Leviticus 26 commentary

LEVITICUS 26 COMMENTARY
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
Reward for Obedience
1 “‘Do not make idols or set up an image or a
sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a
carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I
am the Lord your God.
BARNES, "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.
CLARKE, "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.
GILL, "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
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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.
HENRY 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
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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,
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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.
JAMISON, "Lev_26:1, Lev_26:2. Of idolatry.
Ye shall make you no idols — Idolatry had been previously forbidden (Exo_20:4,
Exo_20:5), but the law was repeated here with reference to some particular forms of it
that were very prevalent among the neighboring nations.
a standing image — that is, “upright pillar.”
image of stone — 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.
K&D 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
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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 ‫ית‬ ִ‫כּ‬ ְ‫שׂ‬ ַ‫מ‬ ‫ן‬ ֶ‫ב‬ ֶ‫,א‬ “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 ‫ית‬ ִ‫כּ‬ ְ‫שׂ‬ ַ‫מ‬ in Num_33:52,
and consequently we are to understand by pesel the wooden idol as in Isa_44:15, etc. The
construction of ‫ָה‬‫ו‬ֲ‫ח‬ ַ‫תּ‬ ְ‫שׁ‬ ִ‫ה‬ with ‫ל‬ַ‫ע‬ may be explained on the ground that the worshipper of
a stone image placed upon the ground rises above it (for ‫ל‬ַ‫ע‬ 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.
COFFMAN, “Verse 1
PART FIVE
CONCLUDING EXHORTATIONS
(Leviticus 26-27)
"This chapter is indeed an inspired prophecy in the true sense of that word, an
utterance of the Spirit of God regarding things then present and things yet
future."[1] Here, in the amazing prophecies of this chapter is the final and
irrevocable defeat of the modern nonsense that denies predictive prophecy as a
major feature of the Holy Bible! These prophecies were written at a time before
Israel ever entered Canaan, and not only do they predict the behavior of Israel and
the consequences of it during their tenancy in Canaan, they also describe the history
of Israel through the ages following their expulsion. To be sure, critics rely upon the
old discredited device of late-dating the prophecies, but their cavil no longer
interests very many people. Micklem observed that, "The attempt to (late-)date
sections and verses of Leviticus is a fascinating literary exercise, but inevitably
inconclusive."[2] Furthermore, even if the date of Leviticus could be moved out of
its matrix in the law of Moses, the book remains a continuing prophecy, as up-to-
date as this morning's newspaper.
"All of the miseries endured by Israel throughout this dispensation by their
dispersion among the Gentiles are but a literal accomplishment of what is recorded
here prophetically."[3] Even the arrangement of this chapter with its list of
blessings and curses, being placed at the end of a long elaboration of laws and
regulations, "was the way to close a major legal text"[4] in the times of Moses, a
pattern that was followed in connection with other Biblical lists of blessings and
curses, as in Deuteronomy 28; Exodus 23:25ff; and Joshua 24:20. Thus, the text
itself bears witness that these chapters lie within the literary forms of the mid-
second millennium B.C.
5

The chapter is easily outlined. First, there is a short summary in the form of a brief
catechism regarding major divisions of God's laws (Leviticus 26:1-2). Secondly,
there is a list of blessings which God promised Israel upon condition of their
obedience to the divine law (Leviticus 26:3-13). Thirdly, a list of curses and
punishments is recorded, all of which will fall upon Israel in the event of their
rebellion and disobedience. Fourthly, a promise of forgiveness and restoration
(Leviticus 26:40-46) is included, contingent upon Israel's repentance.
"Ye shall make you no idols, neither shall ye rear you up a graven image, or a pillar,
neither shall ye place any figured stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am
Jehovah your God. Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am
Jehovah."
"Neither shall ye rear you up a graven image ..." "This means, you shall erect no
carved image, obelisk, or stone with religious symbols on it."[5] Upon entering
Canaan, Israel would also encounter other types of "pillars," such as the phallic
symbols of the pagan cults. All such things were forbidden to Israel. "This
expression to bow down unto (or toward) a pillar forbade, not only worshipping a
pillar (or image), but also worshipping in the presence of it."[6]
"Ye shall keep my sabbaths ..." The notion that this concerned merely the weekly
sabbath is grossly incorrect. Jewish writers, especially, were aware of this. LeTorah
has this:
"Of all the laws of the Torah, what makes the law of the Sabbatical Year so
important that its violation is named as the cause of Israel's exile? This is true
because the Sabbatical Year was to teach that the whole world belongs to God ... If
man defies God by not observing the Sabbatical Year, he thereby regards himself as
the sole proprietor of the land (or whatever he owns)."[7]
The importance of this is seen in the fact that a mere keeping of the weekly sabbath,
as advocated by some, is by no stretch of the imagination any adequate keeping of
God's ancient law of the sabbath.
"And reverence my sanctuary ..." A footnote in the Tyndale Bible has the following
explanation:
"To feare the fanctuarie, is dylygently to performe the true worfypping and
feruyce of God, to leue (leave) of (off) nothynge, to obferue and kepe the purenes of
both of bodye and mynde, verely and not ypocritelike, to beleue that he knoweth
and beholdeth, doeth and ruleth all thynges: to bewarre of offendyng hym and with
all feare and dylygence to walk in the pathes of his lawes."[8]
These three commands (Leviticus 26:1-2) constitute a short summary of the first
great table of the Decalogue setting forth man's duties toward God.
6

COKE, “Verse 1
Leviticus 26:1. Ye shall make you no idols, &c.— For the word rendered idols, see
on ch. Leviticus 19:4. For the word rendered standing image, see Exodus 34:13. The
words rendered, image of stone, are, in the Hebrew, ‫אבן‬ ‫משׁכית‬ eben mashkit, a stone
of fixing; i.e. a stone fixed, or set up. Some suppose, with the margin of our English
Bibles, that the words signify a pictured stone, like those in use among the
Egyptians, which were full of hieroglyphics, expressing some perfections of their
gods: but it is most probable the sacred writer means, by forbidding pillars, and
fixed stones, to forbid the superstitious use of those obelisks and pillars, which, in
the ruder times of idolatry, were erected to the honour of the sun, moon, and stars;
and which were of different forms, sometimes pyramidical, sometimes plain square
stones, well known among the Greeks by the name βεθυλια : and it is probable that
this practice was derived from an imitation of the true worshippers; see Genesis
28:18. Jablonski has traced the origin of these pillars in the very curious and
learned Prolegomena, cap. 2: sect. 33 prefixed to his Pantheon, to which we refer.
We may just observe, that the sacred writer being about to give solemn promises
and denunciations to his people, by way of enforcing all the foregoing precepts,
prefaces them by a recapitulation of the two laws which peculiarly distinguished the
Israelites: the abhorrence of idolatry, and the observation of the sabbath; each alike
calculated to preserve and enforce the worship of the true God.
ELLICOTT, “(1) Ye shall make you no idols.—The first two verses of this chapter
are still a part of the previous section in the Hebrew original. By separating them
from their proper position, and making them begin a new chapter, both the logical
sequence and the import of these two verses are greatly obscured. As Lev legislated
for cases where Israelites are driven by extreme poverty to sell themselves to a
heathen, and when they may be compelled to continue in this service to the year of
jubile, and thus be obliged to witness idolatrous practices, the Lawgiver solemnly
repeats the two fundamental precepts of Judaism, which they might be in danger of
neglecting, viz., to abstain from idol-worship and to keep the Sabbath, which are
two essential commandments of the Decalogue. The same two commandments, but
in reverse order, are also joined together in Leviticus 19:3-4.
Idols.—For this expression see Leviticus 19:4.
Nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image.—Better, nor shall ye rear
you up a graven image or pillar. Graven image is not only a plastic image of a
heathen deity, but a visible or sensuous representation of the God of Israel (Exodus
20:19-20; Deuteronomy 4:15-16).
A standing image.—This expression, which only occurs once more in the text of the
Authorised Version (Micah 5:13), and four times in the Margin (1 Kings 14:23;
Jeremiah 43:13; Hosea 3:4; Hosea 10:1), is the rendering of a Hebrew word
(matzebah), which is usually and more correctly translated “pillar” or “statue”
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(Genesis 28:18; Genesis 28:22; Genesis 31:13, &c.). This was a plain and rude stone
without any image engraved on it, and was not unfrequently erected to God himself.
but in after-time more especially as a memorial to false deities. (Genesis 28:18;
Genesis 28:22; Genesis 31:13; Genesis 35:14, with Exodus 23:24; Exodus 34:13, &c.)
Neither shall ye set up any image of stone.—The authorities during the second
Temple interpreted the words here rendered “images of stone” to denote beholding,
or worshipping stones—i.e., stones set in the ground in places of worship upon
which the worshippers prostrated themselves to perform their devotions. The stone
was therefore a kind of signal, calling the attention of the worshipper to itself, so
that he may fall down upon it. With such stones, these authorities assure us, the
Temple was paved, since they were perfectly lawful in the sanctuary, but must not
be used in worship out of the Temple, or rather, out of the land, as these authorities
understood the words “in your land” here to denote. Hence the Chaldee Version
paraphrases it, “and a painted stone ye shall not place in your land to prostrate
yourselves upon it, but a pavement adorned with figures and pictures ye may put in
the floor of your sanctuary, but not to bow down upon it,” i.e., in an idolatrous
manner. Hence, too, the ancient canon, “in your own land” (i.e., in all other lands)
“ye must not prostrate yourselves upon stones, but ye may prostrate yourselves
upon the stones in the sanctuary.”
EBC, “THE PROMISES AND THREATS OF THE COVENANT
Leviticus 26:1-46
ONE would have expected that this chapter would have been the last in the book of
Leviticus, for it forms a natural and fitting close to the whole law as hitherto
recorded. But whatever may have been the reason of its present literary form, the
fact remains that while this chapter is, in outward form, the conclusion of the
Levitical law, another chapter follows it in the manner of an appendix.
Chapter 26 opens with these words (Leviticus 26:1-2): "Ye shall make you no idols,
neither shall ye rear you up a graven image, or a pillar, neither shall ye place any
figured stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the Lord your God. Ye
shall keep My sabbaths, and reverence My sanctuary: I am the Lord."
These verses, as they stand in the English versions as a preface to this chapter, at
first sight seem but distantly related to what follows; and the Chaldee paraphrast
and others have therefore appended them to the preceding chapter. But with that
they have even less evident connection. The thought of the editor of this part of the
canon, however, seems to have been that the three commands which are here
repeated might be regarded as presenting a compendious summary, in its
fundamental principles, of the whole law, the promises and threatenings attached to
which immediately follow. And the more we think upon these commands and what
they involve, the more evident will appear the fitness of their selection from the
whole law to introduce this chapter.
8

The commands which are here repeated are three: namely,
(1) a detailed prohibition of idolatry in the forms then chiefly prevalent;
(2) an injunction to observe God’s sabbaths; and
(3) to reverence His sanctuary.
Inasmuch as the various forms of idol worship, which are here forbidden, all
involved the recognition of gods other than Jehovah, it is plain that Leviticus 26:1 is
in effect inclusive of the first and second commandments of the decalogue. The
injunction to keep God’s sabbaths, although in principle including all the sabbatic
times previously appointed, evidently refers especially to the weekly sabbath of the
fourth commandment; while the command to reverence the sanctuary of Jehovah
covers in principle the ground of the third. And thus, in fact, these three injunctions
essentially include the four commands of the decalogue which have to do with man’s
duty to God, and are thus fundamental to all other duties, both to God and man.
Very appropriately, then, are these verses given here as a brief summary of the law
to which the following promises and threatenings are annexed. And their
suitableness to that which follows is the more clear when we remember that the
weekly sabbath, in particular, is elsewhere {Exodus 31:12-17} declared to be a sign
of God’s covenant with Israel, to which these promises and threats belong; and that
the presence of Jehovah’s sanctuary also, which they are here charged to reverence,
was a continual visible witness among them of the special presence of God in Israel
in pursuance of that covenant.
After this pertinent summation of the most fundamental commands of the law, the
remainder of the chapter contains, first (Leviticus 26:3-13), promises of blessing
from God, in case they shall obey this law; secondly (Leviticus 26:14-39), threats of
chastising judgment, in case they disobey: and, thirdly (Leviticus 26:40-45), a
prediction of their final repentance, and promise of their gracious restoration
thereupon to the favour of God, and the everlasting endurance of God’s covenant to
preserve them in existence as a nation. The chapter then closes (Leviticus 26:46)
with the declaration: "These are the statutes and judgments and laws, which the
Lord made between Him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by the hand of
Moses."
WHEDON, “Leviticus 26:43 The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her
sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the
punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised my judgments,
and because their soul abhorred my statutes.
Ver. 43. They shall accept,] q.d., I will give them to do what I require of them. See
Leviticus 26:41.
9

