion, so nothing contributes more to the support of it than keeping the sabbaths and reverencing the sanctuary. These make up very much of the instrumental part of religion, by which the essentials of it are kept up. Therefore we find in the prophets that, next to the sin of idolatry, there is no sin for which the Jews are more frequently reproved and threatened than the profanation of the sabbath day.

II. Great encouragements given them to live in constant obedience to all God's commandments, largely and strongly assuring them that if they did so they should be a happy people, and should be blessed with all the good things they could desire. Human governments enforce their laws with penalties to be inflicted for the breach of them; but God will be known as the rewarder of those that seek and serve him. Let us take a view of these great and precious promises, which, though they relate chiefly to the life which now is, and to the public national concerns of that people, were typical of the spiritual blessings entailed by the covenant of grace upon all believers through Christ. 1. Plenty and abundance of the fruits of the earth. They should have seasonable rain, neither too little nor too much, but what was requisite for their land, which was watered with the dew of heaven (Deu 11:10, Deu 11:11), that it might yield its increase, Lev 26:4. The dependence which the fruitfulness of the earth beneath has upon the influences of heaven above is a sensible intimation to us that every good and perfect gift must be expected from above, from the Father of lights. It is promised that the earth should produce its fruits in such great abundance that they would be kept in full employment, during both the harvest and the vintage, to gather it in, Lev 26:5. Before they had reaped their corn and threshed it, the vintage would be ready; and, before they had finished their vintage, it would be high time to begin their sowing. Long harvests are often with us the consequences of bad weather, but with them they should be the effects of a great increase. This signified the abundance of grace which should be poured out in gospel times, when the ploughman should overtake the reaper (Amo 9:13), and a great harvest of souls should be gathered in to Christ. The plenty should be so great that they should bring forth the old to be given away to the poor because of the new, to make room for it in their barns, which yet they would not pull down to build greater, as that rich fool (Luk 12:18), for God gave them this abundance to be laid out, not be hoarded up from one year to another. He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him, Pro 11:26. That promise (Mal 3:10), I will pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it, explains this, Lev 26:10. And that which crowns this blessing of plenty is (Lev 26:5), You shall eat your bread to the full, which intimates that they should have, not only abundance, but content and satisfaction in it. They should have enough, and should know when they had enough. Thus the meek shall eat and be satisfied, Psa 22:26. 2. Peace under the divine protection; " You shall dwell in your land safely (Lev 26:5); both really save, and safe in your own apprehensions; you shall lie down to rest in the power and promise of God, and not only none shall hurt you, but none shall so much as make you afraid, "Lev 26:6. See Psa 4:8. They should not be infested with wild beasts, these should be rid out of the land, or, as it is promised (Job 5:23), should be at peace with them. Nor should they be terrified with the alarms of war: Neither shall the sword go through your land. This holy security is promised to all the faithful, Psa 91:1, etc. Those must needs dwell in safety that dwell in God, Job 9:18, Job 9:19. 3. Victory and success in their wars abroad, while they had peace and tranquility at home, Lev 26:7, Lev 26:8. They are assured that the hand of God should so signally appear with them in their conquests that no disproportion of numbers should make against them: Five of you shall have courage to attack, and strength to chase and defeat, a hundred, as Jonathan did (1Sa 14:12), experiencing the truth of his own maxim (Lev 26:6), that it is all one with the Lord to save by many or by few. 4. The increase of their people: I will make you fruitful and multiply you, Lev 26:9. Thus the promise made to Abraham must be fulfilled, that his seed should be as the dust of the earth; and much more numerous they would have been if they had by their sin cut themselves short. It is promised to the gospel church that it shall be fruitful, Joh 15:16. 5. The favour of God, which is the fountain of all good: I will have respect unto you, Lev 26:9. If the eye of our faith be unto God, the eye of his favour will be unto us. More is implied than is expressed in that promise, My soul shall not abhor you (Lev 26:11), as there is in that threatening, My soul shall have no pleasure in him, Heb 10:38. Though there was that among them which might justly have alienated him from them, yet, if they would closely adhere to his institutions, he would not abhor them. 6. Tokens of his presence in and by his ordinances: I will set my tabernacle among you, Lev 26:11. It was their honour and advantage that God's tabernacle was lately erected among them; but here he lets them know that the continuance and establishment of it depended upon their good behaviour. The tabernacle that was now set should be settled if they would be obedient, else not. Note, The way to have God's ordinances fixed among us, as a nail in a sure place, is to cleave closely to the institution of them. It is added (Lev 26:12), " I will walk among you, with delight and satisfaction, as a man in his garden; I will keep up communion with you as a man walking with his friend."This seems to be alluded to, Rev 2:1, where Christ is said to walk in the midst of the golden candlesticks. 7. The grace of the covenant, as the fountain and foundation, the sweetness and security, of all these blessings: I will establish my covenant with you, Lev 26:9. Let them perform their part of the covenant, and God would not fail to perform his. All covenant-blessings are summed up in the covenant-relation (Lev 26:12): I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and they are all grounded upon their redemption: I am your God, because I brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, Lev 26:13. Having purchased them, he would own them, and never cast them off till they cast him off. He broke their yoke, and made them go upright, that is, their deliverance out of Egypt put them in a state both of ease and honour, that, being delivered out of the hands of their enemies, they might serve God without fear, each walking in his uprightness. When Israel rejected Christ, and was therefore rejected by him, their back is said to be bowed down always under the burden of their guilt, which was heavier than that of their bondage in Egypt, Rom 11:10.

Matthew Henry: Lev 26:14-39

After God had set the blessing before them (the life and good which would make them a happy people if they would be obedient), he here sets the curse before them, the death and evil which would make them as miserable if they were disobedient. Let them not think themselves so deeply rooted as that God's power could not ruin them, nor so highly favoured as that his justice would not ruin them if they revolted from him and rebelled against him; no You only have I known, therefore I will punish you soonest and sorest. Amo 3:2. Observe,

I. How their sin is described, which would bring all this misery upon them. Not sins of ignorance and infirmity; God had provided sacrifices for those. Not the sins they repented of and forsook; but the sins that were presumptuously committed, and obstinately persisted in. Two things would certainly bring this ruin upon them: -

1. A contempt of God's commandments (Lev 26:14): " If you will not hearken to me speaking to you by the law, nor do all these commandments, that is, desire and endeavour to do them, and, wherein you miss it, make use of the prescribed remedies."Thus their sin is supposed to begin in mere carelessness, and neglect, and omission. These are bad enough, but they make way for worse; for the people are brought in (Lev 26:15) as, (1.) Despising God's statutes, both the duties enjoined and the authority enjoining them, thinking meanly of the law and the Law-maker. Note, Those are hastening apace to their own ruin who begin to think it below them to be religious. (2.) Abhorring his judgments, their very souls abhorring them. Note, Those that begin to despise religion will come by degrees to loathe it; and mean thoughts of it will ripen into ill thoughts of it; those that turn from it will turn against it, and their hearts will rise at it. (3.) Breaking his covenant. Though every breach of the commandment does not amount to a breach of the covenant (we were undone if it did), yet, when men have come to such a pitch of impiety as to despise and abhor the commandment, the next step will be to disown God, and all relation to him. Those that reject the precept will come at last to renounce the covenant. Observe, It is God's covenant which they break: he made it, but they break it. Note, If a covenant be made and kept between God and man, God must have all the honour; but, if ever it be broken, man must bear all the blame: on him shall this breach be.

2. A contempt of his corrections. Even their disobedience would not have been their destruction if they had not been obstinate and impenitent in it, notwithstanding the methods God took to reclaim them. Their contempt of God's word would not have brought them to ruin, if they had not added to that a contempt of his rod, which should have brought them to repentance. Three ways this is expressed: - (1.) " If you will not for all this hearken to me, Lev 26:18, Lev 26:21, Lev 26:27. If you will not learn obedience by the things which you suffer, but be as deaf to the loud alarms of God's judgments as you have been to the close reasonings of his word and the secret whispers of your own consciences, you are obstinate indeed."(2.) " If you walk contrary to me, Lev 26:21, Lev 26:23, Lev 26:27. All sinners walk contrary to God, to his truths, laws, and counsels; but those especially that are incorrigible under his judgments. The design of the rod is to humble them, and soften them, and bring them to repentance; but, instead of this, their hearts are more hardened and exasperated against God, and in their distress they trespass yet more against him, 2Ch 28:22. This is walking contrary to God. Some read it, "If you walk at all adventures with me, carelessly and presumptuously, as if you heeded not either what you do, whether it be right or wrong, or what God does with you, whether it be for you or against you, blundering on in wilful ignorance."(3.) If you will not be reformed by these things. God's design in punishing is to reform, by giving men sensible convictions of the evil of sin, and obliging them to seek unto him for relief: this is the primary intention; but those that will not be reformed by the judgments of God must expect to be ruined by them. Those have a great deal to answer for that have been long and often under God's correcting hand, and yet go on frowardly in a sinful way; sick and in pain, and yet not reformed; crossed and impoverished, and yet not reformed; broken with breach upon breach, yet not returning to the Lord, Amo 4:6, etc.

