Leviticus 26

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Leviticus 26 outlines the blessings for obedience to God's commandments and the severe curses for disobedience. It promises prosperity, peace, and God's presence for faithfulness, contrasting this with famine, war, disease, and exile for rebellion. Despite the dire warnings, the chapter concludes with a promise of remembrance and restoration if the people humble themselves and confess their sins.

Basic Covenant Demands 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 Jehovah your God.

Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am Jehovah.

Blessings for Obedience 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 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.

Consequences of Disobedience (The Curses) 14–17

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 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.

First Tier of Judgment: Sevenfold Punishment 18–20

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.

Second Tier of Judgment: Wild Beasts and Plague 21–26

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.

Final Tier of Judgment: War, Famine, and Exile 27–39

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.

Then shall the land enjoy its sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye are in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy its 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.

The Promise of Future Restoration 40–46

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 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 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 by them, and shall enjoy its sabbaths, while it lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity; because, even because they rejected mine ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes.

And yet for all that, when they are 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 Jehovah 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 Jehovah.

These are the statutes and ordinances and laws, which Jehovah made between him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by Moses.

Bible text: American Standard Version (1901) · Public domain

Study Notes for Leviticus 26

Verse 1

no idols nor graven image — 'Idols' is elil, a worthless thing; 'graven image' is pesel, a carved one; the 'standing image' is matstsebah, an upright pillar. The 'image of stone' (maskith) is the word rendered 'pictures' in Num 33:52, where Israel is told to destroy them. The ban repeats Ex 20:4 and Lev 19:4.

Verse 2

keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary — The command is word for word that of Lev 19:30. 'Reverence' is yare, to fear. The 'sabbaths' are plural: the weekly rest and the seventh year of rest for the land (Lev 25:2–4), which vv.34–35 take up again.

Verse 3

walk in my statutes — Three verbs open the blessings: walk (halak), keep (shamar) and do (asah). The blessings of vv.3–13 are answered by the curses of vv.14–39, the same pairing Moses sets out in Deut 28:1–14 and 28:15–68.

Verse 4

rain in due season — Deut 11:14 names it: 'the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain'. The verb 'give' (nathan) occurs three times here: the LORD gives rain, and the land and the trees give back their 'increase' and 'fruit'.

Verse 5

threshing shall reach unto the vintage — Harvest, vintage and sowing each run into the next, so that no season is left empty. Amos 9:13 repeats the picture: 'the plowman shall overtake the reaper'. 'Safely' is betach, the word of Lev 25:18, 'ye shall dwell in the land in safety'.

Verse 8

five of you shall chase an hundred — The proportion grows: five chase a hundred (twenty each), a hundred put ten thousand to flight (a hundred each). 'Chase' and 'put to flight' are one verb, radaph. Josh 23:10 applies it to one man chasing a thousand; Deut 32:30 says why it failed: 'except their Rock had sold them'.

Verse 11

my tabernacle — Mishkan, the dwelling, is the tent for which Ex 25:8 says 'that I may dwell among them'. 'Abhor' is gaal, to loathe. 'My soul shall not abhor you' is reversed in v.30, 'my soul shall abhor you', and denied once more in v.44. Rev 21:3 takes up the line: 'the tabernacle of God is with men'.

Verse 12

I will walk among you — The verb is halak in its reflexive form, to walk about, the same as 'walking in the garden' where the LORD God was heard in Gen 3:8. Paul joins this verse to 2 Cor 6:16: 'I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.'

Verse 13

made you go upright — Qomemiyyuth, 'upright', occurs only here: with the head lifted, free of the yoke. The 'bands of your yoke' (motah, the bars of a yoke) are the ones of Egypt; Ezek 34:27 uses the same phrase of a later deliverance, 'when I have broken the bands of their yoke'.

Verse 14

if ye will not hearken — The curses open with the verb shama, to hear and obey, as the curses of Deut 28:15 do. They come in stages, and each stage begins with a fresh 'if ye will not' (vv.18, 21, 23, 27), so that the judgment is repeated only while the people go on refusing.

Verse 15

despise my statutes — Three verbs of rejection stand here: despise (maas), abhor (gaal) and break (parar). The same three return in v.44, where the LORD says that in the land of their enemies he will not 'cast them away', will not 'abhor' them, and will not 'break' his covenant with them.

Verse 16

burning ague — Qaddachath, a fever, found only here and in Deut 28:22, 'a fever, and … an inflammation'. 'Ye shall sow your seed in vain' is seen in Judges 6:3, 'when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up', who then 'destroyed the increase of the earth'.

Verse 18

seven times more — 'Seven times' recurs in vv.18, 21, 24 and 28, each time raising the stroke. 'Punish' is yasar, to discipline, the verb rendered 'reformed' in v.23 and 'chastise' in v.28: the purpose throughout is correction, and the way back is set out in vv.40–42.

Verse 19

heaven as iron — Deut 28:23 states the figure with the metals exchanged: 'thy heaven … shall be brass, and the earth … iron'. It undoes the first blessing, the rain of v.4. In Elijah's time 'the heaven was shut up three years and six months' (Luke 4:25; 1 Kgs 17:1).