PETT, “Verse 1-2
Chapter 26 Final Recognition of His Authority, Blessings and Cursings.
The Book now virtually closes with the recognition that Israel were bound to Him,
and only Him, by the covenant. Yahweh reaffirms His authority over them and then
confirms the blessings and cursings attaching to the whole. If they walk with Him
faithfully, blessing, but if they turn away there can only be disaster.
The Overlordship Of Yahweh To Be Honoured (Leviticus 26:1-2).
Leviticus 26:1
“You shall make you no idols, neither shall you rear you up a graven image, or a
pillar, neither shall you place any figured stone in your land, to bow down to it: for I
am Yahweh your God.
Firstly they must recognise that Yahweh, the invisible One, the One Who is there
with them, is their God. Thus in lieu of this they were to make no idols (elilim -
‘nothings’ - compare Leviticus 19:4), nor were they to raise up a graven image
(representations of deities as found in many sites in Canaan) or a pillar (pillars of
stone indicated the presence of deities such as Baal and El) or any figure of stone
(carved representations of a deity), for the purpose of bowing down to them. The
whole paraphernalia of idolatrous worship was to be avoided. Compare Numbers
33:52.
Leviticus 26:2
“You shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am Yahweh.”
Rather are they to keep His sabbaths and reverence His Sanctuary (compare
Leviticus 19:3; Leviticus 19:30), thus indicating their submission to the signs of His
overlordship and presence. What we believe is indicated by the preferences we
choose, and this is especially true of worship. If our worship becomes debased, so
also will our view of God.
PULPIT, “Verses 1-46
PART V. CONCLUDING EXHORTATION.
EXPOSITION
THE first two verses of this chapter contain a prohibition of idolatry, and a
command to observe the sabbath and to reverence God's sanctuary; that is, they
repeat in summary the substance of the Israelites, religious duty, negative and
positive, as comprised in the first table of the Decalogue. They form, therefore, a
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prologue to the remainder of the chapter, which solemnly announces:
1. The blessings. which should result from obedience (Leviticus 26:3-13).
2. The curses which should follow disobedience (Leviticus 26:14-39).
3. The gracious treatment which would ensue on repentance (Leviticus 26:40-45).
Hitherto the Book of Leviticus has consisted of ceremonial and moral injunctions,
with two historical passages interposed. In the present chapter it rises in its subject
and its diction from legal precepts and a legal style to prediction and the style which
became a prophet. We may trace in Joel (Joel 2:22-27) an intimate acquaintance on
the part of the earliest prophet of Judah with this chapter. The first promise there,
as here, is that of rain, and as here it is to be "in due season," so there it is "the
former and the latter rain," that is, the regular autumn and spring rains. "The land
shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit," appears in
the prophet as, "the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her
fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength." The following clause, "your
threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing
time," as," the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine
and oil;" the next clause, "ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land
safely," as, "I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and ye shall be satisfied
therewith," and" ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied;" the clause, "I will give
peace in the laud, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid," as "I will
no more make you a reproach among the heathen," and" my people shall never be
ashamed;" and the clause, "I will rid evil creatures [not beasts] out of the land,
neither shall the sword go through your land," as, "I will remove far off from you
the northern," and "I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the
cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer-worm, my great army which I sent
among you."
The blessings and the curses rise one above the other in regular gradation: on the
one side, rain, abundance, peace, deliverance, victory, increase in numbers,
communion with God; on the other side,
Confession of sin, recognition of God's providence in all that had happened to them,
humility, and acquiescence in their punishment, would restore them to their
forfeited covenant relation (verses 40-45). Then God would "not abhor them to
destroy them utterly," but would "remember the covenant of their fathers." Thus it
was that God brought them back after the Babylonish Captivity; and thus it is that,
upon their repentance, he replaces in a state of salvation Churches and individuals
that have fallen away from him. In this way punishments become a blessing, and
men are able to "accept of them," or rejoice in them, as the word might be rendered.
Leviticus 26:1
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Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image,
neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it. The
word idols (elilim) means the "nothings" which the heathen substituted for the Lord
God. The graven image (here meaning a carved wooden image), the standing image
(meaning a sacred pillar), and the image of stone (that is, a sculptured stone idol),
are the three forms of images under which adoration was paid, whether to the true
God or to a false doily. The expression, to bow down unto (or towards) it, forbids
worshipping before an image as well as worshipping an image.
2 “‘Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for
my sanctuary. I am the Lord.
GILL, "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.
JAMISON, "Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary — Very
frequently, in this Book of the Law, the Sabbath and the sanctuary are mentioned as
antidotes to idolatry.
ELLICOTT, “Verse 2
(2) Ye shall keep my sabbaths . . . —This is exactly the same precept laid down in chap ,
and is here repeated because of the danger of desecrating the Sabbath to which the
Israelite is exposed who sells himself to a heathen. The Israelite will effectually guard
against idol-worship, by keeping the Sabbath holy, and reverencing God’s sanctuary.
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WHEDON, “2. Sabbaths… sanctuary — The intimate connexion between the sanctuary
and the sabbath is here very beautifully expressed. It rebukes all indolent use of the
sabbath at home, and the modern, fashionable, professed worship of God in roving the
fields and forests, vainly attempting to look through nature up to nature’s God. The God
which a sinful Jew imperatively needed was best worshipped through the bleeding bird,
the bleeding beast, and sprinkling priest; and the God most needed by the sinning Gentile
is seen in the Lamb of God, whose Gospel is preached in our modern sanctuaries on the
Lord’s day. There is no sin, except idolatry, against which the Hebrews were so
frequently and earnestly warned as against sabbath breaking. The sabbath was intended to
be an ever-recurring symbol of the heavenly rest. To despise it is to contemn heaven
itself.
BI, “Ye shall keep My Sabbaths, and reverence My sanctuary.
Of the stated times of God’s worship, particularly the Lord’s Day
I. What were the reasons upon which God might be supposed, under the law, to have
instituted more solemn and set times of worship.
1. As to the reasonableness of the institution in general, it was highly agreeable to the
natural light of mankind upon these following accounts.
(1) All external worship is designed to give us impressions of greater reverence
for the Divine Majesty. Now, such is the temper of human nature, that men have
much less regard for those things that are common than for those which have
some peculiar mark of distinction set upon them.
(2) It being one of the first principles of natural religion that God is to be
publicly worshipped, order requires that there should be some determinate and
public times set apart for His worship and piety, that such times should be
vacations from the common affairs of human life.
(3) It being a further end of religious worship to advance the spiritual life and
bring us nearer unto God, it is not only agreeable to piety, but to all the maxims
of religious prudence, that the times appropriated to the more solemn worship of
God should be distinguished by a cessation from the common business of life,
that by this means, our minds being wholly taken off from earthly things, they
may be more open to the heavenly impressions of grace and truth.
2. These are some of the natural reasons upon which we may account for God’s
commanding His people to keep His Sabbath, that is, all the stated and solemn times
of His public worship; but what I have here principally an eye to is the institution of
the Sabbath, which the Jews were so forcibly enjoined to keep holy in the Fourth
Commandment. Now, the two principal reasons of this institution seem to have
been—
(1) That hereby they acknowledged God to be the Lord, the Creator and
Governor of the world; and—
(2) That they acknowledged Him to be in a more eminent and peculiar manner
their God by delivering them out of the hand of Egypt.
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II. How far those reasons, in either respect, hold good under the Christian dispensation.
1. The general reasons I laid down for setting apart some solemn time for the
worship of God certainly extend to us Christians, and to all the nations under
heaven, as well as to the Jews. Indeed, when we consider that to everything under
the sun there is a time, and that the natural order of things requires there should be
so, it seems highly reasonable that some stated seasons should be appropriated to
His service, to whom we owe all the moments of our time and the capacity of all
other enjoyments. Jesus Christ did not come to destroy any one duty arising from
the law of nature or the common principles of natural religion, but to give all such
duties their utmost force.
2. The great difficulty to be considered is how far those reasons, upon which the
Jewish Sabbath in particular was instituted, may be supposed to affect us Christians.
(1) It appears matter of moral obligation that there should be some day set apart
more peculiarly devoted to the honour and worship of Almighty God.
(2) It appears no less reasonable that the returns of such a day should be so
frequent as to keep up a constant sense of religion, and their duty to God, in the
minds of men, without interfering with the necessary affairs of human life.
(3) It must be granted somewhat difficult to determine this matter exactly from
any principle of natural reason, it not clearly discovering what proportion of our
time we are to set apart for the more solemn worship of God, or why one day in
seven, rather than six or eight, should be observed to this end.
III. How and in what manner the Lord’s day ought to be observed.
1. We are to consider the Lord’s Day is a time set apart for the more public worship
and service of God, wherein we are to do Him honour and praise Him according to
His excellent greatness.
2. We ought also on the Lord’s Day to employ ourselves constantly in the private
exercises of religion.
3. As the Lord’s Day is a day of thanksgiving for the public or private mercies we
have received from God, it is a proper exercise of it to perform acts of mercy and
charity to others, and both with respect to their souls and bodies.
4. As the Lord’s Day is a day devoted to the service of God and religion, let us take
care to sanctify it by religious conversation.
5. That we may better attend these duties, we must not only intermit our ordinary
labours and employments, but take off our thoughts, as much as possible, from the
business of them. (R. Fiddes, D. D.)
Of the stated places of God’s-worship, and in what manner our reverence
towards them ought to be expressed
I. The reasons of appropriating places to the public worship of God are the same in
general under the Christian as under the mosaic dispensation.
1. One end of God’s appointing the tabernacle, and afterwards the temple, was to
possess the minds of the Jews with more devout affections in their religious
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addresses to Him. The place we are in naturally puts us in mind of the proper
business and design of it.
2. It is a principle highly agreeable to the natural notions of mankind that God is in a
special manner present in such places, not only as they are consecrated to Him, and
He has thereby a special propriety in them, but also by reason of the united prayers
which are therein put up to Him, and which are reasonably presumed to be of more
efficacy than those of single persons to bring down the real and sensible effects of
His presence with the blessings prayed for.
3. The common notions we bare of order and decency require that the place designed
for God’s more immediate service should be appropriated to Him, and to Him only.
Of order, that men may know where to repair on all occasions to worship God; and of
decency, because it is contrary to all the rules of it, and, indeed, to the ordinary
acceptation of holiness throughout the Scriptures, that what is common or unclean
should be promiscuously used with things set apart for holy and religious uses.
II. Places so appropriated have a relative holiness in them, and ought therefore to be
reverenced. This is the notion of holiness with respect to things, and persons, and times,
as well as places designed for the service of God, in the Old Testament, that they were
separated from common uses to His own. And if for this very reason they were
accounted sacred then, what imaginable pretence can there be that the same reason
should not render them, and all of them, sacred now? If it be pretended that the temple
was accounted holy by reason of the legal sacrifices which were offered to God in it, we
ask why the Christian sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving in our churches should not be
a sufficient ground for reputing them holy also? If it be said that there were sensible
effects of God’s presence in the temple upon which it had a peculiar relation of holiness
to Him, we answer that God, as to the spiritual and gracious effects of His presence, and
wherein He manifests it in the most beneficial and excellent manner, is present in our
Christian temples. If it be said, further, that the temple was built by the special
command of God, and upon that account a certain holiness was ascribed to it, whereas
we have no such command for building any places purely for God’s worship now, it is
answered again that the design of David’s building a temple, and Solomon’s going on
with it, do not appear to have proceeded from any positive and direct command of God.
God, it is true, gave particular directions about building the temple, but it does not
therefore follow that the design of building it was not antecedently laid by these princes
upon natural motives of piety and religion, the same motives upon which the patriarchs
erected sanctuaries or separate places of worship to God before any positive institution
to this end. Shall I now show that our Christian churches, which I have proved to be
sanctuaries in a proper sense, ought therefore to be reverenced? This is a consequence
which flows so naturally, or rather, indeed, necessarily, from what has been said, that I
need not say much to illustrate it. I shall only observe that we are agreed in other cases
to set a value on things or persons, not in consideration of their absolute and real worth,
but of their relative use or character. An insect is considered in itself as a living creature
more valuable than the brightest or richest jewel in the world; but we should think him
very weak who would for that reason prefer a butterfly to a diamond, which, by common
consent, serves him to so many more useful ends. For the same reason, with respect to
the different characters of men, or any special relation they bear to God, to the prince, or
to ourselves, we give them different and suitable testimonies of our esteem. Nay, when
we truly honour or love any person, we naturally express a value for everything that
nearly belongs to him or wherein he has a particular interest. Certainly, then, nothing
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can be more reasonable than that upon account of the special propriety God has in
places set apart for His service, and for so many holy uses, we should express our
reverence toward such places by all becoming testimonies of it.
III. Even natural reason discovers further to us how and in what particulars our
reverence towards such places ought to be expressed.
1. We are to reverence God’s sanctuary by constantly repairing to it on all proper
occasions.
2. We are to reverence God’s sanctuary by a serious, devout, and regular behaviour
in it.
(1) By a serious and devout behaviour, I mean such decent postures of the body
as most properly express the inward sentiments and attention of the mind.
(2) By a regular behaviour in the worship of God, I understand a due conformity
to the rules and order of the public service, and particularly that we should kneel
or stand up at the usual offices.
3. If we reverence God’s sanctuary as we ought, we shall be willing to contribute
what may be thought necessary towards the proper ornaments of it or the greater
solemnity of the public worship in it.
I shall now proceed to a conclusion, with a proper application or two from what has been
said.
1. To those who offend against the first rule I laid down, concerning the reverence
due to God’s sanctuary, by coming late to it, or perhaps after a considerable part of
the service is performed. If you are conscious to yourselves of any such scandalous,
especially if it have been a customary, irreverence, be careful not to give any further
offence to God or man, for it is really so to both in the same kind—to God, because it
is so insolent a method of presenting ourselves in His courts, in order to beg any
blessing or the pardon of our sins before we have made a humble confession of them;
to man, because the Church, which we are presumed by attending her service to be
members of, has piously directed such a confession at the beginning of her service.
Not to mention the other disorders occasioned by this irreverence, and how contrary
it is to the rule prescribed us by holy David, of worshipping God in the beauty of
holiness (Psa_29:2; Psa_96:9). And for the same reason—
2. If your consciences reproach you with any former unbecoming or irregular
behaviour in the sanctuary of God, resolve hereafter to correct so great an indecency,
or rather, indeed, so flaming an impiety.
3. What I shall say to those who have in any signal manner expressed their zeal for
God’s house, by contributing to the beauty or solemnity of it, shall be by way of
encouragement. And certainly men cannot propose to themselves to show their
reverence for God by a more truly pious act—an act whereby they more immediately
glorify Him, in letting their good works shine before men. This consideration cannot
but, at the same time, fill the minds of those who are concerned in it with a sensible
pleasure and satisfaction, and make their hearts even spring for joy. This was the
effect which the preparations of David and the Israelites for building the temple had
upon them (1Ch_29:8).
4. What I would observe, in the last place, is that persons who are subservient in this
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respect towards promoting the honour of God may piously hope that He will by some
wise methods pour down His special blessings upon them as He did upon Obed-
Edom and his household, because of the ark of the covenant of God (2Sa_6:11). (R.
Fiddes, D. D.)
3 “‘If you follow my decrees and are careful to
obey my commands,
BARNES, "As “the book of the covenant” Exo. 20:22–23:33 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. 27–30 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.
CLARKE, "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.
GILL, "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.
JAMISON, "Lev_26:3-13. A blessing to the obedient.
If ye walk in my statutes — 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.
K&D 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
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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.
CALVIN, "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,” (Malachi 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
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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,” (1 Timothy 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. (2 Thessalonians 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. (Genesis 47:9; Psalms 39:12; Hebrews 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)
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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.
COFFMAN, “Verse 3
BLESSINGS PROMISED IF ISRAEL OBEYS GOD
"If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; then I will
give your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of
the field shall yield their fruit. And 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,
and dwell in your land safely. And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie
down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will cause evil beasts to cease out of the
land, neither shall the sword go through your land. And ye shall chase your enemies,
and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase a hundred,
and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand; and your enemies shall fall before
you by the sword. And I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and
multiply you, and will establish my covenant with you. And ye shall eat old store
long kept, and ye shall bring forth the old because of the new. And I will set my
tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among
you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people. I am Jehovah your God, who
brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen;
and I have broken the bars of your yoke, and made you go upright."
The blessings listed here are those which would greatly bless and provide for any
agricultural people. Unger classified them thus:
(1) bountiful harvests,
(2) peace and security,
(3) fruitfulness and increase, and
(4) the presence of the Lord among the people.[9]
At the head of the list, however, (Leviticus 26:3) stood the great condition, IF. If
Israel would obey; if Israel would really keep God's commandments and walk in his
ways - then, only then, would God so richly bless them.
"Threshing shall reach unto the vintage ... etc." (Leviticus 26:5) "One season of
fruitfulness shall run into the next; in Amos' celebrated words, `the plowman shall
overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him that sows the seed.' (Amos
9:13)."[10]
"I will cause evil beasts to cease out of the land ..." (Leviticus 26:6). According to
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Orlinsky, "vicious beasts" is more accurate than "evil beasts."[11]
"Bring forth the old because of the new ..." (Leviticus 26:10). This means "bring
forth the old to make room for the new."[12]
"I will walk among you and be your God ..." These words were quoted by the
apostle Paul (2 Corinthians 6:16) "as a ground of the holiness required of God's
people."[13]
"I have broken the bars of your yoke ..." (Leviticus 26:13). "This is a metaphorical
expression denoting Israel's emancipation from Egyptian slavery.[14] The figure is
taken from the construction of an ox-yoke. "The bars (bands in the KJV) of a yoke
are the wooden pieces coming down from the yoke on each side of the animal's head
and fastened with thongs."[15]
ELLICOTT, “(3) If ye walk in my statutes.—We have already remarked that this
verse begins the section in the Hebrew and ought to have begun the chapter in
English. Having set forth the ceremonial and moral injunctions which are necessary
for the development and maintenance of holiness and purity in the commonwealth,
the legislator now concludes by showing the happiness which will accrue to the
Israelites from a faithful observance of these laws, and the punishments which await
them if they transgress these Divine ordinances
.EBC, “THE PROMISES OF THE COVENANT
Leviticus 26:3-13
"If ye walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments, and do them; then I will
give your rains in their season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of
the field shall yield their fruit. And 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,
and dwell in your land safely. And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie
down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will cause evil beasts to cease out of the
land, neither shall the sword go through your land. And ye shall chase your enemies,
and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase a hundred,
and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand: and your enemies shall fall before
you by the sword. And I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and
multiply you; and I will establish My covenant with you. And ye shall eat old store
long kept, and ye shall bring forth the old because of the new. And 1 will set My
tabernacle among you: and My soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among
you, and will be your God, and ye shall be My people. 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 bars of your yoke, and made you go upright."
The promises of the covenant are thus to the effect that if Israel shall keep the law,
God will give them rain and fruitful seasons, harvests so abundant that the
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"threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing
time"; internal security; deliverance from the wild beasts, which are still such a
scourge in many parts of the East; and such power and spirit, that no enemy shall
be able to stand before them, but five of them shall chase a hundred, and a hundred
chase ten thousand. Then (Leviticus 26:9) is renewed the promise, given long before
to Abraham, of a great increase in their numbers; and thereupon, very naturally, is
repeated the promise of abundant harvests, so that notwithstanding they shall be so
multiplied, one year’s harvest should not be consumed before it would have to be
removed from the granaries to make room for the new (Leviticus 26:10). And then
this section ends with the assurance which secures all other blessings, temporal and
spiritual, that God will abide among them in His tabernacle, and will be their God,
and they shall be His people. And the fulfilment of all this is guaranteed by the
person, the purpose, and the past dealing of the Promiser; Himself, Jehovah; His
purpose, to deliver them from bondage; and His past mercy, in breaking the bands
of their yoke.
WHEDON, “ BLESSINGS PROMISED TO OBEDIENCE, Leviticus 26:3-13.
3. Walk in my statutes — Mosaism was not mere ritualism, but a power which
directed the conduct, shaped the character, and sanctified the heart. It aimed at
inward as well as outward holiness. This is the end of all God’s statutes. The
original statute signifies that which is absolutely fixed, a decree. Commandments
signify acts definitely pointed out. The former is used to designate codes of law, the
latter, specific precepts.
PETT, “Verses 3-13
The Blessings (Leviticus 26:3-13).
Here follow all the blessings that would be theirs if only they would walk in His
statutes and keep His commandments in their hearts and do them.
Leviticus 26:3-5
“If you walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them, then I will
give your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of
the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach to the vintage, and
the vintage shall reach to the sowing time; and you shall eat your bread to the full,
and dwell in your land safely.”
The first promise in response to their loving obedience is that He would send the
rain at the right times, when they were due, and would make the land and the trees
fruitful. Their agricultural way of life would prosper. They would be continually
busy because they would have so much grain to thresh that by the time they had
completed the task the vintage harvest would be ready. Then there would be so
much vintage that by the time that they had gathered in the vintage it would be time
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for sowing. They would be full of all manner of food. And they would dwell
securely.
BI 3-13, “If ye walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments, and do them.
The advantages of religion in a nation’s life
I. Wherein a nation’s religious life consists. The recognised presence of God in the midst
of the people (Lev_26:11-12) may be realised—
1. In sanctuaries consecrated to Divine worship throughout the land, and in
assembled congregations gathering to adore Him (Lev_26:2).
2. In sacred literature diffusing religious knowledge among the people.
3. In benevolent and elevating institutions diffusing Christianity in its practical
forms.
4. In educational agencies for the training of children early in moral and religious
truth.
5. In homes and family life sweetened by the influence of piety.
6. In a legislature ruled by the fear of God and observant of Scripture precepts.
7. In wealth, gathered righteously, being expended for evangelical and Christian
ends.
8. In the happy relationship of all social classes, based upon goodwill and respect.
9. In the stores of harvest and gains of commerce being acknowledged as God’s
providential gifts and generous benefactions (Lev_26:4-5). All such public
recognitions of the authority and the claims of religion, emphasise and declare that
within this nation’s life God dwells—known, revered, and served.
II. Advantages which result to a nation from religion.
1. Religion impels to industry, intelligence, self-respect, and social improvement;
and these will affect every branch of labour and enterprise, resulting in material
prosperity (Lev_26:4-5).
2. Religion leads to avoidance of agitation and conflict, checks greed, ambition, and
vainglory, and thus promotes a wise content among the people, and peaceful
relationships with surrounding nations (Lev_26:6).
3. Religion fosters sobriety, energy, and courage, and these qualities will assert
themselves on the fields of war when sad occasion arises, and will ensure the
overthrow of tyranny and the defeat of invasion (Lev_26:8).
4. Religion nurtures the wise oversight of homes and families, the preservation of
domestic purity, the development of healthful and intelligent children, and these will
work out in a strong and increasing population (Lev_26:9).
5. Religion corrects the intrigues of self-destructive commerce, and teaches honesty,
forethought, and justice in business arrangements; thus checking waste,
extravagance, and insolence, and these issue in the enjoyment of plenty (Lev_26:10).
6. Religion enjoins Sabbath observance and sanctuary services (Lev_26:2) which
nourish holiness in thought and life, sweeten character, purify the springs of action,
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incite to righteous and noble deeds, to social goodwill, to mutual regard, to sacred
ministries, to reverence for Scripture, to recognition of the claims of the unseen
world, and thus bring down upon all people the blessings of God, the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit (Lev_26:11-12).
III. Within a religious nation god pledges himself to dwell. And where He makes His
tabernacle (Lev_26:11) there—
1. Happiness will be realised, the joy of the Lord will be known, “His lovingkindness,
which is more than life,” will be enjoyed.
2. Security will be assured. “None make you afraid” (Lev_26:6), for He will be as a
“defence to His people.”
3. Sanctity will flourish. Intercourse with God (Lev_26:12) will elevate, refine, and
grace a people’s character and life. (W. H. Jellie.)
Temporal blessings connected with obedience
These temporal blessings—peace’s victory over all their enemies, the fruitfulness of the
land, the enjoyment of God’s tabernacle in the midst of it—all are promised to obedience.
This is still true of nations. Nations that are highest in Christian character will always be
highest in every other national blessing. Just cast your eyes over the map of Europe; and
if you had a thermometer, and could gauge the amount of living Christianity in each
nation, you will find that the nation in which Christianity is purest, rises highest, spreads
the farthest, descends the deepest, is the very nation that is highest in all that dignifies,
ennobles, and blesses a nation. And so, in our own native land, the victory of our armies
in the righteous warfare to which it is committed, the maintenance of our land in peace
and prosperity against all foe and all invasion, will rest, not only upon the banners of our
brave troops, not only upon the gallantry of our heroic sailors, but far more upon the
living religion that saturates the masses of our country. It is righteousness that exalteth a
nation, and sin is the ruin of a nation. If you will read the history of nations, you will find
this universally true; no nation ever falls before a foreign foe—it always commits suicide.
Nations die suicides; they are self-slain. Rome fell only because of its inner corruption;
the beautiful sisterhood of Greek states fell by their universal depravity; and our nation
will never fall before a foreign foe as long as it is—what it is now in a greater degree than
any other—a nation that fears God, and works righteousness, and counts the sunshine of
His favour more precious than gold and silver, and whatsoever things may be weighed or
bought. (J. Cumming, D. D.)
The advantages of faithfully serving God
A Fingo, traveling through Hankey, where the L.M.S. have a station, sat down to rest at
the door of the place of worship; and looking round on the houses, behind which the
gardens were concealed, asked one of the deacons how the people got food in such a
place, for he had formerly known it as a desert. The deacon told him to look at him and
see if he was not in health and well clothed. He then called a fine child, and told the man
to look at it and see if it was not well fed. The deacon then told him if he would attend
service the next day he would see that it was so with them all. The Fingo rose to depart,
and lifting up his eyes and his right hand to heaven, exclaimed, “It is always so where
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that God is worshipped!” (Andrew Thomson, D. D.)
The unbroken continuity of God’s gifts
There is in Lev_26:10 a promise as to the fulness 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? “Things grown common lose their dear delight.”
“If in 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 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 threaded so close
together on the poor thread of our lives that no gap will be discernible in the jewelled
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 fulness of life. So far as He is concerned the fiery
is uninterrupted, and if it come to us in jets and spurts like some intermittent well, it is
because our own evil has put some obstacles to choke the channel and dam out His
Spirit from our spirits. 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. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Ye shall make you no idols.
Idolatry interdicted
I. What the proneness of human nature to idolatry suggests. It shows both the dignity
and depravity of man; that—
1. He is endowed with religious instincts. Capable of worship, of exercising faith,
hope, love, reverence, fear, &c.
2. He is conscious of amenability to some supreme power. Seeks to propitiate, secure
favour, and aid.
3. He is apprehensive of a future state of existence. Ideas vague, indefinite, absurd,
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yet the outcome of inward presentiment, &c.
4. He is unable by light of nature to discover God. His knowledge is so faded, light so
dim. How low the soul must have fallen to substitute “nothings” for the Eternal One!
Heathenism has never of itself emerged into the light of the knowledge of the glory of
God, as seen in the voice that has spoken from heaven, and has been recorded by
holy men moved by the Holy Ghost.
II. What indulgence in idolatry entails.
1. Degradation. Worship of heathen deities demoralising. In their temples, at their
services, the rites observed are grovelling, and, in some instances, demoniacal.
2. Superstition. Devotees are duped by priests, enslaved by torturing ritualism,
subject and victims of absurd delusions.
3. Misery. Fear the ruling passion, not love. Nothing ennobling, inspiring,
quickening, comforting. Idol worship mocks the longings of the human soul, cannot
appease its hunger, satisfy its thirst.
III. How idolatry may be abolished. Darkness can only be dispersed by the letting in of
light. The folly of idolatry must be shown, its helplessness, misery, sin by the spread of
the written revelation of heaven, the preaching of the glorious gospel. (F. W. Brown.)
The common worship of the sanctuary
There are many who make light of the common worship of the sanctuary, and who are in
the habit of depreciating the interest and value of its influences. They tell us that
Nature’s temple is far grander than any human shrine; that the voices of the birds are a
sweeter minstrelsy than that of a mediocre choir; that they find “sermons in stones”
whose eloquence is mightier and more penetrating than that of a poor preacher with his
string of stale platitudes; and that, therefore, a pleasant country walk is more profitable
and sanctifying than an hour spent in the stuffy atmosphere of church or chapel. Nay,
even their own fireside has more powerful charms, for have they not Bibles at home, and
cannot they read for themselves? and can they not obtain far better sermons for a few
pence per volume than they are likely to hear? No doubt there is much truth in such
reasoning, but it ignores the social needs of human nature. Man is a social being; social
worship is therefore a necessity of his nature. And its necessity has been universally felt.
“Groves, mountains, grottoes, caves, streams, valleys, plains, lakes, as well as altars and
temples, have been consecrated as the abodes of gods.” Everywhere men have sought out
some shrine at which to offer common and united worship. And in Christian ages the
house of prayer has ever been held in honour, and its services regarded as hallowed
privileges by the best and wisest men. They meet a deep-seated need of human hearts.
As Dr. Geikie has said, “There is a breadth of human experience, and of understanding of
Divine things to be obtained in the great congregation, in the common confessions, the
common prayers, the common praises, the common exhortation of the sanctuary, which
would be sought in vain in solitudes.” As long as human nature is unchanged, the place
of public worship cannot be superseded. (Howard James.)
Commonness of the idolatrous spirit
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Yes, the orthodox Greek Churchman is grievously scandalised at the image-worship of
the Romanist; it is flat idolatry, and he denounces it vehemently. But what are those
pictures, many of them made to stand out with solid plates of gold and silver? Why,
these are pictures of the Virgin or of her Son, as the case may be, and your anti-
idolatrous Greek bows before these with voluntary humility. He hates image-worship,
you see, but stands up for picture-worship. Behold how sinners disagree in name and
unite in spirit! Put Greek and Roman in a sack together and let the greatest idolater out
first: the wisest solution would be to keep them both in, for Solomon himself would be
puzzled to decide between them. Are there no such inconsistencies among ourselves? Do
we not condemn in one form what we allow in another? Do we not censure in our
neighbours what we allow in ourselves? This query need not be answered in a hurry; the
reply will be the more extensive for a little waiting. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Then I will give you rain.—
The philosophy of rain
To understand the philosophy of this beautiful and often sublime phenomenon, so often
witnessed since the creation of the world, and essential to the very existence of plants
and animals, a few facts derived from observation and a long train of experiments must
be remembered.
1. Were the atmosphere everywhere at all times at a uniform temperature, we should
never have rain, or hail, or snow; the water absorbed by it in evaporation from the
sea and the earth’s surface would descend in an imperceptible vapour, or cease to be
absorbed by the air when it was once fully saturated.
2. The absorbing power of the atmosphere, and consequently its capability to retain
humidity, is proportionably greater in warm than in cold air.
3. The air near the surface of the earth is warmer than it is in the region of the
clouds. The higher we ascend from the earth the colder do we find the atmosphere.
Hence the perpetual snow on very high mountains in the hottest climate. Now, when
from continued evaporation the air is highly saturated with vapour, though, if it be
invisible and the sky cloudless, if its temperature be suddenly reduced by cold
currents descending from above, or rushing from a higher to a lower latitude, its
capacity to retain moisture is diminished, clouds are formed, and the result is rain.
Air condenses as it cools, and like a sponge filled with water and compressed, pours
out the water which its diminished capacity cannot hold. How singular, yet how
simple, the philosophy of rain! Who but Omniscience could have devised such an
admirable arrangement for watering the earth? (Dr. Ure.)
Rain from God
St. Ambrose, speaking of great drought in his time, when the people talked much of rain,
he sometimes comforted himself with this hope, Neomenia dabit pluvias (“The new
moon will bring us rain”); yet saith he, “Though all of us desired to see some showers,
yet I wished such hopes might fail, and was glad that no rain fell, donec precibus ecclesia
data esset, &c., until it came as a return upon the Church’s prayers, not upon the
influence of the moon, but upon the provident mercy of the Creator.” Such was the
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religious care of that good saint then, and the like were to be wished for now, that men
would be exhorted not to be so much taken as they are with the vanity of astrological
predictions, to read the stars less and the Scriptures more, to eye God in His providence,
not the moon so much in its influence, still looking up unto Him as the primus motor,
and upon all other creatures whatsoever as subordinate. (J. Spencer.)
4 I will send you rain in its season, and the ground
will yield its crops and the trees their fruit.
BARNES, "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.
CLARKE, "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.
GILL, "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.
JAMISON, "I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her
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increase — 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).
CALVIN, "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.
COKE, “Verse 4
Leviticus 26:4. Then will I give you rain in due season— It is manifest to every
reader that the blessings and curses denounced here, and in the 28th chapter of
Deuteronomy, as sanctions of the law, are merely temporal, and refer entirely to the
things of this world in their primary sense. As they are more fully expressed in the
28th chapter of Deuteronomy, we refer our readers to the commentary on that
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chapter.
ELLICOTT, “Verse 4
(4) Then I will give you rain in due season.—Better, then I will give you your rains
in due season, that is, the former and latter rains (Deuteronomy 11:14). In Palestine
the proper season for the early rain is from about the middle of October until
December, thus preparing the ground for receiving the seed, whilst that of the latter
or vernal rain is in the months of March and April, just before the harvest. Thus,
also, in the covenant which God is to make with His people, a similar promise is
made, “I will cause the showers to come down in his season; there shall be showers
of blessing” (Ezekiel 34:26).
PULPIT, “Leviticus 26:4-6
These verses appear to have been in the mind, not of Joel only, as already pointed
out, but of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 34:20-31). In Leviticus we find, Then I will give you rain
in due season; in Ezekiel, "And I will cause the shower to come down in his season;
there shall be showers of blessing.'' In Leviticus, And the land shall yield her
increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit; in Ezekiel, "And the tree of
the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth her increase." In Leviticus, Ye shall
dwell in your land safely; in Ezekiel, "They shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and
sleep in the woods." In Leviticus, And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie
down, and none shall make you afraid: and will rid evil beasts out of the land,
neither shall the sword go through your land; in Ezekiel, "And I will make with
them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land … .
And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land
devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid." The
promise, Your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach
unto the sowing time, is similar to that in the prophet Amos, "Behold, the days
come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of
grapes him that soweth seed" (Amos 9:13).
5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest
and the grape harvest will continue until planting,
and you will eat all the food you want and live in
safety in your land.
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CLARKE, "
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.
GILL, "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
JAMISON, "your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage
shall reach unto the sowing time, etc. — 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.
COKE, “Leviticus 26:5. Your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, &c.— This is a
nervous and beautiful promise of such entire plenty of corn and wine, that, before
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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, ch. Leviticus 9:13 expresses the same blessing in the same
manner: The plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that
soweth seed.
ELLICOTT, “ (5) And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage.—That is, the
corn crop shall be so plentiful that those who shall be employed in threshing about
the month of March will not complete it before the vintage, which was about the
month of July.
The vintage shall reach unto the sowing time.—The wine, again, is to be so
abundant that those who shall be engaged in gathering and pressing the grapes will
not be able to finish before the sowing time again arrives, which is about the month
of October. A similar promise is made by Amos: “the plowman shall overtake the
reaper, and the treader of grapes him who sowed seed” (Amos 9:13).
WHEDON, “ Verse 5
5. Threshing — The cereals of constant mention are wheat and barley, and more
rarely rye and millet. Wheat was ripe at the pentecost, called also “the feast of
harvest, the first fruits of thy labors.” The fifty days included the period of grain
harvest, commencing with the offering of the first sheaf of the barley harvest in the
passover, in April, and ending with that of the two first loaves made from the wheat
harvest. So abundant would be the harvest that six months, from mid Nisan to mid
Tisri, would be occupied in gathering the produce of the soil; first the harvesting
and threshing of the grain and then the vintage, which would be prolonged till
sowing time, about the autumnal equinox. See Amos 9:13, note. “The threshing
comes between the reaping and the treading of grapes. Reaping is done in April,
May, and June, and the vintage is in September and October. Hence the harvest,
according to the promise, is to be so abundant that it will take several months to
tread out the grain. And here, again, actual experience suggested the language of the
prophecy. In very abundant seasons I have seen the threshing actually prolonged
until October. Take the three promises together, and they spread over the entire
year of the husbandman.” — Dr. W.M. Thomson.
6 “‘I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie
down and no one will make you afraid. I will
remove wild beasts from the land, and the sword
will not pass through your country.
32