II. How the misery is described which their sin would bring upon them, under two heads: -

1. God himself would be against them; and this is the root and cause of all their misery. (1.) I will set my face against you (Lev 26:17), that is, "I will set myself against you, set myself to ruin you."These proud sinners God will resist, and face those down that confront his authority. Or the face is put for the anger: "I will show myself highly displeased at you."(2.) I will walk contrary to you (Lev 26:24, Lev 26:28); with the forward he will wrestle, Psa 18:26 [margin]. When God in his providence thwarts the designs of a people, which they thought well laid, crosses their purposes, breaks their measures, blasts their endeavours, and disappoints their expectations, then he walks contrary to them. Note, There is nothing got by striving with God Almighty, for he will break either the heart or the neck of those that contend with him, will bring them either to repentance or ruin. "I will walk at all adventures with you,"so some read; "all covenant loving-kindness shall be forgotten, and I will leave you to common providence."Note, Those that cast off God deserve that he should cast them off. (3.) As they continued obstinate, the judgments should increase yet more upon them. If the first sensible tokens of God's displeasures do not attain their end, to humble and reform them, then (Lev 26:18), I will punish you seven times more, and again (Lev 26:21), I will bring seven times more plagues, and (Lev 26:24), I will punish you yet seven times, and (Lev 26:28), I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. Note, If less judgments do not do their work, God will send greater; for, when he judges, he will overcome. If true repentance do not stay process, it will go on till execution be taken out. Those that are obstinate and incorrigible, when they have weathered one storm must expect another more violent; and, how severely soever they are punished, till they are in hell they must still say, "There is worse behind,"unless they repent. If the founder have hitherto melted in vain (Jer 6:29), the furnace will be heated seven times hotter (a proverbial expression, used Dan 3:19), and again and again seven times hotter; and who among us can dwell with such devouring fire? God does not begin with the sorest judgments, to show that he is patient, and delights not in the death of sinners; but, if they repent not, he will proceed to the sorest, to show that he is righteous, and that he will not be mocked or set at defiance. (4.) Their misery is completed in that threatening: My soul shall abhor you, Lev 26:30. That man is as miserable as he can be whom God abhors; for his resentments are just and effective. Thus if any man draw back, as these are supposed to do, God's soul shall have no pleasure in him (Heb 10:38), and he will spue them out of his mouth, Rev 3:16. It is spoken of as strange, and yet too true, Hath thy soul loathed Zion? Jer 14:19.

2. The whole creation would be at war with them. All God's sore judgments would be sent against them; for he hath many arrows in his quiver. The threatenings here are very particular, because really they were prophecies, and he that foresaw all their rebellions knew they would prove so; see Deu 31:16, Deu 31:29. This long roll of threatening shows that evil pursues sinners. We have here,

(1.) Temporal judgments threatened. [1.] Diseases of body, which should be epidemical: I will appoint over you, as task-masters, to rule you with rigour, terror, consumption, and the burning ague, Lev 26:16. What we translate terror, some think, signifies a particular disease, probably (says the learned bishop Patrick) the falling sickness, which is terror indeed: all chronical diseases are included in the consumption, and all acute diseases in the burning ague or fever. These consume the eyes, and cause sorrow both to those that are visited with them and to their friends and relations. Note, All diseases are God's servants; they do what he appoints them, and are often used as scourges wherewith he chastises a provoking people. The pestilence is threatened (Lev 26:25) to meet them, when they are gathered together in their cities for fear of the sword. The greater the concourse of people is, the greater desolation does the pestilence make; and, when it gets among the soldiers that should defend a place, it is of most fatal consequence. [2.] Famine and scarcity of bread, which should be brought upon them several ways; as, First, By plunder (Lev 26:16): Your enemies shall eat it up, and carry it off as the Midianites did, Jdg 6:5, Jdg 6:6. Secondly, By unseasonable weather, especially the want of rain (Lev 26:19): I will make your heaven as iron, letting fall no rain, but reflecting heat, and then the earth would of course be as dry and hard as brass, and their labour in ploughing and sowing would be in vain (Lev 26:20); for the increase of the earth depends upon God's good providence more than upon man's good husbandry. This should be the breaking of the staff of bread (Lev 26:26), which life leans upon, and is supported by, on which perhaps they had leaned more than upon God's blessing. There should be so great a dearth of corn that, whereas every family used to fill an oven of their own with household bread, now ten families should have to fill but one over, which would bring themselves and their children and servants to short allowance, so that they should eat and not be satisfied. The less they had the more craving should their appetites be. Thirdly, By the besieging of their cities, which would reduce them to such an extremity that they should eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, Lev 26:29. [3.] War, and the prevailing of their enemies over them: " You shall be slain before your enemies, Lev 26:17. Your choice men shall die in battle, and those that hate you shall reign over you, and justly, since you are not willing that the God that loved you should reign over you;"2Ch 12:8. Miserable is that people whose enemies are their rulers and have got dominion over them, or whose rulers have become their enemies and under-hand seek the ruin of their interests. Thus God would break the pride of their power, Lev 26:19. God had given them power over the nations; but when they, instead of being thankful for that power, and improving it for the service of God's kingdom, grew proud of it, and perverted the intentions of it, it was just with God to break it. Thus God would bring a sword upon them to avenge the quarrel of his covenant, Lev 26:25. Note, God has a just quarrel with those that break covenant with him, for he will not be mocked by the treachery of perfidious men; and one way or other he will avenge this quarrel upon those that play at fast and loose with him. [4.] Wild beasts, lions, bears, and wolves, which should increase upon them, and tear in pieces all that come in their way (Lev 26:22), as we read of two bears that in an instant killed forty-two children, 2Ki 2:24. This is one of the four sore judgments threatened Eze 14:21, which plainly refers to this chapter. Man was made to have dominion over the creatures, and, though many of them are stronger than he, yet none of them could have hurt him, nay, all of them would have served him, if he had not first shaken off God's dominion, and so lost his own; and now the creatures are in rebellion against him that is in rebellion against his Maker, and, when the Lord of those hosts pleases, they are the executioners of his wrath and the ministers of his justice. [5.] Captivity, or dispersion: I will scatter you among the heathen (Lev 26:33), in your enemies' land, Lev 26:34. Never were any people so incorporated and united among themselves as they were; but for their sin God would scatter them, so that they should be lost among the heathen, from whom God had graciously distinguished them, but with whom they had wickedly mingled themselves. Yet, when they were scattered, divine justice had not done with them, but would draw out a sword after them, which would find them out, and follow them wherever they were. God's judgments, as they cannot be outfaced, so they cannot be outrun. [6.] The utter ruin and desolation of their land, which should be so remarkable that their very enemies themselves, who ha helped it forward, should in the review be astonished at it, Lev 26:32. First, Their cities should be waste, forsaken, uninhabited, and all the buildings destroyed; those that escaped the desolations of war should fall to decay of themselves. Secondly, Their sanctuaries should be a desolation, that is, their synagogues where they met for religious worship every sabbath, as well as their tabernacle where they met thrice a year. Thirdly, The country itself should be desolate, not tilled or husbanded (Lev 26:34, Lev 26:35); then the land should enjoy its sabbaths, because they had not religiously observed the sabbatical years which God appointed them. They tilled their ground when God would have them let it rest; justly therefore were they driven out of it; and the expression intimates that the ground itself was pleased and easy when it was rid of the burden of such sinners, under which it had groaned, Rom 8:20, etc. The captivity in Babylon lasted seventy years, and so long the land enjoyed her sabbaths, as is said (2Ch 36:21) with reference to this. [7.] The destruction of their idols, though rather a mercy than a judgment, yet, being a necessary piece of justice, is here mentioned, to show what would be the sin that would bring all these miseries upon them: I will destroy your high places, Lev 26:30. Those that will not be parted from their sins by the commands of God shall be parted from them by his judgments; since they would not destroy their high places, God would. And, to upbraid them with the unreasonable fondness they had shown for their idols, it is foretold that their carcases should be cast upon the carcases of their idols. Those that are wedded to their lusts will sooner or later have enough of them. Their idols would not be able to help either themselves or their worshippers; but, those that made them being like them, they should both perish alike, and fall together as blind into the ditch.

(2.) Spiritual judgments are here threatened. These should seize the mind; for he that made the mind can, when he pleases, make his sword approach to it. It is here threatened, [1.] That they should find no acceptance with God: I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours, Lev 26:31. Though the judgments of God upon them did not separate them and their sins, yet they extorted incense from them; but in vain - even their incense was an abomination, Isa 1:13. [2.] That they should have no courage in their wars, but should be quite dispirited and disheartened. They should not only fear and flee (Lev 26:17), but fear and fall, when none pursued, Lev 26:36. A guilty conscience would be their continual terror, so that not only the sound of a trumpet, but the very sound of a leaf, should chase them. Note, Those that cast off the fear of God expose themselves to the fear of every thing else, Pro 28:1. Their very fears should dash them one against another, Lev 26:37, Lev 26:38. And those that had increased one another's guilt would now increase one another's fears. [3.] That they should have no hope of the forgiveness of their sins (Lev 26:39): They shall pine away in their iniquity, and how should they then live? Eze 33:10. Note, It is a righteous thing with God to leave those to despair of pardon that have presumed to sin; and it is owing to free grace if we are not abandoned to pine away in the iniquity we were born in and have lived in.