Verse 21

walk contrary unto me — Qeri, 'contrary', occurs seven times in the Bible, all in this chapter (vv.21, 23, 24, 27, 28, 40, 41). The word is Israel's attitude in vv.21, 23 and 27, then the LORD's reply in vv.24 and 28, and finally the confession of vv.40–41.

Verse 22

wild beasts — The chayyah of the field is the creature the LORD had said he would keep from multiplying while the land was being taken: 'lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee' (Ex 23:29). Here he sends them; 2 Kgs 17:25 shows it done: 'the LORD sent lions among them'.

Verse 24

walk contrary unto you — The LORD answers in kind, with the same word qeri that described Israel in v.21. Ps 18:26 states the rule: 'with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward.' 'Punish' here is nakah, to smite, a stronger verb than the 'punish' (yasar) of v.18.

Verse 25

the quarrel of my covenant — 'Quarrel' is naqam, vengeance, and the sword 'shall avenge' it from the same root: the covenant carries its own penalty. Gathering 'within your cities' gives no cover, for the pestilence (deber) is sent in among the people and they are 'delivered into the hand of the enemy'.

Verse 26

the staff of your bread — Bread is the staff that holds a man up. Ps 105:16 says the LORD 'brake the whole staff of bread' in a famine, and Ezek 4:16 repeats the threat: 'they shall eat bread by weight, and with care'. 'Not be satisfied' reverses v.5, 'eat your bread to the full'.

Verse 29

the flesh of your sons — Deut 28:53 gives the same warning 'in the siege, and in the straitness'. It happened in the siege of Samaria (2 Kgs 6:28–29, 'So we boiled my son, and did eat him') and is mourned over Jerusalem: 'The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children' (Lam 4:10).

Verse 30

your high places — Bamah is a raised shrine. The 'images' are chammanim, sun-pillars, and 'idols' is gillulim, literally 'logs'. 'Carcases' is peger, used twice: the bodies of the people fall on the lifeless idols they trusted. 'My soul shall abhor you' reverses the promise of v.11.

Verse 31

your sanctuaries — The word is miqdash, the same as 'my sanctuary' in v.2. 'Sweet odours' is nichoach, the pleasing savour of Lev 1:9, 'a sweet savour unto the LORD'. With the LORD refusing to smell it, the offerings are made in vain, as in Isa 1:13, 'Bring no more vain oblations'.

Verse 33

scatter you among the heathen — Zarah, to scatter, is the verb of Ezek 12:15, 'disperse them in the countries'; Deut 4:27 gives the same threat, 'the LORD shall scatter you among the nations'. The sword is 'drawn out' (ruq, literally emptied out) 'after you', so the pursuit follows the people into the lands where they are scattered.

Verse 34

enjoy her sabbaths — 'Enjoy' is ratsah, to be pleased with or pay what is due. The land receives the years it was owed, as v.35 states: 'because it did not rest in your sabbaths'. 2 Chr 36:21 records the result: 'until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths … to fulfil threescore and ten years'.

Verse 39

pine away — Maqaq, to rot or waste away, is the verb of Ezek 4:17 and 24:23, 'ye shall pine away for your iniquities'. The 'iniquities of their fathers' are named again in the confession of v.40, so that survivors own their fathers' sins as well as their own.

Verse 40

confess their iniquity — Yadah in the reflexive is the confession of Lev 5:5 and the one Aaron makes over the scapegoat (Lev 16:21). 'Trespass' and 'trespassed' share one root (ma'al), the word of Lev 5:15. The promise is stated in the New Testament as 1 John 1:9: 'he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins'.

Verse 41

uncircumcised hearts — The heart is what needs cutting: 'Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart' (Deut 10:16), and the LORD promises 'will circumcise thine heart' (Deut 30:6). Paul says 'circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit' (Rom 2:29). 'Accept' is ratsah, as in v.34.

Verse 42

my covenant with Jacob — The verb 'remember' (zakar) occurs three times. The patriarchs are named from Jacob back to Abraham, the reverse of the order in Ex 2:24, and the land comes last: the land is the promise made to Abraham, 'all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession' (Gen 17:8).

Verse 44

I will not cast them away — 'Cast away' is maas, 'abhor' is gaal, 'break' is parar: the three verbs of v.15, now denied. What Israel did to the LORD's statutes he will not do to them. Rom 11:2 says the same of the people in Paul's day: 'God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew'.

Verse 45

the covenant of their ancestors — 'Ancestors' is rishonim, the first ones, here the generation brought out of Egypt. They were brought out 'in the sight of the heathen', and Ezek 20:22 says he acted 'for my name's sake, that it should not be polluted in the sight of the heathen'.

Verse 46

statutes and judgments and laws — Three words gather the whole body of law: choq (statutes), mishpat (judgments) and torah (laws, teachings). 'Between him and the children of Israel' marks them as the terms of the covenant, given 'in mount Sinai'. Lev 27:34 ends the book with a similar line.