GILL, "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.
K&D 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. ‫ב‬ַ‫כ‬ ָ‫,שׁ‬ 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.
‫יד‬ ִ‫ֲר‬‫ח‬ ַ‫מ‬ 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.). ‫ה‬ָ‫ע‬ ָ‫ר‬ ‫ָה‬‫יּ‬ ַ‫:ח‬ 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. ‫ב‬ ֶ‫ר‬ ֶ‫ח‬ָ‫ל‬ ‫ל‬ַ‫ָפ‬‫נ‬ 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.
ELLICOTT, “ (6) And I will give peace.—Not only are they to have rich harvests,
but the Lord will grant them peace among themselves, so that they shall be able to
retire at night without any anxiety, or fear of robbers (Psalms 3:5; Psalms 4:8).
33

I will rid evil beasts out of the land.—The promise to destroy the beasts of prey,
which endanger life, and which abounded in Palestine, is also to be found in Ezekiel,
where exactly the same words are rendered in the Authorised Version, “And will
cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land” (Ezekiel 34:25). The two passages
should be uniform in the translation.
WHEDON, “ 6. I will give peace in the land — If obedient to Jehovah, the Hebrews
were never to suffer the horrors of a hostile invasion or of a civil war. Exemption
from the latter would be a natural consequence of submission to Jehovah, the
theocratic head of Israel. By his overruling providence he would dispose all
surrounding nations to maintain peaceful relations with his people. Indeed, their
very unity would make them too formidable to be attacked. Only nations weakened
by internal strifes invite invasion.
Perpetual peace and security of life and property are inestimable blessings, which
no tribe of men has yet enjoyed. Evil beasts were to be exterminated, not by miracle,
but by the agency of the people, as the Canaanites were driven out “little by little”
by God, lest the balance of natural forces should be disturbed. See Exodus xxiii, 30.
PETT, “Leviticus 26:6
“And I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you
afraid: and I will cause evil beasts to cease out of the land, neither shall the sword go
through your land.”
Furthermore the land would know peace. They would be able to rest content with a
total sense of security. They would not be troubled either by plagues of evil beasts or
by the swords of evil men. Yahweh would keep their land free of both.
7 You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall
by the sword before you.
GILL, "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
34

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.
ELLICOTT, “(7) And ye shall chase your enemies.—If, covetous of their prosperity,
the enemies should dare to attack them, God will inspire His people with marvellous
courage, so that they will not only pursue them, but put them to the sword.
PETT, “Leviticus 26:7-8
“And you shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword, and
five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand;
and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.”
Indeed when faced with an enemy they would always be victorious. When they
chased them they would fall before them. To deal with a hundred (a larger unit)
they would only require five men (their smallest fighting unit). And their own
medium unit of ‘a hundred’ would be sufficient to deal with ten large units of ‘a
thousand’ each (ten thousand). For their enemy would be unable to resist them.
8 Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred
of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies
will fall by the sword before you.
BARNES, "Lev_26:8
Five of you shall chase - A proverbial mode of expression for superiority in warlike
prowess Deu_32:30; Isa_30:17.
GILL, "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
35

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.
ELLICOTT, “(8) And five of you shall chase an hundred.—This is a proverbial
saying, corresponding to our phrase “A very small number, or a mere handful, shall
be more than a match for a whole regiment.” The same phrase, with different
proportions to the numbers, occurs in other parts of the Bible (Deuteronomy 32:30;
Joshua 23:10; Isaiah 30:17).
WHEDON, “ 8. Five… shall chase a hundred — So great would be the prestige of
the Hebrew name that a panic would seize the myriads of their foes on the battle
field when confronted by a household of Israelites. This was true of the Canaanites
when the spies visited Jericho, (see Joshua 2:9-11, note,) and of the hosts of Midian
who decamped in confusion before Gideon and his select band of three hundred
men. See also 2 Samuel 23:8; 2 Samuel 23:18; 1 Chronicles 11:18. Many are the
parallel instances in Christian history in which hosts of foes to Christ have been
overcome by simple faith in him exercised by a few believers.
A hundred… ten thousand — The ratio of efficiency increases with the number. Of
five, each one routs twenty; of a hundred, each puts to flight a hundred. At this rate
an aggressive Christianity would soon conquer the whole world.
By the sword — They would not be delivered from foreign wars, but they would
conquer the enemy in his own country, since the sword should not go through their
land.
9 “‘I will look on you with favor and make you
fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will
keep my covenant with you.
BARNES, "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.
GILL, "For I will have respect unto you,.... Look at them with delight and
36

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.
K&D, "Moreover the Lord would bestow His covenant blessing upon them without
intermission. ‫ל‬ ֶ‫א‬ ‫ָה‬‫נ‬ָ‫פּ‬ 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.
CALVIN, "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. (Jeremiah 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.
ELLICOTT, “ (9) For I will have respect unto you.—Better, And I will turn unto
37

you, as it is rendered in the Authorised Version in Ezekiel 46:9, the only other
passage where this phrase occurs; that is, be merciful to them and bless them.
(Comp. 2 Kings 13:23; Psalms 25:16; Psalms 69:17, &c.)
And multiply you, and establish my covenant with you.—That is, by multiplying
them as the stars of heaven and the sand of the sea, God fulfil the covenant which
He made with their fathers (Genesis 12:2; Genesis 13:16; Genesis 15:5; Genesis
22:17; Exodus 23:26).
WHEDON, “ 9. I will have respect — I will favourably regard you.
Multiply — Rapid increase in population, especially with Oriental nations, is a
manifest proof of the divine favour. Virtue promotes health and wealth. These
conduce to a multiplication of the people, so long as luxury and its attendant vices
are avoided. It is a sign of national decay when marriages and births relatively
diminish.
Establish my covenant — Confirm the covenant already made with Abraham.
“And I will have respect to you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and will
establish my covenant with you.”
And Yahweh would watch over them, and take notice of them and watch out for
them, and cause their numbers to multiply. He would make His covenant with them
firm and strong, fulfilling its potential.
10 You will still be eating last year’s harvest when
you will have to move it out to make room for the
new.
BARNES, "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.
GILL, "And ye shall eat old store,.... What is very old, corn of three years old, as
38

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.
JAMISON, "ye shall eat old store — Their stock of old corn would be still
unexhausted and large when the next harvest brought a new supply.
K&D, "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.). ‫יא‬ ִ‫צ‬ ‫ה‬ vetustum triticum
ex horreo et vinum ex cella promere (Calvin).
ELLICOTT, “ (10) And ye shall eat old store.—Better, old store which hath become
old. Though they will thus multiply, there shall be abundant stores for them, which
become old because it will take them so long to consume them.
And bring forth the old because of the new.—Better, and remove the old on account
of the new, that is, they will always have such abundant harvests that they will be
obliged to remove from the barns and garners the old stock of corn, in order to
make room for the new.WHEDON, “10. Eat old store — Literally, the old grown
old. Each crop shall be so abundant that it will last till the new is fully ripened; and
so great will be the overplus in the garner that they should bring forth the old to
make room for the new harvest. What a glowing picture of material prosperity is
this! But still greater blessings of a spiritual nature are to follow.
“And you shall eat old store long kept, and you shall bring forth the old because of
the new.”
39