Keil-Delitzsch: Lev 26:1-2

Lev 26:1 and Lev 26:2 form the introduction; and the essence of the whole law, the observance of which will bring a rich blessing, and the transgression of it severe judgments, is summed up in two leading commandments, and placed at the head of the blessing and curse which were to be proclaimed. Ye shall not make to you elilim , nugatory gods, and set up carved images and standing images for worship, but worship Jehovah your God with the observance of His Sabbaths, and fear before His sanctuary. The prohibition of elilim , according to Lev 19:4, calls to mind the fundamental law of the decalogue (Exo 20:3-4, cf. Lev 21:23; Exo 23:24-25). To pesel (cf. Exo 20:4) and mazzebah (cf. Exo 23:24), which were not to be set up, there is added the command not to put משׂכּית אבן , "figure-stones,"in the land, to worship over (by) them. The "figure-stone"is a stone formed into a figure, and idol of stone, not merely a stone with an inscription or with hieroglyphical figures; it is synonymous with משׂכּית in Num 33:52, and consequently we are to understand by pesel the wooden idol as in Isa 44:15, etc. The construction of השׁתּחוה with על may be explained on the ground that the worshipper of a stone image placed upon the ground rises above it (for על in this sense, see Gen 18:2). - In Lev 26:3 the true way to serve God is urged upon the Israelites once more, in words copied verbally from Lev 19:30.

Keil-Delitzsch: Lev 26:3-5

The Blessing of Fidelity to the Law. - Lev 26:3-5. If the Israelites walked in the commandments of the Lord (for the expression see Lev 18:3.), the Lord would give fruitfulness to their land, that they should have bread to the full. "I will give you rain-showers in season." The allusion here is to the showers which fall at the two rainy seasons, and upon which the fruitfulness of Palestine depends, viz., the early and latter rain (Deu 11:14). The former of these occurs after the autumnal equinox, at the time of the winter-sowing of wheat and barley, in the latter half of October or beginning of November. It generally falls in heavy showers in November and December, and then after that only at long intervals, and not so heavily. The latter, or so-called latter rain, fall sin March before the beginning of the harvest of the winter crops, at the time of sowing the summer seed, and lasts only a few days, in some years only a few hours (see Robinson , Pal. ii. pp. 97ff.). - On Lev 26:5, Lev 26:6, see Lev 25:18-19.

Keil-Delitzsch: Lev 26:6-8

The Lord would give peace in the land, and cause the beasts of prey which endanger life to vanish out of the land, and suffer no war to come over it, but would put to flight before the Israelites the enemies who attacked them, and cause them to fall into their sword. שׁכב , to lie without being frightened up by any one, is a figure used to denote the quiet and peaceable enjoyment of life, and taken from the resting of a flock in good pasture-ground (Isa 14:30) exposed to no attacks from either wild beasts or men. מחריד is generally applied to the frightening of men by a hostile attack (Mic 4:4; Jer 30:10; Eze 39:26; Job 11:19); but it is also applied to the frightening of flocks and animals (Isa 17:2; Deu 28:26; Jer 7:33, etc.). רעה חיּה : an evil animal, for a beast of prey, as in Gen 37:20. "Sword," as the principal weapon applied, is used for war. The pursuing of the enemy relates to neighbouring tribes, who would make war upon the Israelites. לחרב נפל does not mean to be felled by the sword ( Knobel ), but to fall into the sword. The words, "five of you shall put a hundred to flight, and a hundred ten thousand,"are a proverbial expression for the most victorious superiority of Israel over their enemies. It is repeated in the opposite sense and in an intensified form in Deu 32:30 and Isa 30:17.

Keil-Delitzsch: Lev 26:9

Moreover the Lord would bestow His covenant blessing upon them without intermission. אל פּנה signifies a sympathizing and gracious regard (Psa 25:16; Psa 69:17). The multiplication and fruitfulness of the nation were a constant fulfilment of the covenant promise (Gen 17:4-6) and an establishment of the covenant (Gen 17:7); not merely the preservation of it, but the continual realization of the covenant grace, by which the covenant itself was carried on further and further towards its completion. This was the real purpose of the blessing, to which all earthly good, as the pledge of the constant abode of God in the midst of His people, simply served as the foundation.

Keil-Delitzsch: Lev 26:10

Notwithstanding their numerous increase, they would suffer no want of food. "Ye shall eat that which has become old, and bring out old for new." Multiplicabo vos et multiplicabo simul annonam vestram, adeo ut illam prae multitudine et copia absumere non possitis, sed illam diutissime servare adeoque abjicere cogamini, novarum frugum suavitate et copia superveniente ( C. a Lap .). הוציא vetustum triticum ex horreo et vinum ex cella promere ( Calvin ).

Keil-Delitzsch: Lev 26:11

"I will make My dwelling among you, and My soul will not despise you." משׁכּן , applied to the dwelling of God among His people in the sanctuary, involves the idea of satisfied repose.

Keil-Delitzsch: Lev 26:12

God's walking in the midst of Israel does not refer to His accompanying and leading the people on their journeyings, but denotes the walking of God in the midst of His people in Canaan itself, whereby He would continually manifest Himself to the nation as its God and make them a people of possession, bringing them into closer and closer fellowship with Himself, and giving them all the saving blessings of His covenant of grace.

Keil-Delitzsch: Lev 26:13

For He was their God, who had brought them out of the land of the Egyptians, that they might no longer be servants to them, and had broken the bands of their yokes and made them go upright. על מטת , lit., the poles of the yoke (cf. Eze 34:27), i.e., the poles which are laid upon the necks of beasts of burden (Jer 27:2) as a yoke, to bend their necks and harness them for work. It was with the burden of such a yoke that Egypt had pressed down the Israelites, so that they could no longer walk upright, till God by breaking the yoke helped them to walk upright again. As the yoke is a figurative description of severe oppression, so going upright is a figurative description of emancipation from bondage. קוממיּוּת , lit., a substantive, an upright position; here it is an adverb (cf. Ges. §100, 2).

Keil-Delitzsch: Lev 26:14-16

The Curse for Contempt of the Law. - The following judgments are threatened, not for single breaches of the law, but for contempt of all the laws, amounting to inward contempt of the divine commandments and a breach of the covenant (Lev 26:14, Lev 26:15), - for presumptuous and obstinate rebellion, therefore, against God and His commandments. For this, severe judgments are announced, which were to be carried to their uttermost in a fourfold series, if the hardening were obstinately continued. If Israel acted in opposition to the Lord in the manner stated, He would act towards them as follows (Lev 26:16, Lev 26:17): He would appoint over them בּחלה terror, - a general notion, which is afterwards particularized as consisting of diseases, sowing without enjoying the fruit, defeat in war, and flight before their enemies. Two kinds of disease are mentioned by which life is destroyed: consumption and burning, i.e., burning fever, πυρετός , febris , which cause the eyes (the light of this life) to disappear, and the soul (the life itself) to pine away; whereas in Exo 23:25; Exo 15:26, preservation from diseases is promised for obedience to the law. Of these diseases, consumption is at present very rare in Palestine and Syria, though it occurs in more elevated regions; but burning fever is one of the standing diseases. To these there would be added the invasion of the land by enemies, so that they would labour in vain and sow their seed to no purpose, for their enemies would consume the produce, as actually was the case (e.g., Jdg 6:3-4).

Keil-Delitzsch: Lev 26:17

Yea, the Lord would turn His face against them, so that they would be beaten by their enemies, and be so thoroughly humbled in consequence, that they would flee when no man pursued (cf. Lev 26:36).

But if these punishments did not answer their purpose, and bring Israel back to fidelity to its God, the Lord would punish the disobedient nation still more severely, and chasten the rebellious for their sin, not simply only, but sevenfold. This He would do, so long as Israel persevered in obstinate resistance, and to this end He would multiply His judgments by degrees. This graduated advance of the judgments of God is so depicted in the following passage, that four times in succession new and multiplied punishments are announced: (1) utter barrenness in their land, - that is to say, one heavier punishment (Lev 26:18-20); (2) the extermination of their cattle by beasts of prey, and childlessness, - two punishments (Lev 26:21, Lev 26:22); (3) war, plague, and famine, - three punishments (Lev 26:23-26); (4) the destruction of all idolatrous abominations, the overthrow of their towns and holy places, the devastation of the land, and the dispersion of the people among the heathen-four punishments which would bring the Israelites to the verge of destruction (Lev 26:27-33). In this way would the Lord punish the stiffneckedness of His people. - These divine threats embrace the whole of Israel's future. But the series of judgments mentioned is not to be understood historically, as a prediction of the temporal succession of the different punishments, but as an ideal account of the judgments of God, unfolding themselves with inward necessity in a manner answering to the progressive development of the sin. As the nation would not resist the Lord continually, but times of disobedience and apostasy would alternate with times of obedience and faithfulness, so the judgments of God would alternate with His blessings; and as the opposition would not increase in uniform progress, sometimes becoming weaker and then at other times gaining greater force again, so the punishments would not multiply continuously, but correspond in every case to the amount of the sin, and only burst in upon the incorrigible race in all the intensity foretold, when ungodliness gained the upper hand.

