Leviticus 26
Leviticus 26:1 “You will not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you will not set up a sculptured stone in your land to bow down to it, because I am Yahveh your God.
Leviticus 26:2 You will keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am Yahveh.
Leviticus 26:3 “If you walk in my prescriptions and observe my commandments and do them,
Leviticus 26:4 then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land will yield its increase, and the trees of the field will yield their fruit.
Leviticus 26:5 Your threshing will last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest will last to the time for planting. And you will eat your bread to the full and stay in your land securely.
Leviticus 26:6 I will give peace in the land, and you will lie down, and none will make you afraid. And I will remove harmful beasts from the land, and the sword will not go through your land.
Leviticus 26:7 You will chase your enemies, and they will fall at your face by the sword.
Leviticus 26:8 Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall at your face by the sword.
Leviticus 26:9 I will turn to you and make you fruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you.
Leviticus 26:10 You will eat old store long kept, and you will clear out the old at the face of the new.
Leviticus 26:11 I will make my dwelling among you, and my throat will not grow tired of you.
Leviticus 26:12 And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you will be my people.
Leviticus 26:13 I am Yahveh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.
Leviticus 26:14 “But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments,
Leviticus 26:15 if you spurn my prescriptions, and if your throat grows tired of my judgments, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant,
Leviticus 26:16 then I will do this to you: I will visit you with terror, with wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the throat fade away. And you will plant your seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it.
Leviticus 26:17 I will set my face against you, and you will be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you will judge you, and you will run away when none pursues you.
Leviticus 26:18 And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again seven times for your failures,
Leviticus 26:19 and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron and your land like bronze.
Leviticus 26:20 And your strength will be finished in vain, because your land will not yield its increase, and the trees of the land will not yield their fruit.
Leviticus 26:21 “Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you, seven times for your failures.
Leviticus 26:22 And I will let loose the wild living things against you, which will bereave you of your children and eliminate your animals and make you few in number, so that your roads will be deserted.
Leviticus 26:23 “And if by this discipline you are not turned to me but walk contrary to me,
Leviticus 26:24 then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you seven times for your failures.
Leviticus 26:25 And I will bring a sword upon you, that will execute vengeance for the covenant. And if you gather within your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
Leviticus 26:26 When I break your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in a single oven and will dole out your bread again by weight, and you will eat and not be satisfied.
Leviticus 26:27 “But if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me,
Leviticus 26:28 then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you seven times for your failures.
Leviticus 26:29 You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters.
Leviticus 26:30 And I will exterminate[1] your high places and eliminate your incense altars and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my throat will grow tired of you.
Leviticus 26:31 And I will lay your cities waste and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pacifying aromas.
Leviticus 26:32 And I myself will devastate the land, so that your enemies who end up staying in it will be appalled at it.
Leviticus 26:33 And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land will be a sinister desolation, and your cities will be a waste.
Leviticus 26:34 “Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths.
Leviticus 26:35 As long as it lies desolate it will have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were staying in it.
Leviticus 26:36 And as for those of you who remain, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight, and they will run away as one runs away from the sword, and they will fall when none pursues.
Leviticus 26:37 They will stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though none pursues. And you will have no power to stand at your enemies’ face.
Leviticus 26:38 And you will be destroyed within the nations, and the land of your enemies will eat you up.
Leviticus 26:39 And those of you who remain will rot away in your enemies’ lands because of their violation, and also because of the violations of their fathers they will rot away like them.
Leviticus 26:40 “But if they confess their violation and the violations of their fathers in their act of betrayal against me, and also in walking contrary to me,
Leviticus 26:41 so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies — if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their violation,
Leviticus 26:42 then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.
Leviticus 26:43 But the land will be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they will make amends for their violation, because they spurned my judgments and their throat grew tired of my prescriptions.
Leviticus 26:44 Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, neither will I grow tired of them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them, because I am Yahveh their God.
Leviticus 26:45 But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am Yahveh.”
Leviticus 26:46 These are the prescriptions and judgments and instructions that Yahveh made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai.
[1] שׁמד= exterminate.
Leviticus 26 quotes:
“It is sometimes thought that the Old Testament reveals a God of law and punishment and anger, in contrast with the God of grace and forgiveness and love found in the New Testament. But such a contrast does not exist; God has not changed. The Old Testament is filled with examples of God’s grace and love. The Law of Moses was itself a gift of grace; God raised up priests and prophets to help the people follow the law so that they might thereby receive God’s blessings (Leviticus 26:3-13). Throughout history, God has desired to bring good to His people.”
Hale, Thomas, and Stephen Thorson. The Applied Old Testament Commentary. 1st ed, David C. Cook, 2007. p. 119.
“As far as content is concerned, Leviticus 26 especially is intended as a concluding point. In the ancient Orient, legal collections and contracts, though also private agreements documented in written form, usually concluded with imprecation formulae that were supposed to place the agreements under the sovereignty of the gods and prevent legal breaches. These kinds of contract curses follow the schema: “May the gods punish anyone who violates these agreements.”! In the present instance, a brief benediction is inserted that applies if the divine prescriptions are faithfully followed (cf. Deut. 28).”
Gerstenberger, Erhard S. Leviticus : A Commentary. 1st American ed, Westminster John Knox Press, 1996. p. 399.
“Leviticus 26:1—13 promises Israel total success in the Promised Land if they obey God’s Word (see 26:3). The same kind, saving God who gave them dignity (26:13) will establish them in the land. What must they do? By now the answer is clear. They must believe in one God (26:1) and worship Him as they have been commanded (26:2). What will be the results? They will enjoy a fruitful land (26:3-5), peace (26:6-8), and, most importantly, a genuine and transforming relationship with the Lord (26:9-13). God’s past acts on their behalf should reassure them of His future kind intentions (26:13).”
House, Paul R. Leviticus/Numbers. Broadman & Holman, 1999. p. 52.
Leviticus 26 links:
a sinister desolation
decline as discipline
devotion and discipline
exterminate!
his other presence
human rights and God’s right
no surprise
Perish the thought
The Sabbaths of desolation
The sky above – shamayim, the land beneath – erets
what eternity will look like
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Monday, January 29, 2018
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Tuesday, January 30, 2018
jeffersonvann 