Such would be their harvests that they would find that they always had good stocks
of wheat and barley continually dating back a long time. They would never find
themselves without. And because they would have such abundance they would have
to bring the old out in order to make way for the new.
11 I will put my dwelling place[a] among you, and
I will not abhor you.
CLARKE, "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
GILL, "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.
K&D, "“I will make My dwelling among you, and My soul will not despise you.” ‫ן‬ָ‫כּ‬ ְ‫שׁ‬ ִ‫,מ‬
applied to the dwelling of God among His people in the sanctuary, involves the idea of
satisfied repose.
40

CALVIN, "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.” (Matthew 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) (Psalms 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.”
(Psalms 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.
ELLICOTT, “ (11) And I will set my tabernacle among you.—Better, And I will set
my dwelling-place among you. (See Leviticus 15:31.) Not only will God bless them
with these material blessings, but will permanently abide with them in the sanctuary
erected in their midst.
My soul shall not abhor you.—That is, God has no aversion to them; does not
regard it below His dignity to sojourn amongst them, and to show them His favour.
WHEDON, “11. My tabernacle among you — The highest possible honour and the
richest source of blessings are found in the manifested and abiding presence of the
gracious Jehovah in the midst of Israel, guiding their journeyings, forgiving their
sins, and shielding them from their enemies by his outflashing glory. Exodus 14:24.
But still greater blessings are here prefigured for the obedient in these latter days
which have seen God tabernacling in the humanity of Jesus Christ, (John 1:14,
41

note,) “in whom,” says Paul, “ye also are builded together for a habitation of God
through the Spirit.” Ephesians 2:22. Christian privilege in this life culminates in the
fulfilment of this wonderful promise of Christ, “we will come unto him, and make
our abode with him.” John 14:23. Greater only in external manifestations of glory
will be the bliss of the saints in the new Jerusalem, when a great voice from heaven
will say, “Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them.”
“And I will set my tabernacle among you, and I myself (my soul) shall not abhor
you.”
And His tabernacle would be set among them. He would be there with them. And
there would be nothing about them that He could hate, because their hearts were
truly set towards Him. They would be able to be confident that His love was set on
them and that there was no barrier between Him and them. See Exodus 29:45.
PULPIT, “And I will set my tabernacle among you. This was fulfilled, spiritually, as
shown to St. John in his vision of the new Jerusalem: "I heard a great voice out of
heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with
them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their
God" (Revelation 21:3). And my soul shall not abhor you. The result of God's
abhorrence being his rejection of those whom he abhors (see Le John 20:23).
12 I will walk among you and be your God, and
you will be my people.
GILL, "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,
42

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.''
K&D, "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.
WHEDON, “ 12. I will walk among you — Here is implied the intimacy of delighted
companionship, as Enoch walked with God. Thus Jehovah desired to walk with
Israel, and thus he would have walked if the nation had cleaved unto the Lord.
“Can two walk together, except they be agreed?”
And be your God — Guidance, protection, sustenance, illumination, sanctification,
present and eternal gladness and glory lie in these four short words.
Ye shall be my people — Dignity, honour, sonship, and heirship are wrapped up in
this promise. “All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”
“And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people.”
And He Himself would walk among them and be their God, and they would be His
people (compare Deuteronomy 23:14). It would be like the Garden of Eden restored
(compare Genesis 3:8).
“And will be your God, and you shall be my people.” As promised in Exodus 6:7.
This was a theme of Jeremiah. See Jeremiah 7:23; Jeremiah 11:4; Jeremiah 24:7;
Jeremiah 30:22; Jeremiah 32:38. In His mercy He is ever ready to respond to His
people. See also Ezekiel 11:20; Ezekiel 36:28; Ezekiel 37:23; Ezekiel 37:27;
Zechariah 8:8. It was God's purpose that He might be their God, recognised,
acknowledged, worshipped and obeyed. Then would they in turn be His people,
watched over, protected, honoured, prosperous and secure.
13 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out
of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to
the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and
43

enabled you to walk with heads held high.
GILL, "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.
JAMISON, "I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go
upright — a metaphorical expression to denote their emancipation from Egyptian
slavery.
K&D, "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. ‫ל‬ֹ‫ע‬ ‫ת‬ֹ‫ט‬ֹ‫,מ‬ 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. ‫יּוּת‬ ִ‫מ‬ ְ‫מ‬ ‫,ק‬ lit., a substantive, an upright position; here it is
an adverb (cf. Ges. §100, 2).
COKE, “Leviticus 26:13. I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go
44

upright— Bondage is frequently compared in the Scriptures to the bearing a yoke,
which, lying upon the neck, causes the bearer to stoop down, and hang the head; in
which view, the allusion here is as plain as it is beautiful.
REFLECTIONS.—God will not prove an unkind master to those who serve him:
none follow him with fidelity whom he will not follow with blessings. We have,
1. A solemn repetition of those commands, on the observance of which their
happiness especially depended, viz. Abstaining from idolatry, and keeping holy
God's sabbaths. Whilst they worshipped the true God, and in the ways of his own
appointments, so long they would be a peculiar people to him.
2. Rich promises to the obedient. Plenty shall crown the year, and peace be in their
borders. Their enemies shall bow before them, and their people multiply
exceedingly. God's favour shall he continually towards them, his presence in the
midst of them, and his covenant perpetually established with them. They shall be his
people, and he will be their God for ever. To the faithful Israel of God these
promises are daily fulfilling: the rain of divine grace produces the abundance of
spiritual gifts and holy dispositions; the peace of God shall keep their hearts and
minds; their enemies, Satan, sin, and death, shall be vanquished; the in-dwelling
presence of Jesus in their heart shall exceed the tabernacle-glory; and in death, and
after death, he will be their God, and they shall be his people for ever and ever.
Amen! Amen!
ELLICOTT, “(13) I have broken the bands of your yoke.—The promises thus made
to the Israelites of the extraordinary fertility of their land, of peace within and
immunity from war without, and of the Divine presence constantly sojourning
amongst them, if they will faithfully obey the commandments of the Lord, now
conclude with the oft-repeated solemn appeal to the obligation they are under to the
God who had so marvellously delivered them from cruel bondage and made them
His servants. To remind them of the abject state from which they were rescued, the
illustration is taken from the way in which oxen are still harnessed in the East. The
bands or the rods are straight pieces of wood, which are inserted in the yoke, or laid
across the necks of the animals, to fasten together their heads and keep them level
with each other. These bands, which are then attached to the pole of the waggon, are
not only oppressive, but exhibit the beasts as perfectly helpless to resist the cruel
treatment of the driver. This phrase is often used to denote oppression and tyranny
(Deuteronomy 28:48; Isaiah 9:3; Isaiah 10:27; Isaiah 14:25, &c.), but nowhere are
the words as like those in the passage before us as in Ezekiel 34:27.
WHEDON, “ 13. Made you go upright — The crushing yoke bowed the wearer to
the earth, and assimilated him to the beast of burden often his yoke-fellow.
Emancipation gave to him the erect form, and repeated the miracle of creation,
“God will have no slavery of a social kind. He is against all bonds and restrictions
that keep down the true aspirations of the human soul. God has always proceeded
upon the principle of enlargement and the inheritance of liberty.” — Joseph Parker.
45

Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque tueri
Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus. — Ovid.
To man he gave an upturned face,
And bade him scan the heavenly space,
And view, with countenance erect,
The firmament with stars bedecked.
“I am Yahweh your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that you
should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bars of your yoke, and made
you go upright.”
For it was for this that He in His mighty power and presence as Yahweh had
brought them forth safely from the land of Egypt so that they would not be
bondmen but free. That was why He had broken the bar of their yoke so that they
could go upright. The bar of the yoke went across the neck of the beast of burden
bowing them down with the yoke of what they bore. But it would not be so for His
people. They would be able to stand upright with no yoke to bow them down.
All this then would be so if only they were responsive and obedient to His will as
revealed in His covenant.
The same equally applies to Christians. If we would enjoy overflowing spiritual
blessing it can only result from obedience. But without responsive obedience there
will be no genuine blessing. It is those who hear the Master’s voice and walk in the
Master’s way (John 10:27-28), and only they, who will enjoy the fullness of what He
wants to give. Only fullness of obedience will bring fullness of blessing.
Jesus constantly stressed that there were only two ways, one was the narrow way of
obedience, the afflicted way, the hemmed in way, the way that leads to life, where
men do not do their own will but His will. The other was the broad and easy road
and it leads to destruction for all. There is no middle way (Matthew 7:13-14). The
one way was to build on the solid foundation, the rock, of hearing His words and
doing them, the other way was to build on sand, hearing His words but not doing
them (Matthew 7:24-27). Note that both hear His words. It is the way that they then
take that reveals them for what they are. Not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord’ will
enter under the Kingly Rule of Heaven, only those who do the will of His Father
Who is in Heaven (Matthew 7:21). We dilute His words at our peril.
46

PULPIT, “And I have broken the bands of your yoke. This expression, used also in
the parallel passage of Ezekiel above referred to (Ezekiel 34:27), and Jeremiah 27:2
receives an illustration from the ancient method of harnessing oxen, still kept up in
the East and South. The band means the straight piece of wood laid across the necks
of the oxen, by which their heads are fastened together to keep them level with each
other, and by which they are attached to the pole of the wagon. The single collars
worn by horses in more northern countries have not the same oppressive effect.
Punishment for Disobedience
14 “‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out
all these commands,
GILL, "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.
HENRY 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
47

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
48

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
49

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,
50

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.
JAMISON 14-15, “Lev_26:14-39. A curse to the disobedient.
But if ye will not hearken unto me, etc. — 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.
K&D 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,
51

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
‫ה‬ָ‫ל‬ ָ‫ח‬ ֶ‫בּ‬ 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).
CALVIN, "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.
COFFMAN, “Verse 14
CURSES AND PUNISHMENTS IF ISRAEL DOES NOT OBEY
"But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; and if
ye shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhor mine ordinances, so that ye will
not do all my commandments, but break my covenant; I also will do this unto you: I
52

will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the
eyes, and make the soul to pine away; and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your
enemies shall eat it. And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be smitten
before your enemies: they that hate you shall rule over you; and ye shall flee when
none pursueth you. And if ye will not yet for these things hearken unto me, then I
will chastise you seven times more for your sins. And I will break the pride of your
power: and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass; and your
strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield its increase, neither
shall the trees of the land yield their fruit."
Inherent in this is the truth that rejection of God's commandments and a failure to
do them is a "breaking of the covenant" (Leviticus 26:15). Therefore, Israel's
receiving all of these penalties at the hands of God is eloquent testimony indeed that
they did in fact break the covenant. Furthermore, right here is the kernel of those
great messages which constituted the burden of what practically all of the prophets
of God would afterward proclaim with reference to Israel. "Here is an epitome of all
later prophecy regarding Israel."[16] Also, "Breach of the covenant was tantamount
to open rebellion against God."[17]
"Consumption ..." (Leviticus 26:16). "This is not the name of a disease, but a
description of what follows many diseases."[18] The Septuagint (LXX) gives
"jaundice" instead of "fever" in this verse, but as Jamieson said, "No certain
explanation can be given."[19]
"Seven times more ..." This term occurs in Leviticus 26:18,21,24 and Leviticus
26:28; and Allis preferred the rendering "sevenfold," rather than "seven times
more," "Since it is apparently the intensity rather than the duration that is referred
to."[20]
In no sense do these threatened calamities which would befall Israel as a
consequence of their disobedience refer to a failure of God to defend his people.
Rather, "They were a judgment brought about by God, and this is precisely the
interpretation of history which is basic to the great prophets of Israel."[21]
ELLICOTT, “(14) But if ye will not hearken unto me.—The glowing promises of
blessings for obedience are now followed by a catalogue of calamities of the most
appalling nature, which will overtake the Israelites if they disobey the Divine
commandments. The first degree of punishment with which this verse begins
extends to Leviticus 26:17.
EBC, “"THE VENGEANCE OF THE COVENANT"
Leviticus 26:14-46
"But if ye will not hearken unto Me, and will not do all these commandments; and if
ye shall reject My statutes, and if your soul abhor My judgments, so that ye will not
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do all My commandments, but break My covenant; I also will do this unto you; I
will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the
eyes, and make the soul to pine away: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your
enemies shall eat it. And I will set My face against you, and ye shall be smitten
before your enemies: they that hate you shall rule over you; and ye shall flee when
none pursueth you. And if ye will not yet for these things hearken unto me, then I
will chastise you seven times more for your sins. And I will break the pride of your
power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass: and your
strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither
shall the trees of the land yield their fruit. And if ye walk contrary unto Me, and will
not hearken unto Me I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to
your sins. And I will send the beast of the field among you, which shall rob you of
your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your ways
shall become desolate. And if by these things ye will not be reformed unto Me, but
will walk contrary unto Me; then will I also walk contrary unto you; and I will smite
you, even I, seven times for your sins. And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall
execute the vengeance of the covenant and ye shall be gathered together within your
cities: and I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the
hand of the enemy. When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your
bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight: and ye shall
eat, and not be satisfied. And if ye will not for all this hearken unto Me; but walk
contrary unto Me; then I will walk contrary unto you in fury; and I also will
chastise you seven times for your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and
the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. And I will destroy your high places, and cut
down your sun images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols; and
My soul shall abhor you. And I will make your cities a waste, and will bring your
sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours.
And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein
shall be astonished at it. And you will I scatter among the nations, and I will draw
out the sword after you: and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be
a waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye
be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths. As
long as it lieth desolate it shall have rest; even the rest which it had not in your
sabbaths when ye dwelt upon it. And as for them that are left of you I will send a
faintness into their heart in the lands of their enemies: and the sound of a driven
leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as one fleeth from the sword; and they
shall fall when none pursueth. And they shall stumble one upon another, as it were
before the sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before
your enemies. And ye shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies
shall eat you up. And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in
your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away
with them. And they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in
their trespass which they trespassed against Me, and also that because they have
walked contrary unto Me, I also walked contrary unto them, and brought them into
the land of their enemies: if then their uncircumcised heart be humbled, and they
then accept of the punishment of their iniquity; then will I remember My covenant
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with Jacob; and also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham
will I remember; and I will remember the land. The land also shall be left of them,
and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them; and they shall
accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they rejected My
judgments, and their soul abhorred My statutes. And yet for all that, when they be
in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to
destroy them utterly, and to break My covenant with them: for I am the Lord their
God: but I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I
brought forth 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 Him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by the hand of
Moses."
So, if Israel should not obey the commandments of the Lord, but break that
covenant which they had made with Him, when they had said unto the Lord:
{Exodus 24:7} "All that the Lord hath spoken will we do, and be obedient"; then
they are threatened, first in a general way (Leviticus 26:14-17) with terrible
judgments, which shall reverse, and more than reverse, all the blessings. God will
appoint over them "terror"; disease shall ravage them, consumption and fever;
their enemies shall lay waste the land, defeat them in battle, and rule over them; and
instead of five of them chasing a hundred, they should flee when none was pursuing
(Leviticus 26:17-18). Then follow four series of threats, each conditioned by the
supposition that through what they should have already experienced of Jehovah’s
judgment they should not repent; each also introduced by the formula, "I will
chastise (or "smite") you seven times for your sins." In these four times repeated
series of denunciations, thus introduced, we are not to insist that numerical
precision was intended; neither can we, with some, give to the "seven times" a
numerical or temporal reference. The thought which runs through all these
denunciations, and determines the form which they take, is this: that the judgments
threatened as to follow each new display of hardness and impenitence on the part of
Israel shall be marked by continually increasing severity; and the phrase "seven
times," by the reference to the sacred number "seven," intimates that the vengeance
should be "the vengeance of the covenant" (Leviticus 26:25), and also the awful
thoroughness and completeness with which the threatened judgments, in case of
their continued obduracy, would be inflicted.
This interpretation is sustained by the details of each section. The first series
(Leviticus 26:18-20), in which the threatenings of Leviticus 26:14-17 are developed,
adds to what had been previously threatened, the withholding of harvest for lack of
rain. He who had promised to send the rains "in their season," if they were
obedient, now declares that if they will not hearken unto Him for the other
chastisements before denounced, He will "make their heaven as iron, and their
earth as brass." The second series threatens in addition their devastation by wild
beasts, which shall rob them of their children and their cattle; and also, in
consequence of these great judgments, with a great diminution of their numbers.
The third series (Leviticus 26:23-26) repeats under forms still more intense, the
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threats of sword, pestilence, and famine. The staff of bread shall be broken, and
when, stricken with pestilence, they are gathered together in their cities, one oven
shall suffice ten women for their baking, and bread shall be distributed by rations
and in insufficient quantity (Leviticus 26:25-26).
It is intimated that with these extraordinary judgments it shall become increasingly
evident that it is Jehovah who is thus dealing with them for the breach of His
covenant. This is suggested (Leviticus 26:24) by the emphatic use of the personal
pronoun in the Hebrew, only to be rendered in English by a stress of voice; and by
the declaration (Leviticus 26:25) that the sword which should be brought upon them
should "execute the vengeance of the covenant."
The same remark applies with still more emphasis to the next and last of these
subsections (Leviticus 26:27-39), the terrific denunciations of which are introduced
by these words, which almost seem to flash with the fire of God’s avenging wrath:
"If ye will walk contrary unto Me; then I will walk contrary unto you in fury (lit., "
I will walk with you in fury of opposition"); and I also will chastise you seven times
for your sins." All that has been threatened before is here repeated with every
circumstance which could add terror to the picture. Was famine threatened? it shall
be so awful in its severity that they shall eat the flesh of their own sons and
daughters. The high places which had been the scenes of their licentious worship
should be destroyed, and the "sun images" which they had worshipped, going after
Baal, should be cut down; and, in visible sign of the Divine wrath and of God’s holy
contempt for the impotent idols for which they had forsaken the Lord, upon the
fallen idols should lie the dead corpses of their worshippers. The sanctuaries (with
special, -though, perhaps, not exclusive, -reference, as the following words show, to
the holy places of Jehovah’s tabernacle or temple) should become a desolation; the
sweet savour of their sacrifices should be rejected. The holy people should be
scattered into other lands; the land should become so desolate that those of their
enemies who should dwell in it should themselves be astonished at its
transformation. And so. while they should be scattered in their enemies’ land, the
land would "enjoy her sabbaths"; i.e., it should thus, untilled and desolate, enjoy
the rest which Jehovah had commanded them to give the land each seventh year,
which they had not observed. Meanwhile, the condition of the banished nation in the
lands of their captivity should be most pitiful: minished in number, those that were
left alive should pine away in their iniquities, and in the iniquity of their fathers;
timid and broken spirited, they should flee before the sound of a broken leaf, and
the land of their enemies should "eat them up."
And herewith ends the second section of this remarkable prophecy. Promising Israel
the highest prosperity in the land of Canaan, if they will keep the words of this
covenant, it threatens them with successive judgments of sword, famine, and
pestilence, of continually increasing severity, to culminate, if they yet persist in
disobedience, in their expulsion from the land for a prolonged period; and predicts
their continued existence, despite the most distressing conditions, in the lands of
their enemies, while their own land meanwhile lies desolate and untilled without
56