Keil-Delitzsch: Lev 26:18-20

First stage of the aggravated judgments. - If they did not hearken אלּה עד , " up to these "(the punishments named in Lev 26:16, Lev 26:17), that is to say, if they persisted in their disobedience even when the judgments reached to this height, God would add a sevenfold chastisement on account of their sins, would punish them seven times more severely, and break down their strong pride by fearful drought. Seven, as the number of perfection in the works of God, denotes the strengthening of the chastisement, even to the height of its full measure (cf. Pro 24:16). עז גּאון , lit., the eminence or pride of strength, includes everything upon which a nation rests its might; then the pride and haughtiness which rely upon earthly might and its auxiliaries (Eze 30:6, Eze 30:18; Eze 33:28); here it signifies the pride of a nation, puffed up by the fruitfulness and rich produce of its land. God would make their heaven (the sky of their land) like iron and their earth like brass, i.e., as hard and dry as metal, so that not a drop of rain and dew would fall from heaven to moisten the earth, and not a plant could grow out of the earth (cf. Deu 28:23); and when the land was cultivated, the people would exhaust their strength for nought. תּמם , consumi .

Constable: Lev 17:1--27:34

II. The private worship of the Israelites chs. 17--27

The second major division of Leviticus deals with how the Israelites were to express their worship of Yahweh in their private lives.

"The first sixteen chapters of Leviticus are concerned primarily with establishment and maintainance [sic] of the relationship between Israel and God. . .

"In chapter 17, the emphasis shifts to the affairs of the everyday life of the Israelites as God's holy people."¹⁸²

In critical circles, scholars are fond of referring to chapters 17-26 as the Holiness Code.¹⁸³

"Leviticus 17-26 has been called the Holiness Code because of the frequency of the occurrence of the phrase, attributed to Yahweh: You shall be holy because I am holy,' which corresponds to the theological theme of the other priestly laws but here receives a special emphasis. One other phrase is characteristic of these chapters: I am Yahweh' (sometimes I am Yahweh your God')."¹⁸⁴

"The section is not as distinctive as some scholars imagine; but it is characterized by moral and ethical instruction (with one chapter on the annual feasts), and it does base moral obligation in the nature of God. This last point is not unique, however. The Ten Commandments are prefaced by the statement I am the Lord your God' (Exod 20:2), and a typical Holiness Code' phrase has already been pointed out in Leviticus 11:44."¹⁸⁵

"The unique feature of the Holiness Code is the fact that in its introduction and throughout its laws, the audience it addresses is not the priests as such but the whole of the congregation. It calls the entire people of God to holiness. As has long been observed, the Holiness Code is not attached directly to the Priestly Code [Exod. 35--Lev. 16]. Between these two legal codes lies a striking account of Israel's offering sacrifices to goat idols' (Lev 17:1-9). Though brief and somewhat enigmatic, this short fragment of narrative, usually taken to be the work of the final composer, portrays the Israelites forsaking the tabernacle and sacrificing outside the camp.' The content of the narrative is similar to the incident of the golden calf: the people forsook the Lord and his provisions for worship and followed after other gods--in this case, the goat idols.' Unlike the narrative of the golden calf, however, which places the blame on the priesthood, this narrative of the goat idols makes the people, not the priests, responsible for the idolatry. Thus within the logic of the text, the incident of the people's sacrificing to the goat idols plays a similar role to that of the priests' involvement in the golden calf. Just as the narrative of the golden calf marked a transition in the nature of the covenant and its laws, so here also the incident of the goat idols marks the transition from the Code of the Priests to the additional laws of the Holiness Code."¹⁸⁶

Note how the three major law collections in the Pentateuch fit into the Sinai narrative.¹⁸⁷

"The placement of the Holiness Code (Lev 17-26) at this point in the narrative, then, plays an important role in the author's strategy. It aptly shows that God gave further laws designed specifically for the ordinary people. These laws are represented in the Holiness Code. Thus, as is characteristic of the Holiness Code, its laws pertain to specific situations in the everyday life of the people."¹⁸⁸

Constable: Lev 26:1-46

G. PROMISES AND WARNINGS ch. 26

"In the ancient Near East it was customary for legal treaties to conclude with passages containing blessings upon those who observed the enactments, and curses upon those who did not. The international treaties of the second millennium BC regularly included such sections as part of the text, with the list of curses greatly outnumbering the promises of blessing. In the Old Testament this general pattern occurs in Exodus 23:25-33, Deuteronomy 28:1-68, and Joshua 24:20. The maledictions of Mesopotamian legal texts or the curses in the treaties of the Arameans, Hittites and Assyrians were threats uttered in the names of the gods which had acted as witnesses to the covenants. That these threats could be implemented was part of the superstitious belief of people in the ancient Near East, and could have had some coincidental basis in fact. For the Israelites, however, there was no doubt that the God who wrought the mighty act of deliverance at the Red Sea will indeed carry out all that He has promised, whether for good or ill. Obedience to His commands is the certain way to obtain a consistent outpouring of blessing, whereas continued disobedience is a guarantee of future punishment."²⁹⁶

The blessings and curses in Exodus 23 dealt with the conquest of Canaan, but the blessings and curses in this chapter deal with Israel settled in the land.

Constable: Lev 26:1-2

1. Introduction to the final conditions of the covenant 26:1-2

Two fundamental commandments, one negative and one positive, introduce this section of blessings (vv. 1-2).

"In terms reminiscent of the inauguration of the covenant at Sinai (Ex. 21:1-4), Yahweh speaks of His uniqueness and exclusivity (Lev. 26:1), a fact that demanded unquestioning loyalty (26:2)."²⁹⁷

"The repetition of the term covenant in this chapter shows that the author intends it as a summary of the conditions for the covenant reestablished after the incident of the golden calf. Thus, as has been the form throughout God's address to Israel on Mount Sinai, the statement of the conditions of the covenant is prefaced by a reminder of two central laws: the prohibition of idolatry (v. 1) and the call to observe the Sabbath (v. 2). It was through idolatry that Israel first broke the covenant at Sinai. By contrast the Sabbath was to be a sign of Israel's covenant relationship with God."²⁹⁸

"All declension and decay may be said to be begun wherever we see these two ordinances despised--the sabbath and the sanctuary. They are the outward fence around the inward love commanded by v. 1."²⁹⁹

Constable: Lev 26:3-13

2. The blessing for fidelity to the law 26:3-13

The benefits of faithful obedience to the law of God would be fruitful harvests (vv. 4-5, 10), and security and peace (v. 6) including victory in battle (vv. 7-8) and numerical growth as a nation (v. 9; cf. Gen. 17:7). The obedient would also experience increasing enjoyment of God's presence and fellowship (vv. 11-12).

The Hebrew word translated "dwelling" (v. 11, miskan) is the source of the name "Shekinah." Later Jews described God's presence in the most holy place as the Shekinah (cf. Exod. 40:34-38).³⁰⁰

These blessings were both material (vv. 3-10) and spiritual (vv. 11-13). Israel enjoyed them in her years in the land to the extent that she remained faithful to the terms of the Mosaic Covenant. They are reminiscent of God's original blessings in the Garden of Eden (cf. Gen. 1:26, 28, 29; 2:8; 3:8).

Constable: Lev 26:14-33

3. The warning for contempt of the law 26:14-33

These punishments would come on the Israelites not for individual errors and sins but for a settled contempt for the whole covenant. They manifested such contempt in presumptuous and obstinate rebellion against the law (vv. 14-15).

"In the curses the converse of the blessings is spelled out. It was usual in legal texts for the curses to be much fuller and longer than the blessings section (cf. Deut. 28 . . .). But this disproportion has a positive didactic purpose as well. It is very easy to take the blessings of rain, peace, and even God's presence for granted. It is salutary to be reminded in detail of what life is like when his providential gifts are removed."³⁰¹

Moses revealed five levels or waves of punishment. If Israel did not turn back to God after the first penalties, God would bring the second on them, and so on.

26:14-17 The "terror" spoken of (v. 16) is probably a description of the Israelites' general feeling in response to the particular calamities that follow. These punishments were disease, lack of agricultural fruitfulness, and defeat by their enemies.

26:18-20 The second stage of barren land might follow (one curse; cf. 1 Kings 17:1).

26:21-22 The third stage would be divine extermination of their cattle and childlessness (two curses).

26:23-26 The fourth stage would be war, plagues, and famine (three curses).

26:27-33 The fifth stage would be the destruction of the Israelites' families, idolatrous practices and places, land, and nation through dispersion (four curses).

In her history in the land Israel experienced all of these curses because she eventually despised the Mosaic Law. The record of this failure is not consistent. There were periods of revival and consequent blessing. Nevertheless the general course of the nation proceeded downward.

Guzik: Lev 26:1-46

Leviticus 26 - Blessings and Curses

A. Blessings and curses for Israel.

1. (1-13) Blessings for obedience.

