Leviticus 26
Basic Covenant Demands 1–2
Blessings for Obedience 3–13
Consequences of Disobedience (The Curses) 14–17
First Tier of Judgment: Sevenfold Punishment 18–20
Second Tier of Judgment: Wild Beasts and Plague 21–26
Final Tier of Judgment: War, Famine, and Exile 27–39
The Promise of Future Restoration 40–46
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · 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.