them.
The fundamental importance and instructiveness of this prophecy is evident from
the fact that all later predictions concerning the fortunes of Israel are but its more
detailed exposition and application to successive historical conditions. Still more
evident is its profound significance when we recall to mind the fact, disputed by
none, that not only is it an epitome of all later prophecy of Holy Scripture
concerning Israel, but, no less truly, an epitome of Israel’s history. So strictly true is
this that we may accurately describe the history of that nation, from the days of
Moses until now, as but the translation of this chapter from the language of
prediction into that of history.
The facts which illustrate this statement are so familiar that one scarcely needs to
refer to them. The numerous visitations in the days of the Judges, when again and
again the people were given into the hands of their enemies for their sins, and so
often as then they repented, were again and again delivered; the heavier judgments
of later days, first in the days of the earlier kings, and afterwards culminating in the
captivity of the ten tribes, following the siege and capture of Samaria, 721 B.C., and,
still later, the terrible siege and capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, 586 B.C.,
to the horrors of which the Lamentations of Jeremiah bear most sorrowful
witness; -what were all these events, with others of lesser importance, but a
historical unfolding of this twenty-sixth chapter of Leviticus?
And how, since Old Testament days, this prophecy has been continually illustrated
in Israel’s history, is, or should be, familiar to all. As apostasy has succeeded to
apostasy, judgment has followed upon judgment. To a Nebuchadnezzar succeeded
an Antiochus Epiphanes; and, after the Greco-Syrian judgment, then, following the
supreme national crime of the rejection and crucifixion of their promised Messiah,
came the Roman captivity, the most terrible of all; a judgment continued even until
now in the eighteen hundred years of Israel’s exile from the land of the covenant,
and their scattering among the nations, -eighteen hundred years of tragic suffering,
such as no other nation has ever known, or, knowing, has yet survived; sufferings
which are still exhibited before the eyes of all the world today in the bitter
experiences of the four millions of Jews in the Empire of the Czar, and the
persecutions of Anti-Shemitism in other lands.
Existing, rather than living, under such conditions for centuries, as a natural result,
the Jewish people became few in number, as here predicted; having been reduced
from not less than seven or eight millions in the days of the kingdom, to a minimum,
about two hundred years ago, of not more than three millions. And, strangest of all,
throughout this time the once fertile land has lain desolate, for the Gentiles have
never settled in it in any great number; and in place of a population of five hundred
to the square mile in the days of Solomon, we find now only a few hundred thousand
miserable people, and the most of the land, for lack of cultivation, in such a
condition that nothing can easily exceed its desolation. And when we have said all
this, and much more that might be said without exaggeration, we have but simply
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testified that Leviticus 26:31-34 of this chapter have in the fullest possible sense
become historical fact. For it was written (Leviticus 26:32-34):
"I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be
astonished at it. And you will I scatter among the nations, and I will draw out the
sword after you: and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a
waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be
in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths."
These facts make this chapter to he an apologetic of prime importance. It is this,
because we have here evidence of foreknowledge, and therefore of the supernatural
inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God in the prophecy here recorded. The facts
cannot be adequately explained, either on the supposition of fortunate guessing or of
accidental coincidence. It was not indeed impossible to forecast on natural grounds
that Israel would become corrupt, or that, if so, they should experience disaster in
consequence of their moral depravation. For God has not one law for Israel and
another for other nations. Nor does the argument rest on the details of these
threatened judgments, as consisting in the sword, famine, and pestilence; for other
nations have experienced these calamities, though, indeed, few in equal measure
with Israel; and of these one has a natural dependence on another.
But setting aside these elements of the prophecy, as of less apologetic significance,
two particulars yet remain in which this predicted experience has been unique, and
antecedently to the event in so high degree improbable, that we can reasonably
think here neither of shrewd human forecast nor of chance agreement of prediction
and fulfilment. The one is the predicted survival of exiled Israel as a nation in the
land of their enemies, their indestructibility throughout centuries of unequalled
suffering; the other, the extraordinary fact that their land, so rich and fertile, which
was at that time and for centuries afterwards one of the principal highways of the
world’s commerce and travel, the coveted possession of many nations from a remote
antiquity, should during the whole period of Israel’s banishment remain
comparatively unoccupied and untilled.
As regards the former particular, we may search history in vain for a similar
phenomenon. Here is a people who, at their best, as compared with many other
nations, such as the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Romans, were few in number and
in material resources; who now have been scattered from their land for centuries,
crushed and oppressed always, in a degree and for a length of time never
experienced by any other people; yet never merging in the nations with whom they
were mingled, or losing in the least their peculiar racial characteristics and distinct
national identity. This, although now for a long time matter of history, was yet, a
priori, so improbable that all history records no other instance of the kind; and yet
all this had to be if those words of Leviticus 26:44 were to prove true: "When they
be in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to
destroy them utterly." With abundant reason has Professor Christlieb referred to
this fact as an unanswerable apologetic, thus:
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"We point to the people of Israel as a perennial historical miracle. The continued
existence of this nation up to the present day, the preservation of its national
peculiarities throughout thousands of years, in spite of all dispersion and
oppression, remains so unparalleled a phenomenon, that without the special
providential preparation of God, and His constant interference and protection, it
would be impossible for us to explain it. For where else is there a people over which
such judgments have passed, and yet not ended in destruction?"
No less remarkable and significant is the long-continued depopulation of the land of
Israel. For it was and is by nature a richly fertile land; and at the time of this
prediction-whether it be assigned to an earlier or later period - it was upon one of
the chief commercial and military routes of the world, and its possession has thus
been an object of ambition to all the dominant nations of history. Surely, one would
have expected that if Israel should be cast out of such a land, it would at once and
always be occupied by others who should cultivate its proverbially productive soil.
But it was not to be so, for it had been otherwise written. And yet it seems as if it
had scarcely been possible that through all these later centuries of the history of
Christendom, the land could have thus lain desolate, except for the so momentous
discovery in 1497 of the Cape route to India, by which event - which no one could in
so remote days have well anticipated-the tide of commerce with the East was turned
away from Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. to the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans; so
that the land of Israel was left, like a city made to stand solitary in a desert by the
shifting of the channel of a river; and its predicted desolation thus went on to
receive its most complete, consummate, and now long-realised fulfilment.
So, then, stands the case. It is truly difficult to understand how one can fairly escape
the inference from these facts, namely, that they imply in this chapter such a
prescience of the future as is not possible to man, and therefore demonstrate that the
Spirit of God must, in the deepest and truest sense, have been the author of these
predictions of the future of the chosen people and their land.
And it is of the very first importance, with reference to the controversies of our day
regarding this question, that we note the fact that the argument is of such a nature
that it is not in the least dependent upon the date that any may have assigned to the
origin of this chapter. Even though we should, with Graf and Wellhausen, attribute
its composition to exilian or postexilian times, it would still remain true that the
chapter contained unmistakable predictions regarding the nation and the land;
predictions which, if fulfilled, no doubt, in a degree, in the days of the Babylonian
exile and the return, were yet to receive a fulfilment far more minute, exhaustive,
and impressive, in centuries which then were still in a far distant future. But if this
be granted, it is plain that these facts impose a limitation upon the conclusions of
criticism. That only is true science which takes into view all the facts with respect to
any phenomenon for which one seeks to account; and in this case the facts which are
to be explained by any theory, are not merely peculiarities of style and vocabulary,
etc., but also this phenomenon of a demonstrably predictive element in the chapter;
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a phenomenon which requires for its explanation the assumption of a supernatural
inspiration as one of the factors in its authorship. But if this is so, how can we
reconcile with such a Divine inspiration any theory which makes the last statement
of the chapter, that "these are the statutes which the Lord made in mount Sinai by
the hand of Moses," to be untrue, and the preceding "laws" to be thus, in plain
language, a forgery of exilian or post-exilian times?
WHEDON, “ THREATENINGS AGAINST DISOBEDIENCE, Leviticus 26:14-39.
Law is necessary to government. But we can no more have law without penalty than
we can have a coin without a reverse side. Accountability implies free agents, with
intelligence sufficient to apprehend the consequences of actions in the form of
rewards and punishments distinctly announced beforehand. The seasonableness and
the clearness of this announcement enhance the guiltiness of transgression and
intensify the punishment. This graphic portrayal of the issues of disobedience leaves
rebellious Israel without excuse. “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, Leviticus 26:18-20; Leviticus 2) the extermination of
their cattle by beasts of prey, and childlessness — two punishments, Leviticus
26:21-22; Leviticus 3) war, plague, and famine — three punishments, Leviticus
26:23-26; Leviticus 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, Leviticus 26:27-33. These divine threats embrace the
whole of Israel’s future.” — Keil and Delitzsch.
14. Not hearken… not do — A refusal to give undivided attention and earnest heed
to the law of God by the proper use of our perceptive and reflective powers is as
culpable as wilful disobedience, inasmuch as it implies a disregard of the divine
authority. The most solemn and frequent injunction of Christ was this, “He that
hath ears to hear, let him hear.” It is worthy of remark that the process of apostasy
begins with sins of omission, and in the next verse ends with sins of commission.
PETT, “Verses 14-38
The Cursings (Leviticus 26:14-38).
In the ancient second millennium covenants the cursings were regularly more than
the blessings, and so it is here. The devastating consequence of disobedience and
unfaithfulness is now laid out in all its detail. We have here a foretaste of the history
of Israel, for Moses was a prophet. But this was not just prophecy, they were the
words of someone who was aware of the troubles and problems that could come on
an unprotected nation, and who recognised what God could bring on them from the
lessons of history. Moses was well aware of those. He would have both seen and
heard about such things during his upbringing. It was enlightened awareness, not
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the trickery of an oracle which could claim to be right whatever happened.
Leviticus 26:14-15
“But if you will not hearken to me, and will not do all these commandments; and if
you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhor my ordinances, so that you will
not do all my commandments, but break my covenant;”
Here is the picture of the one who will be cursed. He does not obey God. He does not
love His word. It is not that he does not believe. Like the devils he believes and
trembles. It is that he does not have responsive faith. He does not hear God’s voice
and respond to it, he does not do what God requires in His commands. He chooses to
reject God’s statutes and live his own life. He does not like what God demands, thus
he turns from it and breaks the covenant. He does not live as God requires.
Punishment in its first degree. Terror, consumption,—that is, wasting—and the
burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart:—a proverbial
expression for great distress (see 1 Samuel 2:33)—and ye shall sow your seed in
vain, for your enemies shall eat it (see Jeremiah 5:17, and Micah 6:15, "Thou shalt
sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint
thee with oil")… and ye shall be slain before your enemies (as took place often in
their after history, see 2:14; 3:8; 4:2); they that hate you shall reign—that is, rule—
over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.
15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my
laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so
violate my covenant,
CLARKE, "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
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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.
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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. ‫יהוה‬ ‫דבר‬ 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 ‫יהוה‬ ‫תורת‬ 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.
GILL, "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.
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CALVIN, "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.
ELLICOTT, “ (15) And if ye shall despise my statutes.—From passive indifference
to the Divine statutes mentioned in the preceding verse, their falling away is sure to
follow. Hence what was at first mere listlessness now develops itself into a
contemptuous education of God’s ordinances.
Or if your soul abhor my judgments.—Better, and if your soul, &c, as the picture of
their Apostasy goes on developing itself.
But that ye break my covenant.—Better, that ye break, &c, without the “but,”
which is not in the original, and obscures the sense of the passage, since it is the fact
of their abhorrence of God’s law which breaks the Divine covenant with them. (See
Genesis 17:14.) The sense is more correctly given by rendering this clause “Thus
breaking my covenant,” or “Thereby breaking my covenant.”
WHEDON, “Verse 15
15. Despise my statutes — In all deliberate rejection of God’s law, there is the
offensive element of pride lifting itself above the divine wisdom and majesty. All
wilful sin contemns Jehovah. Herein is the very essence of its turpitude. The
following judgments are not for single transgressions, but for an inward contempt of
all the divine commandments, breaking out in presumptuous and incorrigible
rebellion against Jehovah, who had openly set his name in Israel.
Break my covenant — The successive clauses of this verse are in the form of a
climax, rising step by step till the culminating sin is reached — a violation of that
solemn compact whose seal was upon the person of every male, and which was
pregnant with blessings, to the seed of Abraham. This would be national suicide. “O
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Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself.”
16 then I will do this to you: I will bring on you
sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will
destroy your sight and sap your strength. You will
plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat
it.
BARNES, "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.
CLARKE, "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.
GILL, "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:
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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.
JAMISON, "I will even appoint over you terror — the falling sickness [Patrick].
consumption, and the burning ague — 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.
COKE, “Leviticus 26:16. Appoint over you terror— See Deuteronomy 28:28.
Psalms 78:33 compared with the 36th verse of this chapter, which fully explains the
meaning of the word. Houbigant reads, ‫בחלה‬ bechle, here, after the Samaritans
which he renders diseases. One cannot read these blessings and denunciations upon
the Jews without an awful admiration of that providence, which, in future times, so
amply and fearfully fulfilled both the one and the other. Remarkable are the words
of Josephus: "In proportion to their neglect of the law, easy things became
unsurmountable; and all their undertakings, how just soever, ended in incurable
calamities." Antiq. lib. 5: cap. 1. See the Divine Legat. Book 5: sect. 2: p. 68.
ELLICOTT, “ (16) I also will do this unto you.—That is, He will do the same unto
them; He will requite them in the same way, and abhor them.
I will even appoint over you terror.—Better, and I will appoint, &c, that is, God will
visit them with terrible things, consisting of consumption and burning ague. These
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two diseases also occur together in Deuteronomy 28:22, the only passage in the Bible
where they occur again. The second of the two, however, which is here translated
“burning ague” in the Authorised Version, is, in the Deuteronomy passage,
rendered simply by “fever.” The two passages ought to be uniformly rendered.
That shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart.—Better, that shall
extinguish the eyes, and cause life to waste away. The rendering of the Authorised
Version, “consume the eyes,” though giving the sense, is misleading, inasmuch as it
suggests that the verb “consume” is the same as the disease, “consumption”
mentioned in the preceding clause. For the phrase “extinguish the eye”—the eye
failing—see Job 11:20; Job 17:5; Job 31:16, &c, and for the whole phrase, comp.
Deuteronomy 28:65; 1 Samuel 2:23.
And ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.—Besides these
terrible diseases, the production of the soil, which is necessary for the sustenance of
life, and which is to be so abundant and secure against enemies when the Israelites
obey the Divine commandments (see Leviticus 26:4-6), will be carried off by
strangers. Similar threatenings in case of disobedience are to be found both in the
Pentateuch (Deut. xxviii, 33, 51) and in the prophets (Jeremiah 5:17). The most
striking parallel is the one in Micah, “Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou
shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil” (Micah 6:15). For the
reverse state of things, see Isaiah 62:8; Isaiah 65:22-23.
TRAPP, “Leviticus 26:16 I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you
terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause
sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
Ver. 16. I will even appoint.] Put them in commission; send them with such
authority as shall be irresistible.
Terror, consumption, and the burning ague,] i.e., Terrible sicknesses of all sorts,
such as was the sweating sickness, called Sudor Anglicus, quia Anglis perpetuum
malum. (a) It reigned (b) here some forty years together, and slew so many, that
strangers wondered how this island could be so populous to bear and bury such
incredible multitudes. No stranger in England was touched with this disease, and yet
the English were chased therewith, not only in England, but in other countries
abroad: which made them like tyrants, both feared and avoided, wherever they
came. (c)
WHEDON, “ 16. Appoint over you — This is the very verb used to indicate that
Potiphar made Joseph overseer in his house. Genesis 39:5. They who throw off
allegiance to Jehovah will fall under the dominion of the ministers of his vengeance
who, as the satraps of the rejected king, shall rule these rebels with the utmost
rigour till they sue for pardon and peace.
Terror — Appalling fear, ever present by day and by night — a state of the utmost
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insecurity and alarm, of which the subjects of a stable and strong government in
time of peace have no conception.
Consumption — Emaciation naturally results from terror. Many a culprit, carrying
a guilty secret in his bosom, has been wasted to a skeleton.
The burning ague — Rather, the burning of fever. See R.V. When a tide of fire
courses through the veins, the helpless victim realizes that he is under the rod of
Omnipotence.
Consume the eyes — The eye is the organ of grief. When sunken, it indicates
extreme and long-continued suffering.
Sorrow of heart — Causing the soul to grieve. The entire being, soul and body, shall
be the vehicle of anguish.
Ye shall sow… in vain — The insecurity of the people in some portions of the Holy
Land, especially east of the Jordan, even now destroys the motive to activity in
agriculture and turns the fertile plains into a desert.
“I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and
fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away; and you shall
sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.”
To such a person God will react with the very opposite of His blessings. Note that
God says that He will be directly active in it. It may not seem like that, but that will
be how it will be. He will be against them. He will put them through hard and
difficult times, He will make them afraid with wasting disease and fever, their eyes
will suffer, their inner hearts will be full of grief. When they sow their seed it will be
in vain. It is the enemy who will eat of it. In every way times will be hard.
Sometimes such things happen to us as a test, to see whether we will be faithful or
not, and to chasten us and purify us so that our love and response to Him becomes
stronger (Hebrews 12:5-11). But we need to be aware that if we claim to be His
people, then disobedience to his will can result in what goes beyond chastening to a
harshness of judgment that will bring us to deep repentance. As we discover at the
end of the chapter this would be His purpose for Israel. But the way would first be
very hard.
17 I will set my face against you so that you will be
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defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will
rule over you, and you will flee even when no one
is pursuing you.
GILL, "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.
K&D, "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
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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.
ELLICOTT, “ (17) And I will set my face against you.—That is, make them feel his
anger. (See Note on Leviticus 17:10.)
Be slain before your enemies.—Better, be smitten before your enemies, as this
phrase is rendered in the Authorised Version (Numbers 14:42; Deuteronomy 1:42;
Deuteronomy 28:25).
Shall reign over you.—Better, shall rule over you, as the Authorised Version
renders it in Isaiah 14:2; Ezekiel 29:15; Ezekiel 34:4, &c.
WHEDON, “ 17. I will set my face — By direct interposition, in addition to those
ministers of his wrath, will Jehovah vindicate his broken covenant and punish his
refractory people.
Ye shall flee — So great is the contrast in war between those obedient to God and
the disobedient, that instead of one chasing a thousand, a thousand godless Hebrews
shall flee when not even one enemy pursues.
“And I will set my face against you, and you shall be smitten before your enemies:
they that hate you shall rule over you; and you shall flee when no one pursues you.”
For He will set His face against them, and when their enemies come they will be
unable to combat them. They will be smitten before them. They will come under the
rulership of tyrants who do not seek their good. And things will be so bad that they
will even run away when there is nothing really to be afraid of. Their nerve will
have gone. They will be without faith.
This picture is not of the outside world but of the supposed people of God. We need
to be afraid when we do not look to God in obedience, for then we face a long track
downwards. God is not mocked. The lampstand can be taken out of its place. Many
of the lands which first flourished under the Gospel are now trodden down under
Islam. They did not believe it could happen, but it did, for they had lost their true
faith.
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18 “‘If after all this you will not listen to me, I will
punish you for your sins seven times over.
BARNES, "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.
GILL, "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.
JAMISON, "if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish
you seven times more — that is, with far more severe and protracted calamities.
K&D 18-2O“First stage of the aggravated judgments. - If they did not hearken ‫ה‬ֶ‫לּ‬ ֵ‫א‬
‫ד‬ַ‫,ע‬ “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). ‫ז‬ֹ‫ע‬ ‫ן‬ ‫א‬ְ‫,גּ‬ 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. ‫ם‬ ַ‫מ‬ ָ‫,תּ‬ consumi.
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CALVIN, "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,
( Romans 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.” ( Psalms 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.
ELLICOTT, “ (18) And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me.—Better, and
if up to these ye will not hearken unto me, that is, if they should persist in their
disobedience to the very end of those punishments mentioned in Leviticus 26:16-17.
This verse, therefore, introduces the second degree of punishments, which ends with
Leviticus 26:20.
I will punish you seven times more.—That is, indefinitely or unceasingly; many
more times. Seven being a complete number is often used to denote thoroughness
(see Note on Leviticus 4:6), a large or indefinite number. Hence the declaration “He
shall deliver thee in six troubles; yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee” (Job
5:19), and “if he trespass against thee seven times in a day” (Luke 17:4), that is, an
indefinite number of times. (Comp. also Psalms 119:164; Proverbs 24:16, &c.)
TRAPP, “Leviticus 26:18 And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I
72