You shall not make idols for yourselves; neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves; nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am the LORD your God. You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary: I am the LORD. If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them, then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. Your threshing shall last till the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last till the time of sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none will make you afraid; I will rid the land of evil beasts, and the sword will not go through your land. You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you. For I will look on you favorably and make you fruitful, multiply you and confirm My covenant with you. You shall eat the old harvest, and clear out the old because of the new. I will set My tabernacle among you, and My soul shall not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves; I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you walk upright.

a. If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them, then I will give you rain in its season: God was determined to reveal Himself to the world through Israel, either by making them so blessed, the world would know only God could have blessed them so; or by making them so cursed, that only God could have cursed them and cause them to still survive. The choice was up to Israel.

b. And confirm My covenant with you: As a literary form, this chapter is similar to ancient treaties between a king and his people; this is God the King, making a covenant with His people, Israel.

i. "In the ancient Near East it was customary for legal treaties to conclude with passages containing blessings upon those who observed the enactments, and curses upon those who did not." (Harrrison)

c. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: This clearly speaks of a Divine blessing. These remarkable promises clearly have a supernatural element.

i. The principle behind that particular blessing is remarkable; the ratio of five to one hundred is one routing twenty; but the ratio of one hundred to ten thousand is one routing one hundred.

ii. Gideon's 300 defeated 135,000 Midianites; Jonathan and his armor bearer alone defeated a Philistine army.

d. I will set My tabernacle among you, and My soul shall not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people: The best promises are saved for last: First, that Israel would enjoy a special relationship with God. If not for this, all the material blessings described previously would be empty.

i. When Israel walked after the LORD, these blessings were real; one example of this is when the Queen of Sheba came to Solomon and saw a nation so blessed, she knew it had to be of God (1 Kings 10:1-13).

e. I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you walk upright: This final blessing speaks of freedom and dignity. This passage almost feels like the New Testament, God proclaims the liberty of His people and then invites them to walk in it.

2. (14-39) Curses for disobedience.

But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments, and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant, I also will do this to you: I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. I will set My face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you. And after all this, if you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. I will break the pride of your power; I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. And your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit. Then, if you walk contrary to Me, and are not willing to obey Me, I will bring on you seven times more plagues, according to your sins. I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number; and your highways shall be desolate. And if by these things you are not reformed by Me, but walk contrary to Me, then I also will walk contrary to you, and I will punish you yet seven times for your sins. And I will bring a sword against you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant; when you are gathered together within your cities I will send pestilence among you; and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I have cut off your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall bring back your bread by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied. And after all this, if you do not obey Me, but walk contrary to Me, then I also will walk contrary to you in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your idols; and My soul shall abhor you. I will lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet aromas. I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it. I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you; your land shall be desolate and your cities waste. Then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies' land; then the land shall rest and enjoy its sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate it shall rest; for the time it did not rest on your sabbaths when you dwelt in it. And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee; they shall flee as though fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues. They shall stumble over one another, as it were before a sword, when no one pursues; and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And those of you who are left shall waste away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; also in their fathers' iniquities, which are with them, they shall waste away.

a. If you do not obey Me . . . after all this, if you do not obey Me . . . if by these things you are not reformed by Me, but walk contrary . . . after all this, if you do not obey Me: These verses describe a progression of rebellion. God brought these curses slowly to a disobedient Israel, desiring repentance; but if Israel would not repent, the curses intensified.

b. I will punish you yet seven times for your sins: Significantly, God does not say He will forsake Israel, only that they will be cursed. Sadly, these curses became the tragic story of Israel's history - defeat, deprivation, exile, desolation, and disease all too often have marked Israel's past.

i. Even the horrific cannibalism described in Leviticus 26:29 was fulfilled in 2 Kings 6:26-29; Josephus also describes cannibalism in Jerusalem when under siege by the Romans; a woman killed and ate her own baby son (Wars, 6.3.4).

3. (40-46) The blessings of repentance.

But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, and that they also have walked contrary to Me, and that I also have walked contrary to them and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they accept their guilt; then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham I will remember; I will remember the land. The land also shall be left empty by them, and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; they will accept their guilt, because they despised My judgments and because their soul abhorred My statutes. Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God. But for their sake I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the LORD.'" These are the statutes and judgments and laws which the LORD made between Himself and the children of Israel on Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.

a. If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers: This displays the greatness of God's mercy. Despite how cursed Israel might be, God would always remember, receive, and bless a repentant Israel.

b. When they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them: This also applies to Christians under the New Covenant. God will always be faithful to the covenant, for the sake of the covenant we have with God through Jesus.

B. Blessing and cursing in a New Covenant perspective.

1. Are we under the same covenant of blessing and cursing? To some, Galatians 6:7 demonstrates this: Do not be deceived, God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. But in context, Paul is not promoting some law of spiritual "karma" that ensures we will get good when we do good, or always get bad when we do bad (such an absolute law would damn us all); instead he speaks simply about the management of our resources (see Galatians 6:6-10).

a. What Paul is simply saying is this: We may fool ourselves by expecting much when we sow little, but we cannot fool God, and the results of our poor sowing will be evident.

2. Galatians 3:13-14 makes it clear: Jesus received this curse upon Himself as He hung on the cross, fulfilling the Deuteronomy 21:23 promise of a curse to all who are not only executed but have their bodies publicly exposed to shame.

a. In the Jewish mind, such exposure was a fate worse than death itself; the humiliation brought upon the executed and their family was clear evidence of the curse.

3. Jesus bore the curse that we (even Gentiles) might bear the blessings of Abraham (the blessing of righteousness and life by faith) - but these blessings only come to those in Christ Jesus.

a. So, we are blessed not because of obedience, but because we are in Christ Jesus; and there is no more curse for us from God, because all the curse was borne by Jesus.

b. This does not deny the chastening hand of God; but the correction of a loving parent is good and desirable, though not pleasant at the time (Hebrews 12:7-11).

c. Nor does it deny the cause-and-effect nature of sin in our world; sin often carries with its own curse, which in some ways is distinct from God's direct curse upon us.

4. These blessings and curses may be necessary motivation for the carnal man, but it is not the ground God wants us live on - believing Jesus didn't bear all the curses we deserved, and believing we can be blessed in any other way than in Christ Jesus.

© 2004 David Guzik - No distribution beyond personal use without permission

Commentary -- Other

Evidence: Lev 26:1-13

Look at these wonderful blessings that God promised to Israel if they would obey Him. The rain would come in due season. The land would yield its harvest. The trees would give their fruit. Their food would satisfy them. They would have peace in the land, and no wild beasts would devour them. Truly blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord (Psalm 144:15).

Look, too, at the fearful curses that come with disobedience, which is so evident in our sinful nation, plagued with cancer and terrible diseases, violence, earthquakes, droughts, fires, tornadoes, killer bees, diseases in the soil, hurricanes and floods.

Introduction / Outline

JFB: Leviticus (Book Introduction)

LEVITICUS. So called from its treating of the laws relating to the ritual, the services, and sacrifices of the Jewish religion, the superintendence of which was entrusted to the Levitical priesthood. It is chiefly, however, the duties of the priests, "the sons of Aaron," which this book describes; and its claim to be the work of Moses is established by the following passages:-- 2Ch 30:16; Neh 8:14; Jer 7:22-23; Eze 20:11 Mat 8:4; Luk 2:22; Joh 8:5; Rom 10:4; Rom 13:9; 2Co 6:16; Gal 3:12; 1Pe 1:16.

JFB: Leviticus (Outline)

• BURNT OFFERINGS OF THE HERD. (Lev. 1:1-17)
• THE MEAT OFFERINGS. (Lev. 2:1-16)
• THE PEACE OFFERING OF THE HERD. (Lev. 3:1-17)
• SIN OFFERING OF IGNORANCE. (Lev 4:1-2)
• SIN OFFERING FOR THE PRIEST. (Lev. 4:3-35)
• TRESPASS OFFERINGS FOR CONCEALING KNOWLEDGE. (Lev 5:1)
• TOUCHING ANY THING UNCLEAN. (Lev 5:2-3)
• FOR SWEARING. (Lev 5:4-19)
• TRESPASS OFFERING FOR SINS DONE WITTINGLY. (Lev 6:1-7)
• THE LAW OF THE BURNT OFFERING. (Lev 6:8-13)
• THE LAW OF THE MEAT OFFERING. (Lev 6:14-18)
• THE HIGH PRIEST'S MEAT OFFERING. (Lev 6:19-23)
• THE LAW OF THE SIN OFFERING. (Lev 6:21-30)
• THE LAW OF THE TRESPASS OFFERING. (Lev. 7:1-27)
• THE PRIESTS' PORTION. (Lev 7:28-38)
• MOSES CONSECRATES AARON AND HIS SONS. (Lev. 8:1-36)
• THE PRIESTS' ENTRY INTO OFFICE. (Lev. 9:1-24)
• NADAB AND ABIHU BURNT. (Lev. 10:1-20)
• BEASTS THAT MAY AND MAY NOT BE EATEN. (Lev. 11:1-47)
• WOMAN'S UNCLEANNESS BY CHILDBIRTH. (Lev 12:1-8)
• THE LAWS AND TOKENS IN DISCERNING LEPROSY. (Lev. 13:1-59)
• THE RITES AND SACRIFICES IN CLEANSING OF THE LEPER. (Lev. 14:1-57)
• UNCLEANNESS OF MEN. (Lev. 15:1-18)
• UNCLEANNESS OF WOMEN. (Lev 15:19-33)
• HOW THE HIGH PRIEST MUST ENTER INTO THE HOLY PLACE. (Lev. 16:1-34)
• BLOOD OF BEASTS MUST BE OFFERED AT THE TABERNACLE DOOR. (Lev. 17:1-16)
• UNLAWFUL MARRIAGES. (Lev. 18:1-30)
• A REPETITION OF SUNDRY LAWS. (Lev. 19:1-37)
• GIVING ONE'S SEED TO MOLECH. (Lev. 20:1-27)
• OF THE PRIESTS' MOURNING. (Lev. 21:1-24)
• THE PRIESTS IN THEIR UNCLEANNESS. (Lev 22:1-9)
• WHO OF THE PRIESTS' HOUSE MAY EAT OF THEM. (Lev 22:10-16)
• THE SACRIFICES MUST BE WITHOUT BLEMISH. (Lev. 22:17-33)
• OF SUNDRY FEASTS. (Lev 23:1-4)
• THE PASSOVER. (Lev 23:5-8)
• THE SHEAF OF FIRST FRUITS. (Lev 23:9-14)
• FEAST OF PENTECOST. (Lev 23:15-22)
• FEAST OF TRUMPETS. (Lev 23:23-25)
• OIL FOR THE LAMPS. (Lev. 24:1-23)
• SABBATH OF THE SEVENTH YEAR. (Lev 25:1-7)
• THE JUBILEE. (Lev. 25:8-23)
• OF IDOLATRY. (Lev 26:1-2)
• A BLESSING TO THE OBEDIENT. (Lev 26:3-13)
• A CURSE TO THE DISOBEDIENT. (Lev. 26:14-39)
• CONCERNING VOWS. (Lev. 27:1-18)

