Leviticus26
World English Bible · Public Domain
1“‘You shall make for yourselves no idols, and you shall not raise up a carved image or a pillar, and you shall not place any figured stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am Yahweh your God.
2“‘You shall keep my Sabbaths, and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am Yahweh.
3“‘If you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments, and do them,
4then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.
5Your threshing shall continue until the vintage, and the vintage shall continue until the sowing time. You shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.
6“‘I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one will make you afraid. I will remove evil animals out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.
7You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.
8Five 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.
9“‘I will have respect for you, make you fruitful, multiply you, and will establish my covenant with you.
10You shall eat old supplies long kept, and you shall move out the old because of the new.
11I will set my tent among you, and my soul won’t abhor you.
12I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you will be my people.
13I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. I have broken the bars of your yoke, and made you walk upright.
14“‘But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments,
15and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant,
16I 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. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it.
17I will set my face against you, and you will be struck before your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you; and you will flee when no one pursues you.
18“‘If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins.
19I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like bronze.
20Your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won’t yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit.
21“‘If you walk contrary to me, and won’t listen to me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins.
22I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number. Your roads will become desolate.
23“‘If by these things you won’t be turned back to me, but will walk contrary to me,
24then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins.
25I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
26When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight. You shall eat, and not be satisfied.
27“‘If you in spite of this won’t listen to me, but walk contrary to me,
28then I will walk contrary to you in wrath. I will also chastise you seven times for your sins.
29You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters.
30I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you.
31I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation. I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings.
32I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it will be astonished at it.
33I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.
34Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths.
35As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it didn’t have in your Sabbaths when you lived on it.
36“‘As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword. They will fall when no one pursues.
37They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues. You will have no power to stand before your enemies.
38You will perish among the nations. The land of your enemies will eat you up.
39Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they shall pine away with them.
40“‘If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me; and also that because they walked contrary to me,
41I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity,
42then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land.
43The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes.
44Yet 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 Yahweh their God.
45But I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am Yahweh.’”
46These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws, which Yahweh made between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by Moses.
Study Guide
Public-domain commentary and original-language notes for Leviticus 26.
Chapter Summary
In this chapter: Promises upon keeping the precepts. (1–13). Threatenings against disobedience. (14–39). God promises to remember those that repent. (40–46).
vv1-13
This chapter contains a general enforcement of all the laws given by Moses; by promises of reward in case of obedience, on the one hand; and threatenings of punishment for disobedience, on the other. While Israel maintained a national regard to God's worship, sabbaths, and sanctuary, and did not turn aside to idolatry, the Lord engaged to continue to them temporal mercies and religious advantages. These great and precious promises, though they relate chiefly to the life which now is, were typical of the spiritual blessings made sure by the covenant of grace to all believers, through Christ. 1. Plenty and abundance of the fruits of the earth. Every good and perfect gift must be expected from above, from the Father of lights. 2. Peace under the Divine protection. Those dwell in safety, that dwell in God. 3. Victory and success in their wars. It is all one with the Lord to save by many or by few. 4. The increase of their people. The gospel church shall be fruitful. 5. The favour of God, which is the fountain of all Good. 6. Tokens of his presence in and by his ordinances. The way to have God's ordinances fixed among us, is to cleave closely to them. 7. The grace of the covenant. All covenant blessings are summed up in the covenant relation, I will be your God, and ye shall be my people; and they are all grounded upon their redemption. Having purchased them, God would own them, and never cast them off till they cast him off. (Le 26:14-39)
vv14-39
After God has set the blessing before them which would make them a happy people if they would be obedient, he here sets the curse before them, the evils which would make them miserable, if they were disobedient. Two things would bring ruin. 1. A contempt of God's commandments. They that reject the precept, will come at last to renounce the covenant. 2. A contempt of his corrections. If they will not learn obedience by the things they suffer, God himself would be against them; and this is the root and cause of all their misery. And also, The whole creation would be at war with them. All God's sore judgments would be sent against them. The threatenings here are very particular, they were prophecies, and He that foresaw all their rebellions, knew they would prove so. TEMPORAL judgments are threatened. Those who will not be parted from their sins by the commands of God, shall be parted from them by judgments. Those wedded to their lusts, will have enough of them. SPIRITUAL judgments are threatened, which should seize the mind. They should find no acceptance with God. A guilty conscience would be their continual terror. It is righteous with God to leave those to despair of pardon, who presume to sin; and it is owing to free grace, if we are not left to pine away in the iniquity we were born in, and have lived in.
vv40-46
Among the Israelites, persons were not always prosperous or afflicted according to their obedience or disobedience. But national prosperity was the effect of national obedience, and national judgments were brought on by national wickedness. Israel was under a peculiar covenant. National wickedness will end in the ruin of any people, especially where the word of God and the light of the gospel are enjoyed. Sooner or later, sin will be the ruin, as well as the reproach, of every people. Oh that, being humbled for our sins, we might avert the rising storm before it bursts upon us! God grant that we may, in this our day, consider the things which belong to our eternal peace.