will punish you seven times more for your sins.
Ver. 18. Seven times more.] God will have the better of us, and good reason: for is it
fit that he should cast down the bucklers first? Illud quidem sic habeto, said the
orator, (a) nisi sanatus animus sit, quod sine philosophia fieri non potest, finem
miseriarum nullum fore, Be sure of this; if thy mind mend not, there will be no end
of thy misery.
WHEDON, “ 18. Seven times more — Seven typifies perfection. The chastisement
will be complete. The resources of Jehovah are infinite, and he has the cycles of
eternity for their development.
For your sins — National sins are punished in this world, because nations do not
exist after death. Individual sinners are reserved unto the day of judgment to be
punished.
“And if you will not yet for these things hearken to me, then I will chastise you seven
times more for your sins.”
And if they still do not listen to Him then their chastisement will increase sevenfold.
Instead of sevenfold divine blessing there will be sevenfold divine chastisement.
Punishment in its second degree. I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as
brass; the result of no rain in a land scorched by the fiery Eastern sun. Your land
shall not yield her increase, neither shall the tress of the land yield their fruits. Cf. 1
Kings 8:35; Haggai 1:10, Haggai 1:11.
19 I will break down your stubborn pride and
make the sky above you like iron and the ground
beneath you like bronze.
73

BARNES, "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.
GILL, “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.
JAMISON, "I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass — No
figures could have been employed to convey a better idea of severe and long-continued
famine.
ELLICOTT, “ (19) And I will break the pride of your power.—That is, the strength
which is the cause of your pride, the wealth which they derive from the abundant
harvests mentioned in Leviticus 26:4-5, as is evident from what follows immediately,
where the punishment is threatened against the resources of this power or wealth.
Comp. Ezekiel 30:6; Ezekiel 33:28.) The authorities during the second Temple,
however, took the phrase “the pride of your power” to denote the sanctuary, which
is called “the pride of your power” in Ezekiel 24:21. the expression used here, but
the identity of which is obliterated in the Authorised Version by rendering the
phrase “the excellency of your strength.” Hence the Chaldee Versions paraphrase it,
“And I will break down the glory of the strength of your sanctuary.”
I will make your heaven as iron.—That is, the heaven which is over them shall yield
no more rain than if it were of metal. In Deuteronomy 28:23, where the same
punishment is threatened, and the same figure is used, the metals are reversed, the
heaven is brass, and the earth iron.
TRAPP, “Leviticus 26:19 And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make
your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass:
Ver. 19. Your heaven as iron.] Hard hearts make hard times.
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“ En quia iam nobis sint ferrea pectora, reddit
Coelum etiam nobis durius aere Deus.
Et quia iam nummos gignant pro faenore nummi:
Ante ferax tellus desinit esse ferax. ”{a}
WHEDON, “Verse 19-20
19, 20. Pride of… power — The conceit of national puissance, which is so unlike the
spirit of dependence and humility, must be eradicated by painful methods.
Heaven as iron — The rain promised to the obedient shall be withheld from the
disobedient. See Leviticus 26:4, note.
Earth as brass — Through lack of water the fields will be as void of herbage as if
metallic.
They shall yield no increase under the divine curse, in amazing contrast to the
plethoric garners promised in Leviticus 26:4-5. In respect to spiritual good, the same
contrast exists now between those who distrust and those who fully believe the
promise of the Father respecting the gift of the Holy Ghost.
20 Your strength will be spent in vain, because
your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees
of your land yield their fruit.
GILL, "And your strength shall be spent in vain,.... In endeavouring to till the
ground, to plough, or sow, or to dig about the vines or olives, and prune them:
for your land shall not yield its increase; produce corn, and bring forth grass, the
one for the use of men, the other for the use of the cattle, and therefore both must starve:
neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits; such as vines, olives, figs,
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pomegranates, &c. which were very plentiful in the land of Judea, and on which they
much lived, and on which their more comfortable subsistence at least depended, see
Hab_3:17; all this is the reverse of Lev_26:4.
ELLICOTT, “ (20) And your strength shall be spent in vain.—That is, with the
heaven over them as metal, their labour expended in ploughing, digging, and sowing
will be perfectly useless.
Your land shall not yield her increase, as no amount of human labour will make up
for the want of rain. In Deuteronomy 11:17, where the same punishment is
threatened, and the same phrase is used, the Authorised Version unnecessarily
obliterates the identity of the words in the original by rendering them “the land
yield not her fruit.”
TRAPP, “Leviticus 26:20 And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land
shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.
Ver. 20. Your land shall not yield.] See this fulfilled. [Jeremiah 14:1-2, &c., and Joel
1:12 Jeremiah 8:13] And yet their country was called Sumen totius orbis. Cornelius
Tacitus yields it to be a fruitful country. So did Rabshakeh long before. [2 Kings
18:32]
“And I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heaven as iron, and
your earth as bronze, and your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall
not yield its increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruit.”
He will break the pride of their power. They would be so sure of their power and
ability to withstand. They would be so sure of their leaders, so confident in
themselves. But God will break that in which they trust, that of which they are so
proud (compare Isaiah 22:8-12).
And the heavens would be like iron. There would be no rain from them, no
response. And the earth would be like bronze, hard and unyielding. All their efforts
to produce grain and fruit would be in vain. The land would not yield its increase.
The trees would not yield their fruit.
As the history tells us this would take a long time. But it would happen again and
again over hundreds of years until every particle was fulfilled. The mills of God may
only grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small. And the sad thing was that they
did not always realise that it had happened or would happen until it was too late.
They thought that things would be fine.
There is no man or blessed nation which is not vulnerable to God’s judgment in the
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light of continual disobedience and apathy.
21 “‘If you remain hostile toward me and refuse
to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions
seven times over, as your sins deserve.
BARNES, "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.
GILL, "And if ye walk contrary unto me,.... To his mind and will, to his laws,
commands, and ordinances, showing no regard unto them by a walk and conversation
agreeably to them, but neglecting and breaking them continually; or by chance, as the
Targum of Jonathan, not with any intention and design to obey the Lord, and to honour
and glorify him, but in a careless and indifferent manner, having no regard to the law of
God, only now and then, as it happens, act according to it, but having no concern for the
honour and glory of God:
and will not hearken unto me; to his voice in his laws and his precepts, or by his
prophets, exhorting them to obedience to them:
I will bring seven times more plagues upon you, according to your sins;
greater and sorer punishments still, and these more frequently repeated, and in
proportion to their transgressions of his righteous laws.
K&D, "The second stage. - But if the people's resistance amounted to a hostile
rebellion against God, He would smite them sevenfold for their sin by sending beasts of
prey and childlessness. By beasts of prey He would destroy their cattle, and by
barrenness He would make the nation so small that the ways would be deserted, that
high roads would cease because there would be no traveller upon them on account of the
depopulation of the land (Isa_33:8; Zep_3:6), and the few inhabitants who still
remained would be afraid to venture because of the wild beasts (Eze_14:15). ‫ם‬ ִ‫ע‬ ‫י‬ ִ‫ר‬ ֶ‫ק‬ ַ‫ל‬ ָ‫ה‬
(“to go a meeting with a person,” i.e., to meet a person in a hostile manner, to fight
against him) only occurs here in Lev_26:21 and Lev_26:23, and is strengthened in Lev_
26:24, Lev_26:27, Lev_26:28, Lev_26:40, Lev_26:41 into ‫ם‬ ִ‫ע‬ ‫י‬ ִ‫ר‬ ֶ‫ק‬ ְ‫בּ‬ ַ‫ל‬ ָ‫,ה‬ to engage in a
hostile encounter with a person. ‫ע‬ ַ‫ב‬ֶ‫שׁ‬ ‫ה‬ָ‫כּ‬ ַ‫,מ‬ a sevenfold blow. “According to your sins,”
i.e., answering to them sevenfold. In Lev_26:22 the first clause corresponds to the third,
and the second to the fourth, so that Nos. 3 and 4 contain the effects of Nos. 1 and 2.
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CALVIN, "21.And if ye walk. Translators give various renderings of the word ‫,קרי‬
(226) keri. The Chaldee takes it to mean with hardness, as if it were their purpose to
contend against God. Jerome renders it ex adverso mihi, (in opposition to me;) but,
since the word signifies an accidental occurrence, or contingency, this sense has
seemed to me much the most appropriate. To “walk at adventures” ( fortuito) with
God, therefore, is equivalent to passing by His judgments with their eyes shut; and
even so to stupify themselves as to ascribe their adversities to fortune, and thus not
to be humbled beneath His mighty hand; for hence arises unconquerable obstinacy,
when the sinner imagines that whatever he suffers happens by chance. Therefore
Jeremiah inveighs against the Jews in a severe reproof, because they supposed that
evil and good did not proceed from the ordinance and decree of God,
( Lamentations 3:38;) for hence is engendered brutal madness, so that wretched men
rush with all their might to their own destruction. It will accord very well, then, that
if men do not take heed to God’s judgments, but rush onwards like furious beasts,
His meeting with them will be, as it were, fortuitous, when He shall smite them
indiscriminately, from right to left, high and low, as we say in French aller a tors et
travers. This, therefore, the sinner at length obtains by his stupid obstinacy, that,
overwhelmed by his manifold punishments, he sees no end to his troubles.
Meanwhile there is no doubt but that Moses rebukes the iron obstinacy of the
people, as David declares, that with the gentle God will be gentle, but that He will be
stubborn, as it were, with the perverse. ( Psalms 18:25.) He finally points out the
source of obstinacy, when the sinner is intoxicated by his stupidity into contempt for
God, whilst he turns away from himself, as much as possible, the sense of His wrath.
Let us learn, then, to withdraw our thoughts from vague speculations to the
consideration of God’s hand in all the punishments which He inflicts; because hence
will arise acknowledgment of our guilt, which may lead to repentance. Else that will
occur which Isaiah seems to have taken from this passage, that God’s anger will
never be turned away; but that, when we think that we are acquitted, His hand will
be stretched out still. ( Isaiah 9:12.)
"And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me, I will bring seven
times more plagues upon you according to your sins. And I will send the beast of the
field among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and
make you few in number; and your ways shall become desolate."
Meyrick and others have noticed that there are five degrees of increasingly severe
punishments to be inflicted upon rebellious violators of the covenant: one (Leviticus
26:14-17), two (Leviticus 26:18-20), three (Leviticus 26:21-22), four (Leviticus
26:23-26), and five (Leviticus 26:27-33).[22] These two verses are the third degree,
speaking of ravages by wild beasts. "Settlers in Samaria in the 8th century B.C. had
to face this problem" (2 Kings 17:25).[23]
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COKE, “Verse 21
Leviticus 26:21. If ye walk contrary unto me— In the 23rd and 24th verses, &c. this
same phrase is used. The Hebrew is, literally, in opposition to me; [ ‫בקרי‬ bekeri,]
and, consequently, the remarks which some have formed upon the marginal
translation of our English Bibles are of no weight.
ELLICOTT, “ (21) And if ye walk contrary unto me.—That is, continue the
defiance of the Divine law, and rebel against God’s authority. The third warning,
contained in Leviticus 26:21-22, threatens them with destruction by wild beasts.
Seven times more plagues.—That is, a still greater number. (See Leviticus 26:18.)
According to your sins.—This increased number of scourges will be in proportion to
their sins, since their defiance, in spite of the two preceding classes of punishments,
aggravates and enhances their guilt.
TRAPP, “Leviticus 26:21 And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken
unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins.
Ver. 21. Contrary unto me.] Or, Carelessly before me; as our ungirt Christians,
profligate professors do.
Seven times more Plagues.] God cannot be exhausted, neither need we fear, as he
did of his Jupiter.
“ Si quoties peccent homines, sua fulmina mittat
Iupiter, exiguo tempore inermis erit. ”
WHEDON, “Verse 21
21. Walk contrary unto me — Literally, go into encounter with me. Sin against the
divine law is collision with the divine Person. Hence pantheism, in teaching the
impersonality of God, destroys the sense of the guilt of sin.
Plagues — Smitings. Not merely natural consequences of disobedience, but positive
inflictions. The more aggravated the sin, the more severe the chastisement, though
even then not equal to the demerit of their transgression.
According to your sins — All this is spoken of temporal inflictions, else the nation
had perished. See Psalms 130:3.
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“And if you walk contrary to me, and will not hearken to me, I will bring seven
times more plagues upon you according to your sins, and I will send the beast of the
field among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and
make you few in number; and your ways shall become desolate.”
And if they still disobeyed Him and would not listen, the plagues and troubles that
came on them would increase seven times because their sins had increased seven
times. And he would send among them lions, and leopards, and bears who would
seize their children, destroy their cattle, and even attack them so that their numbers
decreased (compare 2 Kings 17:25-26). Their ways would be desolate.
PULPIT, “Leviticus 26:21, Leviticus 26:22
Punishment in its third degree. I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall
rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number. So
in the case of the Assyrians transported to Palestine, "At the beginning of their
dwelling there, they feared not the Lord: therefore the Lord sent lions among them,
which slew some of them" (2 Kings 17:25)—and your high ways shall be desolate.
Cf. 5:6, "In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways
were unoccupied, and the travelers walked through byways."
22 I will send wild animals against you, and they
will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle
and make you so few in number that your roads
will be deserted.
CLARKE, "I will also send wild beasts among you - God fulfilled these
threatenings at different times. He sent fiery Serpents among them, Num_21:6; Lions,
2Ki_17:25; Bears, 2Ki_2:24, and threatened them with total desolation, so that their
land should be overrun with wild beasts, etc., see Eze_5:17. “Spiritually,” says Mr.
Ainsworth, “these are wicked rulers and tyrants that kill and spoil, Pro_28:15; Dan_
7:3-6; Psa_80:13; and false prophets that devour souls, Mat_7:15; Rev_13:1, etc. So the
prophet, speaking of their punishment by tyrants, says: A Lion out of the forest shall slay
them; a Wolf of the evening shall spoil them; a Leopard shall watch over their cities;
every one that goeth out thence shall be torn to pieces, because their transgressions be
many. And of their prophets it is said: O Israel, thy prophets are like Foxes in the
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deserts, Eze_13:4; Jer_8:17; Jer_15:3.”
GILL, "I will also send wild beasts among you,.... Either in a literal sense, as
lions, bears, wolves, &c. and so is the reverse of what is promised to them on their doing
well, Lev_26:6; or figuratively, mighty monarchs and cruel oppressors, such as were the
kings of Assyria and Babylon, Jer_50:17,
which shall rob you of your children; as the bears, in a literal sense, destroyed the
children of them in the times of Elisha, 2Ki_2:24,
and destroy your cattle; the tame beasts, who often become a prey to the wild ones,
as both those of the flock, and of the herd, sheep and oxen, do to lions, wolves, &c.
and make you few in number; or diminish them, their number, by bereaving them
of their children, and their wealth and substance, by destroying their cattle:
and your high ways shall be desolate; or ways, the word high not being in the text,
and may signify both their public and private ones, which would be all forsaken, none
caring to venture to walk in them for fear of beasts of prey.
JAMISON, "I will also send wild beasts among you — This was one of the four
judgments threatened (Eze_14:21; see also 2Ki_2:4).
your highways shall be desolate — Trade and commerce will be destroyed -
freedom and safety will be gone - neither stranger nor native will be found on the roads
(Isa_33:8). This is an exact picture of the present state of the Holy Land, which has long
lain in a state of desolation, brought on by the sins of the ancient Jews.
ELLICOTT, “(22) I will also send wild beasts.—Better, and I will send wild beasts.
Wild beasts, which abounded in Palestine (Exodus 23:29), are used as a punishment
for sin (Deuteronomy 32:24; 2 Kings 17:25; Isaiah 13:21-22; Ezekiel 14:15, &c.).
WHEDON, “Verse 22
22. Wild beasts — As the promise includes the extinction of destructive beasts out of
the land, so the threatening includes their multiplication and their importation from
surrounding countries, as the following words imply.
I will send — Before the invention of fire arms wild beasts frequently became a
great scourge by their enormous increase.
Rob you of your children — So frequently are children destroyed by wild beasts in
India that the English government in their mortality reports in the census tables
have a column for the enumeration of the “wolf-eaten” children. A disturbance of
“the balance of the power,” by a diminution of men and an increase of wolves,
would become a calamity of gigantic dimensions.
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Your highways shall be desolate — There can be no more impressive description of
national decay than the disuse and desolation of the thoroughfares through which
commerce and social intercourse have ceased to move their busy feet, by reason of
the decrease of population, the decline of business, the perils of travel, (see Judges
5:6, note,) and the absence of worshippers going up to the place of worship.
Lamentations 1:4.
23 “‘If in spite of these things you do not accept
my correction but continue to be hostile toward
me,
BARNES, "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.
GILL, "And if ye will not be reformed by these things,.... Corrected and
amended by these punishments, be prevailed upon to return from their evil ways to the
Lord, and walk in his commandments, and keep his judgments, and do them:
but will walk contrary unto me; See Gill on Lev_26:21.
K&D, "The third stage. - But if they would not be chastened by these punishments,
and still rose up in hostility to the Lord, He would also engage in a hostile encounter
with them, and punish them sevenfold with war, plague, and hunger.
"And if by these things ye will not be reformed unto me, but will walk contrary unto me;
then will I also walk contrary to you; and I will smite you, even I, seven times for your
sins. And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute the vengeance of the covenant;
and ye shall be gathered together within your cities: and I will send the pestilence among
you; and ye shall be delivered into the land of the enemy. When I break your staff of
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bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread
again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied."
"And if by these things ye will not be reformed unto me ..." The significance of this is that
all of the terrible judgments here mentioned as being sent upon his rebellious children
were benign in their purpose. They were intended to discipline and rebuke the people and
bring them back to God. Can it not be any less true today that great disasters that fall
upon people are for the purpose of returning them to God whom they have forsaken? This
same benign purpose is visible in all of the judgments upon mankind typified in
Revelation under the symbols of the seals, the trumpets, and the vials of the wrath of God
(Revelation 6-16). Also implicit here is that fact that God monitors and disciplines the
conduct of Adam's rebellious race. A similar thing is also visible in Ezekiel 5:12.
These verses speak of punishment in the fourth degree, and famine and starvation are
features of it.
"When I break your staff of bread ..." Comment in the footnote on this in the Tyndale
Bible states, "This means `to break the strength thereof, and to diminish it, so they should
not have enough to live by'."[24]
"Ten women shall bake bread in one oven ..." Micklem thought this indicated the
"breakup of family life,"[25] but we believe it is more accurately understood as an
indication that food would be so scarce that the rations for ten families could be prepared
in a single oven. The mention of their bread being given to them "by weight" makes this
almost certain. It will be remembered that the black horse of famine in the Apocalypse
through the apostle John, carried a balance in his hand, and a voice was heard saying, "A
measure of wheat for a shilling, and three measures of barley for a shilling." (Revelation
6:6).
ELLICOTT, “(23) And if ye will not be reformed.—The fourth warning (Leviticus
26:23-26) threatens the rebellious Israelites with a more intensified form of the
punishment partially mentioned in the first warning. (See Leviticus 26:17.)
WHEDON, “23. If ye will not be reformed — The natural evil, or suffering, entailed in
this world by moral evil, or sin, is corrective and not strictly penal. In this life it is of the
nature of a purgative in its design; in the life to come it is a punishment, not for the
amendment of the convict but for the conservation of the moral order of the universe, and
hence a blessing when thus broadly viewed.
“And if by these things you will not be reformed to me, but will walk contrary unto me;
then will I also walk contrary unto you; and I will smite you, even I, seven times for your
sins.”
And if they still would not listen and be reformed, but continued to walk in the opposite
83

