Chapter Twenty-Six
1–2. Confirmation of the commandments of worshiping God. 3–13. Promises for the fulfillment of God’s commandments and 14–39. Threats for the violation of them. 40–46. The future of Israel
Leviticus 26:1. You shall not make idols for yourselves, nor shall you set up a carved image or a sacred pillar for yourselves, nor shall you place a carved stone in your land to kneel before it, for I am the Lord your God. Leviticus 26:2. Observe my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord. Briefly, from the negative and positive sides, through the turning away of Israel from idolatry (and generally the violation of the first three commandments of the Decalogue) and the exhortation to observe the Sabbaths of the Lord and to preserve the sanctity of His sanctuary – to the outward expression of the covenant with the Lord – the essence of worship of God is repeated, on the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of which will depend the prosperity or affliction of Israel. The use and deification is forbidden: 1) idols, Hebrew elilim, false, worthless gods (compare Lev 19:4); 2) carved images, Hebrew pecel, Vulgate: sculptile, cast, worked with a chisel, idols; 3) pillars – mazzebah, wooden and stone stelae, which the patriarchs erected at places marked by divine manifestations (Gen 28:18), – in view of the misuse of these monuments by the people, they are now forbidden, and 4) carved stones – eben maskit, Vulgate: insignem lapidem, that is, images of idols (compare Ezek 8:12).
Leviticus 26:3. If you follow my statutes and keep my commandments and do them, Leviticus 26:4. Then I will give you rains in their season, and the land shall give its increase, and the trees of the field shall give their fruit; Leviticus 26:5. And the threshing of your harvest shall reach the vintage, and the vintage shall reach the sowing, and you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell safely on your land; Leviticus 26:6. I will send peace in the land, and you shall lie down with no one to make you afraid; I will remove dangerous beasts from the land, and no sword shall pass through your land; Leviticus 26:7. You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword; Leviticus 26:8. 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; Leviticus 26:9. I will regard you favorably and make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will establish my covenant with you; Leviticus 26:10. You shall eat the old stored up, and you shall clear away the old because of the new; Leviticus 26:11. I will place my tabernacle among you, and my soul will not abhor you; Leviticus 26:12. I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. For strict observance of God’s commandments, Israel is promised: 1) fruitfulness of the land, and first of all, since in Palestine it depended on timely and abundant rainfall, early (joreh, autumn) and late (malgosch, spring), compare Deut 11:11; compare Jer 5:24 – timely rains (Lev 26:4); abundant harvest (Lev 26:5) – such that the threshing of grain (usually finished with the harvest by Pentecost, therefore in May) will extend until the autumn (at the end of September – beginning of October) gathering of grapes, and the gathering of the latter will scarcely finish by the time of sowing (in November, before the arrival of the early rains); 2) peace and quiet in the land of Israel from wild beasts and enemies, easy and certain victory over enemies, strength and courage of God’s people (Lev 26:6-8); 3) fruitfulness, multiplication of the population and enrichment (compare Lev 25:21-22) of it (Lev 26:9-10) – all this in the name of the covenant (see Gen 17:4-6), and 4) the most important blessing: the dwelling of the Lord with His people, the gracious communion of Him with them (compare 2 Cor 6:16) and the moral elevation of the latter among other peoples (Lev 26:11-13). So nothing is forgotten here that serves the material and spiritual good of Israel! Punishments for the failure to fulfill the obligations, on the contrary, are to follow one another not all at once, but the more severe and heavy will be sent only when the less strict have not produced a corrective effect on the people.
Leviticus 26:14. But if you will not obey me and will not keep all these commandments, Leviticus 26:15. And if you despise my statutes and if your soul abhors my laws, so that you do not do all my commandments, breaking my covenant, Leviticus 26:16. Then I will do this to you: I will send terror and wasting disease and burning fever upon you that will cause your eyes to fail and your life to be consumed; and you shall sow your seed in vain, and your enemies shall eat it; Leviticus 26:17. I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies; those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you. Leviticus 26:18. If after this you still will not obey me, I will chastise you sevenfold for your sins, Leviticus 26:19. I will break your proud glory, and I will make your sky like iron and your earth like copper; Leviticus 26:20. And your strength shall be spent in vain, and your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit. Leviticus 26:21. If you act with hostility toward me and will not listen to me, I will afflict you sevenfold for your sins: Leviticus 26:22. I will send wild animals among you, which shall rob you of your children and kill your cattle, and diminish your numbers so that your roads will become desolate. Leviticus 26:23. If you are not corrected by this and act with hostility toward me, Leviticus 26:24. Then I too will act with hostility toward you, and I will strike you sevenfold for your sins, Leviticus 26:25. I will bring a sword upon you to take vengeance for the covenant; if you retreat into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy; Leviticus 26:26. When I break your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven and shall ration your bread by weight; and you shall eat and not be satisfied. Leviticus 26:27. If you will not obey me even after this and act with hostility toward me, Leviticus 26:28. Then I will act toward you in the fury of my wrath; I will punish you sevenfold for your sins, Leviticus 26:29. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters you shall eat; Leviticus 26:30. I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and cast your corpses on the corpses of your idols; my soul will abhor you; Leviticus 26:31. I will make your cities a waste and will lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will not smell the pleasant aroma of your offerings; Leviticus 26:32. I will lay the land waste, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled by it. Leviticus 26:33. I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out the sword after you; and your land shall be a desolation and your cities a waste. Leviticus 26:34. Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land shall rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. Leviticus 26:35. As long as it lies desolate it shall rest – for the time that it failed to rest during your Sabbaths when you were dwelling upon it. Leviticus 26:36. And as for those of you who survive, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a rustling leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall though no one pursues. Leviticus 26:37. They shall stumble over one another as if fleeing from the sword, though no one pursues them, and you shall have no power to stand against your enemies. Leviticus 26:38. You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall consume you; Leviticus 26:39. And those of you who survive shall pine away in their iniquity in the lands of your enemies; and also in the iniquities of their ancestors they shall pine away. 1) Diseases and suffering from enemies (Lev 26:16-17). Schachepheth – “wasting disease,” consumption (LXX: ψώρα, Slavonic: “skin disease”; from Arabic: possibly wasting from hunger). Oddachath – “burning fever,” fever heat (LXX: ἵκτερα, Vulgate: ardor; Syriac: scabies; Slavonic: “jaundice”). 2) To humble the stubborness, pride, and hope of the people in wealth, barrenness of the soil is sent to them (Lev 26:18-20): the sky will be like iron (from scarcity of rain), the earth – like copper (from barrenness), Lev 26:19 (compare Deut 28:23, where the comparison is in reverse). This terrible word against Israel has been fulfilled with complete exactness on Palestine, once flowing with milk and honey, and now laid waste. 3) Abundance of wild beasts and the desolation of the land (Lev 26:22, compare Ezek 5:17) – a punishment that was fulfilled exactly first on the kingdom of Israel (2 Sam 17:25). 4) Destruction by the enemy sword, which will be the avenger for Israel’s violation of the covenant (Lev 26:25), from plague (ib.), and finally from hunger: ten housewives will prepare bread for ten families in one oven (verse Lev 26:26), “because of the insufficiency of what is necessary” (Theodoret, question 36), and hunger will continually increase in view of the meager, weighed-out portions of bread. 5) Lev 26:27-33: the final affliction of Israel – hunger driving to cannibalism of parents in relation to their own children (Lev 26:29, – so it was during the siege of Samaria, 2 Sam 6:28, and Jerusalem, Jer 19:9; Lam 2:20, especially at its destruction by Titus, Josephus, Jewish War 5:1, 4–5); destruction of the objects of worship – false (verse 30, “high places,” bamoth; obelisks, chammanin, dedicated to the sun god, at Phoenician Baal-Hamman, compare Isa 17:8; 2 Chr 34:4, idols, compare 2 Sam 23:10-16), and then true (Lev 26:31 in contrast to Lev 26:11); finally extreme desolation, astonishing to the very enemies of Israel’s land (Lev 26:32) and the scattering of the people among nations (Lev 26:33).
Leviticus 26:34. Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land shall rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. Leviticus 26:35. As long as it lies desolate it shall rest – for the time that it failed to rest during your Sabbaths when you were dwelling upon it. A deep and bitter irony: the people did not keep God’s law about the Sabbath year, and now, during the time of their captivity in the land of enemies, the land of Palestine, already without the participation of Israel’s good will, will celebrate the Sabbath years. According to the Jewish tradition (compare Theodoret, question 37), the 70 years of captivity were the exact replacement of the 70 Sabbath years that went uncelebrated since the time of Saul (490 years before the captivity). Thus the land of God will shake off its unworthy inhabitants (compare Lev 18:26-30).
Leviticus 26:40. Then they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their ancestors, for the treachery that they committed against me and that they continued to commit against me, Leviticus 26:41. So that I, in turn, acted with hostility against them and brought them into the land of their enemies. Then their uncircumcised heart will be humbled, and then they will accept the punishment for their iniquity. Afflictions and captivity will have a sobering effect on the stubborn people: in them it will see not a matter of chance but the determination of the punishing hand of the Lord, and will bear afflictions as an atonement for its iniquities.
Leviticus 26:42. Then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac, and my covenant with Abraham I will remember; and I will remember the land. Leviticus 26:43. For the land shall be abandoned by them, and shall enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. And they will accept the punishment for their iniquity, because they despised my laws and their soul abhorred my statutes, Leviticus 26:44. Yet even when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them and I will not abhor them so as to destroy them utterly, to break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God; Leviticus 26:45. But I will remember for their sake the covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, to be their God. I am the Lord. Then the Lord in His full power will restore the covenant with the chosen people, which He established with their patriarchs (compare Theodoret, question 37), which has significance for all of mankind, and therefore is unbreakable (Lev 26:44, see Rom 11:29).
Leviticus 26:46. These are the statutes and laws and teachings which the Lord established between Himself and the children of Israel on Mount Sinai through Moses. This verse apparently concludes not only the chapter but the entire book Lev 27 and constitutes a special appendix to it.