Key Words
עָשָׂה: to do or make, in the broadest sense and widest application
אֱלִיל: good for nothing, by anal. vain or vanity; specifically an idol
קוּם: to rise (in various applications, literal, figurative, intensive and causative)
פֶּסֶל: an idol
מַצֵּבָה: something stationed, i.e. a column or (memorial stone); by analogy, an idol
נָתַן: to give, used with greatest latitude of application (put, make, etc.)
מַשְׂכִּית: a figure (carved on stone, the wall, or any object); figuratively, imagination
אֶבֶן: a stone
אֶרֶץ: the earth (at large, or partitively a land)
שָׁחָה: to depress, i.e. prostrate (especially reflexive, in homage to royalty or God)
Cross References
Leviticus 26The parallel primary legal discourse outlining Israel's covenant curses for national disobedience.
Supported by Matthew Henry, JFB
Parallels the terrifying warning of eating the flesh of sons and daughters during severe siege.
Supported by JFB
Explicit fulfillment of the land resting to enjoy its sabbaths during the seventy-year exile.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Explicit historical fulfillment of the land resting to enjoy its sabbaths during the Babylonian exile.
Supported by Matthew Henry, JFB
The matching covenant blessings discourse detailing prosperity for keeping God's commandments.
Supported by Matthew Henry, JFB
The covenant of peace where God rids the land of evil beasts.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Corresponds directly to the judgment of heaven as brass and earth as iron.
Supported by JFB
Lists wild beasts, sword, famine, and pestilence as God's four sore judgments.
Supported by JFB
Directly echoes breaking the staff of bread and delivering bread by weight.
Supported by JFB
Records the tragic historical fulfillment of mothers eating their own children during the siege.
Supported by JFB
Promises the spiritual circumcision of the heart to cure Israel's stubborn, uncircumcised heart.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Calvin highlights this as the direct prohibition of making molten gods of silver or gold.
Supported by John Calvin
The prophetic fulfillment where the plowman overtakes the reaper and treading grapes reaches sowing.
Supported by JFB
Reflects the mathematical impossibility of five chasing an hundred except by God's judgment.
Supported by Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole
Grounds the covenant obligations in the historic redemption from Egyptian bondage.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Expanded details on the sorrow of heart, terror, and failing eyes threatened here.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Fulfillment of being slain before enemies and fleeing when none pursueth.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Describes the highways lying waste and travelers ceasing, fulfilling the predicted desolation.
Supported by JFB
Fulfills the promise to destroy high places, make cities waste, and lay idols desolate.
Supported by JFB
Expands on the threat of being scattered among all people and finding no ease.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Establishes the Sabbatical year law that Israel violated, leading to the forced land rest.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Illustrates the wicked fleeing when no one pursues, matching the shaken leaf terror.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Explicitly describes house of Israel as being physically circumcised but having 'uncircumcised hearts'.
Supported by Matthew Henry
New Testament definition of true circumcision as that of the heart and spirit, not letter.
Supported by Matthew Henry
God hears Israel's groaning and remembers His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Supported by Matthew Poole
Exilic confession that God in His great mercy did not utterly consume or forsake them.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Relates to eating the old store of harvest until the ninth year's increase.
Supported by JFB
The promise of God's sanctuary and tabernacle being set in their midst forever.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Prophetic fulfillment of sowing much but bringing in little as a covenant curse.
Supported by Matthew Henry
The curse of sowing but not reaping, treading olives but not anointing.
Supported by Matthew Henry
The wicked flee when no man pursueth, matching verse 17's internal terror.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Parallels the threat of sending the teeth of wild beasts against disobedient Israel.
Supported by JFB
Prophesies God taking away from Jerusalem the whole stay and staff of bread.
Supported by JFB
Repeats the curse of eating but not being satisfied due to lack of bread.
Supported by JFB
Josiah literalized this by burning human bones on pagan altars, defiling their idols.
Supported by JFB
Solomon's prayer models confession after being smitten before enemies for sinning.
Supported by Matthew Henry