TSK: Leviticus (Book Introduction)

Leviticus is a most interesting and important book; a book containing a code of sacrificial, ceremonial, civil, and judicial laws, which, for the purity of their morality, the wisdom, justice, and beneficence of their enactments, and the simplicity, dignity, and impressive nature of their rites, are perfectly unrivalled, and altogether worthy of their Divine Author. All the rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic law are at once dignified and expressive. They point out the holiness of their Author, the sinfulness of man, the necessity of an atonement, and the state of moral excellence to which the grace and mercy of the Creator have destined to raise the human soul. They include, as well as point out, the gospel of the Son of God; from which they receive their consummation and perfection. The sacrifices and oblations were significant of the atonement of Christ; the requisite qualities of these sacrifices were emblematical of his immaculate character; and the prescribed mode in the form of these offerings, and the mystical rites ordained, were allusive institutions, calculated to enlighten the apprehensions of the Jews, and to prepare them for the reception of the Gospel. The institution of the high priesthood typified Jesus, the Great High Priest, called and prepared of God, who hath an unchangeable priesthood, and is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him.

TSK: Leviticus 26 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Lev 26:1, Of idolatry; Lev 26:2, Religiousness; Lev 26:3, A blessing to them that keep the commandments; Lev 26:14, A curse to those that break them; Lev 26:40, God promises to remember them that repent.

Poole: Leviticus (Book Introduction)

THIRD BOOK OF MOSES CALLED LEVITICUS

THE ARGUMENT

This Book, containing the actions of about one month’ s space, acquainteth us with the Levitical ceremonies used after the tabernacle was erected and anointed in the wilderness, and is therefore called LEVITICUS. It treats of laws concerning persons and things, clean and unclean, by infirmity or accident; as also purifyings in general once a year, and divers particular cleansings, with a brief repetition of divers laws, Le 19 , together with certain feasts, of seven years’ rest, of the jubilee, and the redemption of things consecrated to God, &c.; but especially of such ceremonies as were used about offerings and sacrifices, which were both expiatory, for trespasses wittingly or unwittingly committed, whether by the people or the priests; and also eucharistical, in the owning of God’ s blessings. Here are declared also laws for the regulating of these, and prescribing the lawful time for marriages. Here is set down how several abominable sins are punishable by the magistrate; and how these things are to be managed by certain persons appropriated to the tribe of Levi, whose office is confirmed from heaven, and the maladministration of it threatened, and the judgment particularly inflicted on Nadab and Abihu for an example. Here are also promises and threatenings to the observers or breakers of this law.

Poole: Leviticus 26 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 26

God commands them to shun idolatry, Lev 26:1 , keep his sabbaths, and reverence his sanctuary, Lev 26:2 , and walk in his statutes, Lev 26:3 ; promising plenty, peace, victory, fruitfulness, his tabernacle and presence, Lev 26:4-13 . Dreadful threatenings against the despisers, haters, and breakers of his commands; he will give them over to diseases, their enemies, drought, pestilence, sword, ramble; they who remain shall fall one upon another, and pine away in their sins, Lev 26:14-39 . But if they confess their sins, and are humbled under God’ s judgments, God will remember his covenant, and show them favour in their enemies’ land, Lev 26:40-45 . These statutes the Lord gave to Israel in Mount Sinai by Moses, Lev 26:46 .

MHCC: Leviticus (Book Introduction)

God ordained divers kinds of oblations and sacrifices, to assure his people of the forgiveness of their offences, if they offered them in true faith and obedience. Also he appointed the priests and Levites, their apparel, offices, conduct, and portion. He showed what feasts they should observe, and at what times. He declared by these sacrifices and ceremonies, that the reward of sin is death, and that without the blood of Christ, the innocent Lamb of God, there can be no forgiveness of sins.

MHCC: Leviticus 26 (Chapter Introduction)

(Lev 26:1-13) Promises upon keeping the precepts.

(v. 14-39) Threatenings against disobedience.

(Lev 26:40-46) God promises to remember those that repent.

Matthew Henry: Leviticus (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Third Book of Moses, Called Leviticus

There is nothing historical in all this book of Leviticus except the account which it gives us of the consecration of the priesthood (ch. 8-9), of the punishment of Nadab and Abihu, by the hand of God, for offering strange fire (ch. 10), and of Shelomith's son, by the hand of the magistrate, for blasphemy (ch. 24). All the rest of the book is taken up with the laws, chiefly the ecclesiastical laws, which God gave to Israel by Moses, concerning their sacrifices and offerings, their meats and drinks, and divers washings, and the other peculiarities by which God set that people apart for himself, and distinguished them from other nations, all which were shadows of good things to come, which are realized and superseded by the gospel of Christ. We call the book Leviticus, from the Septuagint, because it contains the laws and ordinances of the levitical priesthood (as it is called, Heb 7:11), and the ministrations of it. The Levites were principally charged with these institutions, both to do their part and to teach the people theirs. We read, in the close of the foregoing book, of the setting up of the tabernacle, which was to be the place of worship; and, as that was framed according to the pattern, so must the ordinances of worship be, which were there to be administered. In these the divine appointment was as particular as in the former, and must be as punctually observed. The remaining record of these abrogated laws is of use to us, for the strengthening of our faith in Jesus Christ, as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, and for the increase of our thankfulness to God, that by him we are freed from the yoke of the ceremonial law, and live in the times of reformation.

Matthew Henry: Leviticus 26 (Chapter Introduction)

This chapter is a solemn conclusion of the main body of the levitical law. The precepts that follow in this and the following book either relate to some particular matters or are repetitions and explications of the foregoing institutions. Now this chapter contains a general enforcement of all those laws by promises of reward in case of obedience on the one hand, and threatenings of punishment for disobedience on the other hand, the former to work upon hope, the latter on fear, those two handles of the soul, by which it is taken hold of and managed. Here is, I. A repetition of two or three of the principal of the commandments (Lev 26:1, Lev 26:2). II. An inviting promise of all good things, if they would but keep God's commandments (Lev 26:3-13). III. A terrible threatening of ruining judgments which would be brought upon them if they were refractory and disobedient (v. 14-39). IV. A gracious promise of the return of mercy to those of them that would repent and reform (Lev 26:40, etc.). Deu. 28 is parallel to this.

Constable: Leviticus (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Title

The Hebrews derived the title of this book from the first word in it, wayyiqra', translated "And He [the Lord] called" (1:1). "And" or "then" is a conjunction that shows that what follows in Leviticus is a continuation of the narrative of Exodus. There is no break in the flow of thought. This is the third book of the Torah (Law).

The English title comes to us from the Vulgate (Latin version), which called this book Liber Leviticus. The Vulgate title came from the Septuagint (Greek version), which had as the title Leuitikon, meaning "relating to the Levites." This title is appropriate since the book contains requirements of the Mosaic Covenant that relate to the Levites, or more specifically, the priests.

"It would be wrong, however, to describe Leviticus simply as a manual for priests. It is equally, if not more, concerned with the part the laity should play in worship. Many of the regulations explain what the layman should sacrifice. They tell him when to go to the sanctuary, what to bring, and what he may expect the priest to do when he arrives. Most of the laws apply to all Israel: only a few sections specifically concern the priests alone, e.g., chs. 21-22. The lay orientation of the legislation is particularly noticeable in ch. 23, where the whole emphasis lies on the days that must be observed as days of sabbath rest."¹

Date and Writer

As I explained in the notes on Genesis, almost all Jewish and Christian scholars regarded Moses as the writer of all five books of the Law until about 100 years ago.²

God evidently revealed the material Moses recorded in Leviticus after He renewed the covenant with Israel (1:1).

