Text -- Leviticus 26:1-32 (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. 26:20 Your strength will be used up in vain, your land will not give its yield, and the trees of the land will not produce their fruit. 26:21 “‘If you walk in hostility against me and are not willing to obey me, I will increase your affliction seven times according to your sins. 26:22 I will send the wild animals against you and they will bereave you of your children, annihilate your cattle, and diminish your population so that your roads will become deserted. 26:23 “‘If in spite of these things you do not allow yourselves to be disciplined and you walk in hostility against me, 26:24 I myself will also walk in hostility against you and strike you seven times on account of your sins. 26:25 I will bring on you an avenging sword, a covenant vengeance. Although you will gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you and you will be given into enemy hands. 26:26 When I break off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in one oven; they will ration your bread by weight, and you will eat and not be satisfied. 26:27 “‘If in spite of this you do not obey me but walk in hostility against me, 26:28 I will walk in hostile rage against you and I myself will also discipline you seven times on account of your sins. 26:29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. 26:30 I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars, and I will stack your dead bodies on top of the lifeless bodies of your idols. I will abhor you. 26:31 I will lay your cities waste and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will refuse to smell your soothing aromas. 26:32 I myself will make the land desolate and your enemies who live in it will be appalled.

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.”

NET Notes: Lev 26:20

¹ tn Heb “the tree of the land will not give its fruit.” The collective singular has been translated as a plural. Tg. Onq., some medieval Hebrew mss, Smr, LXX, and Tg. Ps.-J. have “the field” as in v. 4, rather than “the land.”

NET Notes: Lev 26:21

¹ tn Heb “hostile with me,” but see the added preposition בְּ (bet) on the phrase “in hostility” in v. 24 and 27.

² tn Heb “your blow, stroke”; cf. TEV “punishment”; NLT “I will inflict you with seven more disasters.”

NET Notes: Lev 26:22

¹ tn Heb “the animal of the field.” This collective singular has been translated as a plural. The expression “animal of the field” refers to a wild (i.e., nondomesticated) animal.

² tn The words “of your children” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied.

³ tn Heb “and diminish you.”

NET Notes: Lev 26:23

¹ tn Heb “And if in these.”

² tn Heb “with me,” but see the added preposition בְּ (bet) on the phrase “in hostility” in vv. 24 and 27.

NET Notes: Lev 26:24

¹ tn Heb “and I myself will also strike you.”

NET Notes: Lev 26:25

¹ tn Heb “vengeance of covenant”; cf. NAB “the avenger of my covenant.”

² tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) has a concessive force in this context.

³ tn Heb “in hand of enemy,” but Tg. Ps.-J. and Tg. Neof. have “in the hands of your enemies” (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 454).

NET Notes: Lev 26:26

¹ tn Heb “When I break to you staff of bread” (KJV, ASV, and NASB all similar).

² tn Heb “they will return your bread in weight.”

NET Notes: Lev 26:27

¹ tn Heb “And if in this.”

² tn Heb “with me.”

NET Notes: Lev 26:28

¹ tn Heb “in rage of hostility with you”; NASB “with wrathful hostility”; NRSV “I will continue hostile to you in fury”; CEV “I’ll get really furious.”

NET Notes: Lev 26:29

¹ tn Heb “and the flesh of your daughters you will eat.” The phrase “you will eat” has not been repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

NET Notes: Lev 26:30

¹ sn Regarding these cultic installations, see the remarks in B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 188, and R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:903. The term rendered “incense altars” might better be rendered “sanctuaries [of foreign deities]” or “stelae.”

² tn The translation reflects the Hebrew wordplay “your corpses…the corpses of your idols.” Since idols, being lifeless, do not really have “corpses,” the translation uses “dead bodies” for people and “lifeless bodies” for the idols.

³ tn Heb “and my soul will abhor you.”

NET Notes: Lev 26:31

¹ tn Heb “And I will give your cities a waste”; NLT “make your cities desolate.”