direction to His will, then He would walk in the opposition to them and smite them
another seven times for their sins. With the previous warning this made seven times
seven. The number seven of blessing was being turned against them and becoming the
number seven of doom.
Punishment in its fourth degree. I will bring a sword upon yon, that shall avenge the
quarrel of my covenant:… I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered
into the hand of the enemy—that is, ye shall go into captivity … and ye shall eat, and not
be satisfied. Cf. Ezekiel 5:12, "A third part of thee shall die with pestilence, and with
famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee: and a third part shall fall by the
sword round about thee; and I will scatter a third part into all the winds, and I will draw
out a sword after them." The famine that is to come upon them is described as making ten
women bake bread in one oven,—whereas in ordinary times one oven was only sufficient
for one woman's baking—and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight; that is,
the quantity baked will have to be weighed out in rations, before any one is allowed to
take it. See 2 Kings 6:25; Isaiah 3:1; Jeremiah 14:18; and as illustrative of the last point,
Ezekiel 4:16, "Behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat
bread by weight, and with care; and they shall drink water by measure, and with
astonishment."
24 I myself will be hostile toward you and will
afflict you for your sins seven times over.
GILL, "Then I will also walk contrary unto you,.... Opposing himself unto them
as their enemy, fighting against them in his providence, whetting his sword, bending his
bow, and causing the arrows of his wrath and vengeance to fall upon them; or behaving
towards them in a careless and indifferent manner, not regarding what befell them,
showing no peculiar concern for them, or as exercising any particular providence over
them; but as if everything came by chance to them, which was the language of their
actions, if not of their lips:
and will punish you yet seven times for your sins; add fresh corrections, and
these greater than before, and more numerous in proportion to their aggravated
transgressions.
ELLICOTT, “ (24) Then will I also walk contrary unto you.—By their increased
84

hostility to God, they simply increase their calamities, since He whom they are
defying now also assumes a hostile attitude towards those who are defiant.
And will punish you yet.—Better, and I also will smite you. (See Leviticus 26:28.)
25 And I will bring the sword on you to avenge
the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw
into your cities, I will send a plague among you,
and you will be given into enemy hands.
GILL, "And I will bring a sword upon you,.... War upon them by the sword of their
enemies; they that use and kill with the sword, as the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan;
their neighbours that delighted in war, and bore an implacable, hatred unto them, and
gladly embraced every opportunity of shedding their blood, and ravaging their country:
that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant; the covenant made with them at
Sinai, which they transgressed, and for which vengeance would be taken on them in this
way, God so ordering it in his providence, though the enemy meant it not, Isa_10:5,
and when ye are gathered together within your cities; from the fields and
villages, fleeing from the enemy invading and destroying, to their fortified towns and
cities for safety:
I will send the pestilence among you; which shall destroy those that escaped the
sword, and thought themselves safe in a strong city, and even the very soldiers in the
garrisons, who were set for the defence of the city:
and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy; so many being taken off by
the pestilence, there would not be a sufficient number to defend the place, and therefore
obliged to give it up, by which means those that escaped the pestilence would fall into
the hands of the enemy.
K&D 25-26, “ld bring over them “the sword avenging (i.e., executing) the covenant
vengeance.” The “covenant vengeance” was punishment inflicted for a breach of the
covenant, the severity of which corresponded to the greatness of the covenant blessings
forfeited by a faithless apostasy. If they retreated to their towns (fortified places) from
the sword of the enemy, the Lord would send a plague over them there, and give those
who were spared by the plague into the power of the foe. He would also “break in pieces
85

the staff of bread,” and compel them by the force of famine to submit to the foe. The
means of sustenance should become so scarce, that ten women could bake their bread in
a single oven, whereas in ordinary times every woman would require an oven for herself;
and they would have to eat the bread which they brought home by weight, i.e., not as
much as every one pleased, but in rations weighed out so scantily, that those who ate
would not be satisfied, and would only be able to sustain their life in the most miserable
way. Calamities such as these burst upon Israel and Judah more than once when their
fortified towns were besieged, particularly in the later times of the kings, e.g., upon
Samaria in the reign of Joram (2Ki_6:25.), and upon Jerusalem through the invasions of
the Chaldeans (cf. Isa_3:1; Jer_14:18; Eze_4:16; Eze_5:12).
CALVIN, "25.And I will bring a sword upon you. There is no doubt but that He
means the hostile swords of all the nations, whereby the Israelites were sorely
afflicted; and teaches that whosoever should bring trouble and perplexity upon
them were the just executioners of His vengeance; just as He constantly declares by
the prophets that He was the Leader of the people’s enemies, and that the Assyrians
and Chaldeans both fought under Him. He calls the Assyrian His axe, and the rod of
His anger which He wields in His hand, (Isaiah 10:15, and 5;) and Nebuchadnezzar
His hired soldier. He says that He will call the Egyptians with a hiss, and will arouse
the Chaldeans by the sound of his trumpet. (Isaiah 7:20, and elsewhere.) But since
this point is sufficiently well known, there will be no occasion of further proofs. The
sum is, that all wars are stirred by His command, and that the soldiers are armed at
His will, and are strong in His strength. Hence it follows that He has innumerable
forces by whose hand He may execute His vengeance whensoever He pleases.
Afterwards, therefore, when the Israelites were harassed, and even cruelly
oppressed by their enemies, God’s truth was manifested in all those continual
defeats; whilst, from His great severity, we may gather how gross was the perversity
of their conduct.
ELLICOTT, “ (25) That shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant.—Better, that
shall avenge my covenant, that is, the sword, which shall avenge the breach of the
Divine covenant; a war, which will devastate them because of their rebellion against
the covenant God. Hence the Chaldee Versions render it, “that shall avenge on you
the vengeance for that ye have transgressed against the words of the law.”
And when ye are gathered together within your cities.—When, completely defeated
in the battlefield, the Israelites escape from the avenging sword into their fortified
cities, they will then become a prey to pestilence, so that the surviving remnant will
prefer to deliver themselves over into the hands of the relentless enemy. (Comp.
Jeremiah 21:6-9; Ezekiel 5:12; Ezekiel 7:15.)
TRAPP, “Leviticus 26:25 And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the
quarrel of [my] covenant: and when ye are gathered together within your cities, I
will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the
enemy.
86