Leviticus is unique in that it is largely a record of God's instructions to Moses.

"There is no book in the whole compass of that inspired Volume which the Holy Spirit has given us, that contains more of the very words of God than Leviticus. It is God that is the direct speaker in almost every page; His gracious words are recorded in the form wherein they were uttered."³

Scope

As mentioned, Leviticus contains revelation that was particularly appropriate for the priests. While ritual and legal matters predominate, Moses wove them into the historical narratives so as one reads Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers in order there is chronological movement forward. As we shall see, the legislation appears in the narrative at significant and reasonable places.

"The content of Leviticus supplements and completes that of Exodus in the religious and social spheres--and particularly the religious and ritual aspects of the covenant as made, broken and renewed actually at Sinai; this would be reflected by the terminal blessings and curses of Leviticus 26."⁴

"Leviticus enlarges upon matters involving the ordering of worship at the divine sanctuary that are mentioned only briefly in Exodus. Whereas the latter described the specifications and construction of the tabernacle, Leviticus narrates the way in which the priests are to care for the sanctuary and throne room of the Great King. The work is a fundamentally important legal treatise because it contains the regulations by which the religious and civil life of the Hebrew nation was to be governed once the land of Canaan was occupied."⁵

Historically the book fits within the one month between God's occupation of the tabernacle (Exod. 40:17, 34-38) and the taking of the census at Sinai (Num. 1:1-3). However because it contains so much legal material, we should consider it along with the rest of the Mosaic Law that God began to reveal in Exodus.

"It carries on to its completion the giving of the law at Sinai, which commenced at Ex. 25, and by which the covenant constitution was firmly established."⁶

Purpose

"Though the covenant arrangement up to this point clearly specified the need for Israel, the vassal, to appear before her Lord on stated occasions and singled out first Moses and then the priesthood as mediators in this encounter, there yet remained the need to describe the nature of the tribute to be presented, the precise meaning and function of the priesthood, the definition of holiness and unholiness, and a more strict clarification of the places and times of pilgrimage to the dwelling place of the great King. This is the purpose of the book of Leviticus."⁷

"The central theme of the book is holiness. The book intends to show how Israel was to fulfill its covenant responsibility to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation' (Ex 19:6; Lev 26:5)."⁸

"How to maintain the vital covenantal relationship between the Israelites and their God is the concern of the book of Leviticus."⁹

"New Testament theology makes full use of the idea of holiness. All Christians are holy, saints' in most English translations. That is, they have been called by God to be his people just as ancient Israel had been (Col. 1:2; 1 Pet. 1:2; 2:9-10; cf. Exod. 19:5-6). But this state of holiness must find expression in holy living (Col. 1:22; 1 Pet. 1:15). Sanctification is expressed through obedience to the standard of teaching (Rom. 6:17-19), just as in Leviticus through obedience to the law. Peter urges his readers to make the motto of Leviticus their own: Be holy, for I am holy' (1 Pet. 1:16). The imitation of God is a theme that unites the ethics of Old and New Testaments (cf. Matt. 5:48; 1 Cor. 11:1)."¹⁰

". . . the principles underlying the OT are valid and authoritative for the Christian, but the particular applications found in the OT may not be. The moral principles are the same today, but insofar as our situation often differs from the OT setting, the application of the principles in our society may well be different now."¹¹

". . . the Levitical rituals are still of immense relevance. It was in terms of these sacrifices that Jesus himself and the early church understood his atoning death. Leviticus provided the theological models for their understanding. If we wish to walk in our Lord's steps and think his thoughts after him, we must attempt to understand the sacrificial system of Leviticus. It was established by the same God who sent his Son to die for us; and in rediscovering the principles of OT worship written there, we may learn something of the way we should approach a holy God."¹²

Importance

". . . it is no exaggeration to claim that the Book of Leviticus has had more impact on Judaism than any other book of the Old testament. Traditionally it was the first book taught to Jewish children, and over half the commentary of the Talmud is concerned with understanding its contents."¹³

Message¹⁴

The major theme of Leviticus is worship. Moses introduced this theme in the later chapters of Exodus, but he developed it more fully in Leviticus.

The book reveals how sinful Israelites could have a relationship with the holy God who dwelt among them. It also reveals how they could maintain that relationship and express it through worship.

One of the major revelations in Leviticus is the nature of sin. God took the fact that man is a sinner for granted in Leviticus. He established this in Genesis and Exodus. He clarified the nature of man's sinfulness in Leviticus. Sin has a three-fold character.

1. Sin is unlikeness to God. In the Creation we see man made in the image of God, but in the Fall we begin to see man's unlikeness to God. The whole system of worship in Leviticus teaches this truth. God is different from man ethically and morally. The word holy (Heb. kodesh) occurs over 150 times in Leviticus, more than in any other book of the Bible. The word occurs even in the sections of the book dealing with personal hygiene. Holy means pure, unblemished, clean, blameless. The opposite of holy is sinful. It is in contrast with God's holiness that we can understand man's sinfulness. Leviticus reveals the standards by which sinful people could have fellowship with a holy God. These standards and regulations point out the vast difference between the character of man and the character of God. God sees us as His Son as Christians (i.e., "in Christ").

2. Sin is essentially wrong that man does to God. To have a relationship with God, the wrong the redeemed sinner had done to God had to be atoned for. The Israelite did this wrong daily. It was the natural fruit of his sinful nature. Consequently he had to make payment for his sin periodically to God (monthly, seasonally, and yearly). God specified how the sinners were to pay for the wrong done Him, namely, by the offerings and sacrifices specified in the law. In Leviticus we learn that wrong done to another human being is wrong done to God. People belong to God, God gives them their lives in trust, and they bear God's image. When one person violates the basic rights of another, he has wronged not only that person but God too (cf. Gen. 39:9; Ps. 51:4). We too sin daily, but "Jesus paid it all." We could never compensate God adequately for the wrong we do to Him by sinning.

3. Sin results in distance from God. Because man is unlike God in his character, he is separate from God in his experience. The Israelites could not approach God except as God made a way and brought them near to Himself. The levitical system of worship illustrated the distance between man and God due to sin and the need for some provision to bring man back to God. The veil, the curtains, and the priests separated the ordinary Israelite from God. He doubtless sensed his personal separation from God as he participated in worship. Jesus tore the veil in two and opened access to God for us. After the Fall, Adam and Eve hid from God.

Another major revelation in Leviticus is the nature of atonement. Atonement is, of course, the solution to the problems that sin creates. Atonement means satisfaction. God covered the sins of the Israelites until a final, acceptable sacrifice would remove them completely. Old Testament saints obtained salvation on credit. (Ill. of a credit card) Through atonement man who is a sinner could enter into fellowship with God. Three things had to be present to make atonement for sin.

1. There had to be substitution. Every animal sacrifice in Israel involved the substitution of one life for another. A living being had to stand in the sinner's place and take the punishment for his sin. The substitute had to be sinless. Every sacrifice of an animal involved the death of an innocent substitute. Animals do not sin. They are not morally responsible.

2. There had to be imputation. God transferred the guilt of the sinner to his substitute when the sinner personally identified with his substitute by laying his hands on it. This ritual illustrated the transference of guilt for the Israelites.

3. There had to be death. Finally the substitute to which God had imputed guilt had to die. Atonement could not take place without death. The shedding of blood illustrated death. Blood is the essence of life (17:11). Bloodshed was a visual demonstration of life poured out. Sin always results in death (cf. Rom. 6:23). Clearly love lay behind this plan even though Moses did not explain why God provided atonement in Leviticus. God opened the way for sinners to have fellowship with Himself by providing for the covering of sins. God could have preserved His holiness and satisfied the demands of his justice by annihilating every sinner. However, God chose another way because He loves man.

A third major revelation in Leviticus is the nature of redemption. Redemption essentially means purchase. To redeem means to purchase for oneself. When God redeemed Israel in Egypt, He bought the nation for Himself. God then provided freedom so the Israelites could be His special treasure. Leviticus teaches three things about redemption.

1. Redemption rests on righteousness. Leviticus reveals that God did what was right to restore man to Himself. He did not simply dismiss sin as unimportant. He provided a way whereby the guilt of sin could be paid for righteously. Redemption rests on a payment to God, not pity.

2. Redemption is possible only by blood. The sacrificial shedding of blood is the giving up of life. The rites of animal sacrifice portrayed this graphically. People do not obtain redemption when they pour out their lives in service but by life poured out in death (cf. Heb. 9:22). Man's redemption cost God the life of His own Son ultimately.

3. Redemption should produce holiness. Redemption should lead to a manner of life that is separate from sin. Redemption does not excuse us from the responsibility of being holy. It gives us the opportunity to be holy. Holiness of life results from a relationship to God and fellowship (communion) with Him that redemption makes possible.

Redemption deals with the sinner's relationship to God whereas atonement deals with his relationship to sin. You have experienced redemption, but God has atoned for your sins.

I would summarize the message of Leviticus as follows on the basis of this three-fold emphasis on sin, atonement, and redemption. God has made provision for the covering of man's sin so man can have fellowship with God.

Genesis revealed that God made man in His own image to have fellowship with Himself. Man enjoyed that fellowship as long as he trusted and obeyed God. However when man ceased to trust and obey God, sin broke that fellowship. God then proceeded to demonstrate to fallen man that He is trustworthy, faithful. Those individuals who trusted and obeyed Him were able to enjoy fellowship with God again.

Exodus emphasized that God is also sovereign. He is the ultimate ruler of the universe who can and did redeem the nation of Israel. He did this so He could demonstrate to all people of all time how glorious it can be to live under the government of God.

Leviticus deals with how sinners can have fellowship with a holy God. Leviticus clarifies both the sinfulness of man and the holiness of God. The proper response of the redeemed sinner to a holy God is worship. Leviticus explains how Israel was to worship God. The Israelites worshipped God under the Old Covenant. Our worship is different because we live under the New Covenant.

Constable: Leviticus (Outline)

Outline

"At first sight the book of Leviticus might appear to be a haphazard, even repetitious arrangement of enactments involving the future life in Canaan of the Israelite people. Closer examination will reveal, however, that quite apart from the division of the work into two basic themes, many of the chapters have their own literary structure. Examples of this can be seen in material patterned after the fashion of a Mesopotamian tablet, with its title, textual content and colophon, as in Leviticus 1:3-7:37-38. Other chapters exhibit a distinct form of construction, which would doubtless prove extremely valuable for purposes of memorizing the contents. Examples of this are to be found in the triadic pattern of the leprosy regulations introduced by the phrase The Lord said to Moses' (Lv. 13:1; 14:1, 33), or the concentric arrangement of propositions (palistrophe) in Leviticus 24:16-22. A particularly attractive literary form is the introverted (chiastic) passage occurring in Leviticus 15:2-30, suggesting considerable artistic ability on the part of the writer."¹⁵

I. The public worship of the Israelites chs. 1-16

A. The laws of sacrifice chs. 1-7

1. The burnt offering ch. 1

2. The meal offering ch. 2

3. The peace offerings ch. 3

4. The sin offerings 4:1-5:13

5. The trespass offerings 5:14-6:7

6. Instructions for the priests concerning the offerings 6:8-7:38

B. The institution of the Aaronic priesthood chs. 8-10

1. The consecration of the priests and the sanctuary ch. 8

2. The entrance of Aaron and his sons into their office ch. 9

3. The sanctification of the priesthood ch. 10

C. Laws relating to ritual cleanliness chs. 11-15

1. Uncleanness due to contact with certain animals ch. 11

2. Uncleanness due to childbirth ch. 12

3. Uncleanness due to skin and covering abnormalities chs. 13-14

4. Uncleanness due to bodily discharges associated with reproduction ch. 15

D. The Day of Atonement ch. 16

1. Introductory information 16:1-10

2. Instructions concerning the ritual 16:11-28

3. Instructions concerning the duty of the people 16:29-34

II. The private worship of the Israelites chs. 17-27

A. Holiness of conduct on the Israelites' part chs. 17-20

1. Holiness of food ch. 17

2. Holiness of the marriage relationship ch. 18

3. Holiness of behavior toward God and man ch. 19

4. Punishments for serious crimes ch. 20

B. Holiness of the priests, gifts, and sacrifices chs. 21-22

1. The first list of regulations for priests 21:1-15

2. The second list of regulations for priests 21:16-24

3. The third list of regulations for priests ch. 22

C. Sanctification of the Sabbath and the feasts of Yahweh ch. 23

1. The Sabbath 23:1-3

2. The Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread 23:4-8

3. The Feast of Firstfruits 23:9-14

4. The Feast of Pentecost 23:15-22

5. The Feast of Trumpets 23:23-25

6. The Day of Atonement 23:26-32

7. The Feast of Tabernacles 23:33-44

D. The preparation of the holy lamps and showbread 24:1-9

E. The punishment of a blasphemer 24:10-23

F. Sanctification of the possession of land by the sabbatical and jubilee years ch. 25

1. The sabbatical year 25:1-7

2. The year of jubilee 25:8-55

G. Promises and warnings ch. 26

1. Introduction to the final conditions of the covenant 26:1-2

2. The blessing for fidelity to the law 26:3-13

3. The warning for contempt of the law 26:14-33

4. The objective of God's judgments in relation to the land and nation of Israel 26:34-46

H. Directions concerning vows ch. 27

1. Vows concerning persons 27:1-8

2. Vows concerning animals 27:9-13

3. Vows concerning other property 27:14-29

4. The redemption of tithes 27:30-34

Constable: Leviticus

Leviticus

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Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

Haydock: Leviticus (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION.

The Book is called Leviticus : because it treats of the offices, ministries, rites and ceremonies of the Priests and Levites. The Hebrews call it Vayyicra , from the word with which it begins; (Challoner) "and (the Lord) called." The a at the end of this word is printed in a smaller size, to insinuate that little children should begin to read this Book first, if we may give any credit to those who attempt to account for all the irregularities sanctioned by the great Massora! But such irregular letters are the faults of some transcribers, and are of no authority. (Kennicott, Dis. 1.) --- This Book is styled also, "The Priests' Law." (Haydock) --- The seven first chapters explain the sacrifices; the sixteen next, the offices and ordination of the Priests and Levites. From the 23d chapter to the end, the feasts are designated, and some regulations respecting vows are interspersed. All these rites and sacrifices foreshewed the eucharistic sacrifice of Jesus Christ, (St. Leo, ser. 8. de pas. Trid. sef. 22. c. 1.) and tended to keep the Hebrews employed, and at a greater distance from idolatry. (St. Jerome on Isai. i. &c.) --- These prescriptions were given during the month of Nisan, in the second year after the exit, while the Hebrews remained at the foot of Mount Sinai. God spoke from the New Tabernacle. (Tirinus) --- In the Book of Deuteronomy we find but few regulations respecting sacrifices, as Moses had sufficiently explained them in this book. (Du Hamel) --- If we confine ourselves to the letter, we may say these precepts are not good, and carnal; (Ezechiel xx. 25.; Hebrews vii. 16.) but if we consider the spirit, we shall confess that they are excellent, and spiritual. (Romans vii. 14.; 2 Corinthians iii. 6.; Origen, contra Cels. vii.) (Calmet)

Gill: Leviticus (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO LEVITICUS

This book is commonly called by the Jews Vajikra, from the first word with which it begins, and sometimes תורת כהנים, "the law of the priests" ^a; and this is its name in the Syriac and Arabic versions: by the Septuagint interpreters it is called λευιτικον, and by the Latins, Leviticus, or the Levitical book, because it gives an account of the Levitical priesthood, as the apostle calls it, Heb 7:11. It treats of the sacrifices under the Levitical dispensation, and of the priests concerned in them, and of the times and seasons in which they were offered, and of many other rites and ceremonies. That it was wrote by Moses is not only generally believed by the Jews, but is affirmed in the New Testament; see Mat 8:4 compared with Lev 14:2 from whence, as well as from other citations out of it in other places, the authority of it may be concluded. The matter of it was delivered to Moses, and very likely by him then written upon the erection of the tabernacle, which was in the second year of the Israelites coming out of Egypt, in the first month, and the first day of the month, Exo 40:17 and it was on the same day that the Lord spake to Moses out of it, and delivered to him the laws concerning sacrifices, recorded in the first seven chapters; see Num 1:1 compared with Lev 1:1 and on the eighth day of the same month, and some following days, the remainder of it was given to him, and written by him, see Lev 8:1 to which agrees the Targum of Jonathan on Lev 1:1.

"when Moses had made an end of erecting the tabernacle, Moses thought and reasoned in his heart, and said, Mount Sinai, its excellency was the excellency of an hour, and its holiness the holiness of three days, it was not possible for me to ascend unto it, until the time that the Word was speaking with me; but this tabernacle of the congregation, its excellency is an excellency for ever, and its holiness an holiness for ever, it is fit that I should not enter into it, until the time that be speaks with me from before the Lord; and therefore the Word of the Lord called to Moses, and the Word of the Lord spake with him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying;''

and to the same purpose the Jerusalem Targum. It was written in the year from the creation of the world 2514, and about 1490 years before the coming of Christ. The various sacrifices, rites, and ceremonies made mention of in it, were typical of Christ, and shadows of good things to come by him: there are many things in it, which give great light to several passages in the New Testament, and it is worthy of diligent reading and consideration.

Gill: Leviticus 26 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO LEVITICUS 26

In this chapter, after a repetition of some laws against idolatry, and concerning keeping sabbaths, and reverencing the sanctuary of God, Lev 26:1; in order to encourage the Israelites to keep the various statutes and commandments in this book, and in the preceding, many promises are made of plenty, and peace, and safety from enemies, and of the presence of God with them, Lev 26:3; and on the contrary, to such as should despise and break his commandments, the most grievous things are threatened, as diseases of body, destruction by their enemies, barrenness and unfruitfulness of land, the sore judgments of wild beasts, famine, sword, and pestilence, Lev 26:14; and yet after all, when they should confess their sins, and were humbled for them, the Lord promises to remember the covenant he made with their ancestors, and would deal kindly with them, and not cast them away, and utterly destroy them, Lev 26:40.