Ver. 25. I will bring a sword.] God "makes peace and creates evil," i.e., war. called
evil per antonomasiam. Whencesoever the sword comes, it is "bathed in heaven."
[Isaiah 34:5]
The quarrel of my covenant.] For breach whereof Jerusalem is long since laid waste,
those seven golden candlesticks are broken in pieces. Bohemia lies still a bleeding,
which was the seat of the first open and authorised Reformation. And what may we
think will become of us all, who, "like men have transgressed the covenant," [Hosea
6:7] or as Junius reads it, not tanquam homines, but tanquam hominis, &c. We have
made no more of breaking covenant, than if therein we had had to do with dust and
ashes like ourselves, and not with the great God; who is therefore whetting his
sword, and furbishing it for slaughter. Quod Deus avertat!
WHEDON, “25. Avenge the quarrel of my covenant — Literally, avenging the
covenant of vengeance. The R.V., “Execute the vengeance of the covenant.” This
was a punishment inflicted for breaking the covenant, and it was graduated, in
severity, to the richness of covenant blessings forfeited by apostasy. “It may be
reverently said that God does not deal carelessly with his own covenants. He does
not throw them away, and take no further heed of their operation. In the sense of
looking after his word and observing its issues he may be described in Old
Testament language as a ‘jealous God.’” — Joseph Parker. The Abrahamic
covenant is here personified as a friend of God claiming vindication against the
neglect and abuse of godless men. Sin changes the covenant of grace into the
covenant of vengeance, and the love of the Saviour into “the wrath of the Lamb.”
Revelation 6:16.
“And I will bring a sword on you, which will execute the vengeance of the covenant;
and you shall be gathered together within your cities: and I will send the pestilence
among you; and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.”
And if they still would not listen a powerful enemy would come against them, one
who would smite with the sword and execute against them the vengeance of the
covenant. Note the phrase ‘vengeance of the covenant’. This covenant which was
intended to be such a blessing to them would become the instrument of their
judgment. God’s goodness spurned becomes a terrible weapon against men.
26 When I cut off your supply of bread, ten
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women will be able to bake your bread in one
oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight.
You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.
BARNES, "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.
CLARKE, "Ten women shall bake your bread in one oven - Though in general
every family in the East bakes its own bread, yet there are some public bakehouses where
the bread of several families is baked at a certain price. Moses here foretells that the
desolation should be so great and the want so pressing that there should be many idle
hands to be employed, many mouths to be fed, and very little for each: Ten women shall
bake your bread in one oven, etc.
GILL, "And when I have broken the staff of your bread,.... Brought a famine, at
least a scarcity of provisions upon them, deprived them of bread, the staff of life, by
which it is supported; or however made it very scarce among them, so that they had
hardly a sufficiency to sustain nature, and perhaps the blessing of nourishment withheld
from that; see Isa_3:1,
ten women shall bake your bread in one oven; for want of wood, according to
Jarchi; or rather through scarcity of bread corn, they should have so little to bake every
week, that one oven would be sufficient for ten families, which in a time of plenty each
made use of one for themselves; and so Aben Ezra says, it was a custom in Israel for
every family to bake in an oven by themselves, which they ate the whole week. Ten is a
certain number for an uncertain, and denotes many, as in Zec_8:23. Making and baking
bread was the work of women in the eastern countries, as we find it was particularly
among the Persians (n), and continues to this day among the Moors and Arabs (o):
and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight; there being not enough
for everyone to eat what they pleased, but were obliged to a rationed allowance,
therefore everyone in the family should have their share delivered to him by weight; see
Eze_4:16,
and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied; not having enough to eat to satisfaction; or
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what they did eat, God would withhold a blessing from it for their nourishment, the
reverse of Lev_26:5.
JAMISON, "ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, etc. — The bread
used in families is usually baked by women, and at home. But sometimes also, in times
of scarcity, it is baked in public ovens for want of fuel; and the scarcity predicted here
would be so great, that one oven would be sufficient to bake as much as ten women used
in ordinary occasions to provide for family use; and even this scanty portion of bread
would be distributed by weight (Eze_4:16).
CALVIN, "26.And when I have broken the staff of your bread. By these words God
implies, that although He should not punish them by the sterility of the land, still He
was prepared with other means for destroying them by famine. We shall indeed see
hereafter that, when God was wroth, the earth in a manner shut up her bowels so as
to produce no food; and that the heaven also grew hard so as not to fertilize it with
dew or rain. In a word, all unseasonableness of weather and infertility of soil is a
sign of the curse of God; but now He goes further, viz., that although there should
be no scarcity of food, still they should suffer from hunger, when He had taken
away its nourishing qualities from their bread. This curse confirms the instruction
which we have seen elsewhere, that man does not live by bread, but by (227) the
command of God, just as if the efficacy contained in the bread proceeded out of His
mouth. (Deuteronomy 8:3.) And assuredly an inanimate thing could not give rigor to
our senses except by the secret ordinance of God. He employs a very appropriate
comparison, calling the support of bread, whereby man’s strength is refreshed, “the
staff;” as we see the old and weak leaning on their sticks as they walk, when
otherwise they would totter and fall. God says, then, that it is in His power to break
this staff, so that their bread should only fill their stomachs without refreshing their
strength. Ezekiel has borrowed from Moses this figure, which he makes use of in
several places, (Ezekiel 4:16,) although he there adverts to two sorts of punishment,
like another Prophet, when He says, “Ye have sown much and bring in little; ye eat,
but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but
there is none warm; and he that; earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag
with holes;” and again,
“Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did
blow upon it;” (Haggai 1:6;)
for he points out scarcity of food as one of God’s scourges, and the inability to profit
by their abundance, as another; and with this Micah also accords, for after he has
said, “Thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied,” he adds,
“Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt
not anoint thee with oil; and sweet wine, but shalt not drink wine.” (Micah 6:14.)
But Moses, in order that the curse may be more apparent, says that there shall be
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abundance of bread; and also that there shall be no deception practiced in kneading
and baking it; for that two (228) women shall come to one oven together, who may
mutually observe whether weight is duly given. He implies, therefore, that there
shall be abundance in their hands, and yet, when they are filled, they shall not be
satisfied.
ELLICOTT, “ (26)And when I have broken the staff of your bread.—Better, when I
break you the staff of bread, that is, when God cuts off their supply of bread, which
is the staff of life. “To break the staff of bread” denotes to take away or to destroy
the staff or the support which bread is to man. This metaphor also occurs in other
parts of Scripture (Isaiah 3:1; Ezekiel 4:16; Ezekiel 5:16; Ezekiel 14:13; Psalms
105:16). This, in addition to the pestilence in the cities, which will drive them to
deliver themselves up to the enemy, or rather the cause of this pestilence will be the
famine which will rage in the town whither they fled for protection.
Ten women shall bake your bread in one oven.—Better, then ten women, &c., that
is, so great will be the famine when God cuts off the supply, that one ordinary oven
will suffice to bake the bread of ten families, who are represented by their ten
women, whilst in ordinary times one oven was only sufficient for one family.
And they shall deliver you your bread again by weight.—When it is brought from
the bake-house each one will not be allowed to eat as much as he requires, but will
have his stinted allowance most carefully served out to him by weight. Parallel to
this picture of misery is the appalling scene described by Ezekiel, “I will break the
staff of bread in Jerusalem, and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care, and
they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment; that they may want
bread and water, and be astonished one with another, and consume away for their
iniquity” (Ezekiel 4:16-17).
WHEDON, “ 26. The staff of bread — Bread is called “the staff of life,” because it is
man’s chief sustenance. By famine this staff is broken.
Ten women… one oven — The oven which commonly was sufficient for the use of
one woman will hold the diminutive loaves of ten.
By weight — So severe shall be the famine that wretchedly small rations shall be
weighed out by the ounce. Hunger shall be aggravated and shall not be satisfied. In
the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans many of the rich sold all they had for one
measure of wheat, and the poor gave all their possessions for a measure of barley.
Then shutting themselves up in the inmost rooms of their house they ate it, some
without grinding, others made bread, and snatched it out of the fire half-baked, in
their haste to banish the gnawings of hunger. Children pulled the morsels that their
fathers were eating out of their very mouths, and so did the mothers to their infants.
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“When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they
shall deliver your bread again by weight: and you shall eat, and not be satisfied.”
Not only would the sword slay, but also famine. Their staff of bread, that food that they
relied on and leaned on, would be broken. There would be so little that one small oven
would be sufficient for ten women to bake in. Indeed the food would be rationed and
handed out by weighing it, as in a siege, and there would never be enough. They would
eat and not be satisfied.
27 “‘If in spite of this you still do not listen to me
but continue to be hostile toward me,
BARNES, "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.
GILL, "And if ye for all this will not hearken unto me,.... To his commands, and
to his prophets sent unto them time after time, and all his corrections and chastisements
being ineffectual to reform them, and make them obedient to him:
but walk contrary unto me; See Gill on Lev_26:21.
K&D 27-30, “Fourth and severest stage. - If they should still persist in their
opposition, God would chastise them with wrathful meeting, yea, punish them so
severely in His wrath, that they would be compelled to eat the flesh of their sons and
daughters, i.e., to slay their own children and eat them in the extremity of their hunger, -
a fact which literally occurred in Samaria in the period of the Syrians (2Ki_6:28-29), and
in Jerusalem in that of the Chaldeans (Lam_2:20; Lam_4:10), and in the Roman war of
extermination under Titus (Josephus bell. jud. v. 10, 3) in the most appalling manner.
Eating the flesh of their own children is mentioned first, as indicating the extremity of
the misery and wretchedness in which the people would perish; and after this, the
judgment, by which the nation would be brought to this extremity, is more minutely
described in its four principal features: viz., (1) the destruction of all idolatrous
abominations (Lev_26:30); (2) the overthrow of the towns and sanctuaries (Lev_26:31);
(3) the devastation of the land, to the amazement of the enemies who dwelt therein
(Lev_26:32); and (4) the dispersion of the people among the heathen (Lev_26:33). The
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“high places” are altars erected upon heights and mountains in the land, upon which
sacrifices were offered both to Jehovah in an unlawful way and also to heathen deities.
‫ים‬ִ‫נ‬ ָ‫מּ‬ ַ‫,ח‬ sun-pillars, are idols of the Canaanitish nature-worship, either simple pillars
dedicated to Baal, or idolatrous statues of the sun-god (cf. Movers Phönizier i. pp.
343ff.). “And I give your carcases upon the carcases of your idols.” ‫ים‬ ִ‫ל‬ֻ‫לּ‬ִ‫,גּ‬ lit., clods,
from ‫ל‬ַ‫ָל‬‫גּ‬ to roll, a contemptuous expression for idols. With the idols the idolaters also
were to perish, and defile with their corpses the images, which had also become corpses
as it were, through their overthrow and destruction. For the further execution of this
threat, see Eze_6:4. This will be your lot, for “My soul rejects you.” By virtue of the
inward character of His holy nature, Jehovah must abhor and reject the sinner.
"And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me; then I
will walk contrary unto you in wrath; and I also will chastise you seven times for
your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters
shall ye eat. And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your sun-images, and
cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul shall abhor you.
And I will make your cities a waste, and will bring your sanctuaries unto desolation,
and I will not smell the savor of your sweet odors. And I will bring the land into
desolation; and your enemies that dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And you
will I scatter among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you: and your
land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste."
This is the fifth degree of intensity of the judgments promised for persistent
rebellion and disobedience, and in it were included the ultimates of:
(1) military defeat,
(2) cannibalism,
(3) loss of their land,
(4) their scattering among the nations,
(5) the killing of many,
(6) the desolation of their cities,
(7) the utter abhorrence of God Himself, and
(8) even the destruction of their sanctuaries (the temple being destroyed twice).
"I will destroy your high places ..." These were the cultic shrines, relics of the
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worship of Baal, which Israel attempted to synthesize with the worship of Jehovah.
Not only were these to be destroyed, but even the holy shrines such as the tabernacle
and the temples that succeeded them were also proscribed in these judgments. Did
such judgments actually come upon Israel? Indeed, they did!
These verses are an accurate prophetic portrayal of the Jew since the day of the
Babylonian captivity, as he has been scattered among the nations. Wave after wave
of anti-Semitism has descended upon him to destroy him. Here is even a striking
picture of the Nazi anti-Semitic movement. You can see that this Book of Leviticus is
up-to-date.[26]
The cannibalism of Leviticus 26:29 was experienced in Israel no less than three
times:
(1) in the siege of Samaria (2 Kings 6:29; Lamentations 4:10),
(2) in the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and,
(3) in the siege of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.[27]
ELLICOTT, “(27) And if he will not for all this hearken unto me.—Better, And if,
notwithstanding these, ye will not hearken unto me, that is, if in spite of these awful
punishments they persist in rebellion against God. With this reiterated formula the
fifth warning is introduced (Leviticus 26:27-33), which threatens the total
destruction of the land and the people in the midst of the most appalling horrors.
“ And if you will not for all this hearken to me, but walk contrary to me; then I will
walk contrary to you in wrath; and I also will chastise you seven times for your
sins.”
And if they still would not listen but continued to walk contrary to Him, His anger
would be roused and He would walk even more contrary to them. They would be
chastised seven times for their sins. Divine retribution would come on them.
Punishment in the fifth degree. Ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of
your daughters shall ye eat. We find that this threat was fulfilled in Samaria (2
Kings 6:28), and in Jerusalem at the time both of the earlier siege by the
Chaldaeans, and of the later siege by the Romans. And I will destroy your high
places. By high places is meant the tops of hills or eminences chosen for worship,
whether of Jehovah (see 6:26; 1 Kings 3:2; 2 Kings 12:3; 1 Chronicles 21:26), or of
false gods. The high places intended hero are the spots where the "sun-images"
were erected (see 2 Chronicles 14:5; Isaiah 17:8; Ezekiel 6:4)—and cut down your
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images, and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols—that is, they
should roll in the dust together. And I will make your cities waste—as Samaria and
Jerusalem—and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation,—by the sanctuaries, which
are to be desolated, is meant all the consecrated things: the holy of holies, the holy
place, the court, the ark, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt sacrifice—and I will
not smell the savour of your sweet odours—so in Jeremiah 6:20, "To what purpose
cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country?
your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet" (cf. Isaiah
1:11-15). And I will bring the land into desolation (cf. Jeremiah 9:11): and your
enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it (cf. Ezekiel 5:15). And I will
scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you. See Jeremiah
9:16, "I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their
fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them."
BI 27-39, “Then I will walk contrary unto you.
God’s determination to punish sinners
I. As affecting supposition stated. “If ye will not,” &c. The Lord here supposes that His
people may commit three grievous sins:
1. The sin of disobedience. “If ye will not hearken unto Me.” Hence observe—
(1) That the Lord in His Word speaks to us (Heb_8:12).
(2) That whatever the Lord says in His Word it is our bounden duty to hear
(Heb_3:7; 1Th_5:20; Jas_1:19).
(3) That we are too apt to turn a deaf ear to Him (Exo_5:2; Psa_12:4).
2. The sin of incorrigibleness. “If for all this ye will not hearken.” Note here—
(1) That afflictions sometimes have the nature of punishments (Jer_13:21).
(2) That punishment is the natural and necessary consequence of transgression.
(3) That in the punishment which God inflicts He seeks our reformation (2Ch_
18:22).
(4) That our depravity in too many cases frustrates His designs (Zep_3:2).
3. The sin of perverseness. “If ye walk contrary to Me.” Observe again—
(1) That the Lord’s pleasure is, we should walk with Him (Mic_6:8).
(2) That we walk with the Lord when we walk in His way (2Ki_20:3; Ecc_12:13).
(3) That walking otherwise than He has commanded is to show a perverse and
untoward heart.
II. An awful consequence declared. “I will walk contrary also to you in fury.” Thus we see
that—
1. Conformable to our character will be our end. If God should deal thus with us
(1) We shall lose the blessing which He imparts to His obedient followers (Lev_
26:4-12).
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(2) Our expectations will issue in disappointment and vexation (Hos_8:7); and
(3) Like chaff before the wind we shall speedily be carried to destruction (Psa_
1:4-5).
2. Enforcement of these considerations: we see—
(1) That a religion consisting of mere notions will never saw a man.
(2) That men are not at liberty, as some suppose, to live as they please.
(3) That God takes notice of the ways of all.
(4) That if He displays His anger we should be anxious to find out the cause; and
(5) That if any one perish he will have no one to blame for it but himself (Isa_
3:11). (Wm. Sleigh.)
Desolation threatened to Israel
I. How horrifying the miseries which may befall a privileged people. The miseries of
penury and siege (Lev_26:29); of captivity and slaughter (Lev_26:33); of anguish and
derision (Lev_26:36); of pitiless misery and disaster (Lev_26:39).
1. None are so secure in grace and privilege that they can disregard the possibility of
a fall.
2. None are so rich in sacred favours as to be beyond danger of their total loss.
3. None are so honoured by God’s selecting and distinguishing grace but they may
lapse into alienation and desolation.
II. How amazing the disasters which may devastate a beautiful country. Canaan was a
wealthy land, a scene of loveliness, abundance, and delight. Yet on it came the disasters
of depopulation (Lev_26:31), sterility (Lev_26:32), desertion (Lev_26:35)—even
enemies abandoning it.
1. National plenty and prosperity are conditional upon national righteousness and
piety.
2. National greatness and glory have been withered by the anger of an insulted God.
3. National strength and safety are only guaranteed as religion is fostered by the laws
of a country, and in the habits and lives of its people.
III. How piteous the profanation which may despoil a nation’s sanctities! Canaan was
the scene of Jehovah’s sanctuary: the Temple rose on Zion; and the land sent up her
tribes to the celebration of sacred feasts and to the holy worship of God. Yet all her
“sanctuaries” were brought “unto desolation” (Lev_26:31), all the fragrance of her
sacrifices became loathsome to Jehovah (Lev_26:31), and her desecrated Sabbaths were
avenged in the bleak silence and loneliness which fell on hallowed scenes (Lev_26:34).
1. Religious favours, if abused, may be utterly withdrawn from us.
2. God loathes the offerings once delightful to Him, when the offerer’s love is
estranged.
3. Holy scenes and holy days become a barren mockery if a trifling spirit alienate the
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sacred Presence: “Ichabod!” (W. H. Jellie.)
Verse 40-45. If they shall confess their iniquity.
God’s promises to penitents
I. What is that repentance which God requires?
1. That we acknowledge our guilt. Our fathers’ sins as well as our own are first
grounds of national humiliation. Our own sins are the chief burden of personal
contrition. But sin should be viewed in its true light, as “walking contrary to God”
(Psa_51:4).
2. That we justify God in His judgments. If we have dared to walk contrary to Him, is
not He justified in “walking contrary to us”? Whatever inflictions He imposes we
have reason to own it as less than our deserts (Ezr_9:13), and that His judgments are
just (Rev_16:7).
3. That we be thankful for His dealings by which He has “humbled our
uncircumcised hearts.” Only real contrition can produce this. It realises mercy in
judgment, and love in affliction.
II. The connection between our repentance and God’s mercy. Repentance is void of
merit. Even obedience is destitute of merit; “when we have done all we could we are
unprofitable servants.” The acknowledgment of a debt is a very different thing from a
discharge of that debt. A condemned criminal may be sorry for his offences, but that
sorrow does not obliterate his crime, still less entitle him to rewards. Yet there is
connection between repentance and pardon, and meekness in the exercise of mercy
towards the penitent—
1. On God’s part. For repentance glorifies God (Jos_7:19).
2. On the part of the penitents. It incites to loathing of the sin, and to adoration of
Divine grace. So God insists on the condition, “If they be humbled, then will I
pardon.” For then God can do it consistently with His honour, and they will make a
suitable improvement of the mercy vouchsafed them.
III. The ground and measure of that mercy which penitents may expect. God’s covenant
with their ancestors was the basis and warrant of His mercy to Israel (Lev_26:42; Lev_
26:44-45). His covenant with us in Christ is our hope and guarantee.
1. Be thankful that you are yet within reach of mercy.
2. Have especial respect unto the covenant of grace. It is to that God looks, and to
that should we look also. It is the only basis on which mercy and redemption are
possible. (C. Simeon, M. A.)
The bow in the cloud
I. That the way was left open for the rebellious to return.
1. It was the way of reflection.
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2. It was the way of confession.
3. It was the way of humiliation.
They were not to return proudly, feeling they had not been rewarded according to their
iniquities. The way is still open for the vilest to return; for, the New Testament teaches
that these are the steps in the ladder of life, out of sin to holiness, from earth to heaven,
from self to God, viz.: Repentance, conversion, consecration.
II. That if the rebellious returned to the lord in his own appointed way he would
graciously receive them.
1. He would do so for the sake of their fathers. He would remember His covenant
with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
2. He would do so for the sake of His name. “For I am the Lord.” He had purposed,
as well as promised, to deal mercifully with them.
3. He would do so for the sake of the land. He had selected Canaan as the arena
where He would specially display His glory to men, and He would not allow it to lie
waste for ever.
4. He would do it for the sake of His covenant. “I will remember My covenant.” The
Lord does not make a covenant and then tear it rashly to pieces; if broken by man He
will speedily renew, nor allow the irregularities and irreligion of men to thwart His
beneficent arrangements. Here, indeed, was a resplendent bow of many colours,
beaming with the beautiful light of the mild and merciful countenance of the Most
High. What encouragement for sinful men to return to the Lord, “for He will have
mercy upon them, and abundantly pardon.” The Levitical law closes with offers of
mercy, the last words of the law are words of entreaty and promise. (W. H. Jellie.)
Gains of a good ancestry
“I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors.”
I. The vows and prayers of a goodly parentage exercise influence upon the divine plans.
That “covenant “is thrice referred to as determining God’s arrangements (Lev_26:42;
Lev_26:44-45). Note Job’s prayers for his children (Job_1:5; cf. with verse 10), “Made a
hedge about Job and about his house.”
II. Over long intervals the influence of parental covenants extend. This “covenant” with
Abraham was made 1900 years B.C. (Gen_15:13-14). It is now 1900 years A.D., yet the
word stands, “They are beloved for the fathers sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are
without repentance (Rom_11:28-29). God is at work, though He seems to wait. “In due
season ye shall reap if ye faint not.” Praying soul, anxious heart, clinging to the
promises—“Hope, and be undismayed; God hears thy cries, and counts thy tears, God
shall lift up thy head.”
III. How grand the link between a parent’s piety and the children’s destiny!
1. Live and pray for your descendants.
2. Value the sacred benefits even though as yet unrealised, of a godly ancestry.
3. Rest in the unfailing pledge of God to reward piety and prayer. (W. H. Jellie.)
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The advantage of submission
It is recorded of Edward I., that, being angry with a servant of his in the sport of
hawking, he threatened him sharply. The gentleman answered, It was well there was a
river between them. Hereat the king, more incensed, spurred his horse into the depth of
the river, not without extreme danger of his life, the water being deep and the banks too
steep and high for his ascending, Yet, at last recovering land, with his sword drawn, he
pursued the servant, who rode as fast from him. But finding himself too ill-horsed to
outride the angry king, he reined, lighted, and, on his knees, exposed his neck to the
blow of the king’s sword. The king no sooner saw this but he put up his sword and would
not touch him. A dangerous water could not withhold him from violence; yet his
servant’s submission did soon pacify him. While man flies stubbornly from God, He that
rides upon the wings of the wind posts after him with sword of vengeance drawn. But
when in dust and ashes he humbles himself, and stands to His mercy, the wrath of God
is soon appeased..
28 then in my anger I will be hostile toward you,
and I myself will punish you for your sins seven
times over.
GILL, "Then I will walk contrary to you also in fury,.... As in Lev_26:24; with
this addition, in fury; being greatly provoked, and highly incensed, that no regard was
had to him, neither to his commands, nor to his corrections; and therefore would be
determined to stir up his wrath, and pour out the fury of his indignation on them, which
must be terrible:
and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins; add new and many
more chastisements, and that in hot displeasure, for their sins; and the repetition or
doubling of the phrase, "I, even I, will do it", denotes the certainty of it, and that he will
do it himself, and his hand should be visible in it; and they should feel the weight of it,
and be obliged to own that these were punishments inflicted by him for their sins.
ELLICOTT, “ (28) Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury.—Whilst in
Leviticus 26:24 the persistent rebellion is responded to on the part of the defied God
in the simple words, “then will I also work contrary unto you,” we have here the
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addition “in fury” as the provocation is more intense.
And I, even I, will chastise you.—Better, And I also will chastise you. The verb here
is different from the one in Leviticus 26:24.
TRAPP, “Leviticus 26:28 Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I,
even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.
WHEDON, “ 28. In fury — Hebrews, in the heat of encountering. Fury, as implying
a perturbed and excited malevolence, is not predicable of Jehovah. Yet as a species
of anthropomorphism, to convey in a vivid manner the intense activity of the divine
justice against impenitent and defiant Israel, it is admissible.
Even I — This seems to imply the direct interposition of the divine hand without the
employment of secondary causes. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the
living God.”
29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh
of your daughters.
CLARKE, "Ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, etc. - This was literally fulfilled
at the siege of Jerusalem. Josephus, Wars of the Jews, book vii., chap. ii., gives us a
particular instance in dreadful detail of a woman named Mary, who, in the extremity of
the famine during the siege, killed her sucking child, roasted, and had eaten part of it
when discovered by the soldiers! See this threatened, Jer_19:9 (note).
GILL, "And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons,.... Which was fulfilled at the siege
of Samaria, in the times of Joram, 2Ki_6:29; and at the siege of Jerusalem by
Nebuchadnezzar, Lam_4:10; and though there is no instance of it at that time in the
sacred records, the Jews (p) tells us of one Doeg ben Joseph, who died and left a little
one with his mother, who was very fond of him; but at this siege slew him with her own
hands, and ate him, with respect to which they suppose Jeremiah makes the
lamentation, Lam_2:2; and of this also there was an instance at the last siege of
Jerusalem, by Titus, when a woman, named Mary, of a considerable family, boiled her
son, and ate part of him, and the rest was found in her house when the seditious party
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broke in upon her, as Josephus (q) relates:
and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat; of which, though no instances are
given, it is as reasonable to suppose it was done as the former. Some of the Jewish
writers (r) think, that in this prediction is included, that children should eat their
parents, as well as parents their children, as in Eze_5:10.
JAMISON, "ye shall eat the flesh of your sons — The revolting picture was
actually exhibited at the siege of Samaria, at the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar
(Lam_4:10), and at the destruction of that city by the Romans. (See on Deu_28:53).
CALVIN, "29.And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons. This scourge is still more
severe and terrible (than the others;) (229) yet we know that the Israelites were
smitten with it more than once. This savage act would be incredible; but we gather
from it how terrible it is to fall into the hands of God, when men, by adding crime to
crime, cease not to provoke His wrath. Jeremiah (230) mentions this monstrous case
among others: “The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children,”
and prepared them for food, (Lamentations 4:10;) and hence, not without cause, he
mourns that this had not been done elsewhere, that women should devour the
offspring which they themselves had brought up. (Lamentations 2:20.) And (231)
the last siege of Jerusalem, which in the fullness of their crimes was, as it were, the
final act of God’s vengeance, reduced the wretched people who were then alive to
such straits, that they commonly partook of this unholy food.
When He again declares that He “will cast their carcases upon those of their idols,”
He shews by the very nature of the punishment that their impiety would be
manifest; for apostates take marvelous delight in their superstitions, until God
openly appears as the avenger of His service. But that their idols should be cast into
a common heap with the bones of the dead, was as if the finger of God pointed out
His abomination of their false worship. And then, because their last resource was in
sacrifices, He declares that they should be of no avail for atonement; for, in the
expression, “savour of peace,” (232) He embraces all the expiatory rites, by their
confidence in which they were the more obstinate. Afterwards He threatens
banishment as well as the desolation of the land; by which punishment He made it
apparent that they were utterly renounced, as we shall again see a little further on.
ELLICOTT, “(29) And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons.—The harrowing scene
here described is also depicted in Deuteronomy 28:53-57. This prediction actually
came to pass at the siege of Samaria by the Syrians (2 Kings 6:28-29), and at the
siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldæans, which Jeremiah thus bewails, “the hands of
pitiful women have sodden their own children, they were their meat in the
destruction of the daughter of my people” (Lamentations 4:10; comp. also Jeremiah
19:9; Ezekiel 5:10; Zechariah 11:9, &c.). This also happened at the siege of
Jerusalem by Titus. A woman named Mary killed her infant child and boiled it
during the height of the famine, and after she had eaten part of it, the soldiers found
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Leviticus 26 commentary

Leviticus 26 commentary

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Leviticus 26 commentary