"God once again tells the Israelites not to make idols for themselves and worship them because the Lord is the one true God. God assures the Israelites that if they follow His commands He will be with them and make them prosper in all things. God also disciplines them. God says that if the Israelites don't follow God's commands He will bring terror to them--disease, famine, warfare, and slavery. If they continue in sin, the punishment from God will continue to escalate to the point where the people will become cannibals, eating their own family members to survive. If the Israelites will confess their sin and the sin of their fathers, if their uncircumcised hearts will be humbled, and if they will pay the penalty for their sin, then they shall be forgiven, redeemed, and God will restore the covenant he made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
Leviticus 26 Amplified Bible (AMP)
Blessings of Obedience
26 [a]‘You shall not make idols for yourselves, nor shall you erect an image, a sacred pillar or an obelisk, nor shall you place any figured stone in your land so that you may bow down to it; for I am the Lord your God. 2 You shall keep My Sabbaths and have reverence for My sanctuary. I am the Lord. 3 If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments and [obediently] do them, 4 then I will give you rain in its season, and the land will yield her produce and the trees of the field bear their fruit. 5 And your threshing season will last until grape gathering and the grape gathering [time] will last until planting, and you will eat your bread and be filled and live securely in your land. 6 I will also grant peace in the land, so that you may lie down and there will be no one to make you afraid. I will also eliminate harmful animals from the land, and no sword will pass through your land. 7 And you will chase your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword. 8 Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will put ten thousand to flight; your enemies will fall before you by the sword. 9 For I will turn toward you [with favor and regard] and make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will establish and confirm My covenant with you. 10 You will eat the old supply of [abundant] produce, and clear out the old [to make room] for the new. 11 I will make My dwelling among you, and My soul will not reject nor separate itself from you. 12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people. 13 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would not be their slaves; and I broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk upright [with heads held high as free men].- WONDERFUL PROMISES, WONDERFUL GOD. In this chapter, the Lord lovingly reminded His people, the children of Israel about His commandments, His covenant and love, and the wonderful blessings that comes when they obey, trust and put all their hope and faith in Him. As Christian believers and followers of God in this day and age, this also applies to us. Obedience to God comes with blessings. When we continue to trust and obey His statutes, precepts and commandments, He will surely provide and guide us to the right path and His perfect will in our lives. We will surely experience His love and we will enjoy an everlasting fellowship with Him.
14 ‘But if you do not obey Me and do not [obediently] do all these commandments, 15 if, instead, you reject My statutes, and if your soul rejects My ordinances, so that you will not [obediently] do all My commandments, and in this way break My covenant, 16 I, in turn, will do this to you: I will appoint over you sudden terror, consumption, and fever that will waste away the eyes and cause the soul to languish also. And you will sow your seed uselessly, for your enemies will eat what you plant. 17 I will set My face against you so that [b]you will be struck down before your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when no one is pursuing you. 18 If in spite of all this you still will not listen to Me and be obedient, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. 19 I will break your pride in your power, and I will make your sky like iron [giving no rain and blocking all prayers] and your ground like bronze [hard to plow and yielding no produce]. 20 Your strength will be spent uselessly, for your land will not yield its produce and the trees of the land will not yield their fruit.
21 ‘If then, you act with hostility toward Me and are unwilling to obey Me, I will increase the plague on you seven times in accordance with your sins. 22 I will let loose the [wild] animals of the field among you, which will bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you so few in number that your roads will lie deserted and desolate.
23 ‘And if by these things you are not turned to Me, but act [c]with hostility against Me, 24 then I also will act with hostility against you, and I will strike you seven times for your sins. 25 I will bring a sword on you that will execute vengeance for [breaking] the covenant; and when you gather together in your cities, I will send pestilence (virulent disease) among you, and you shall be handed over to the enemy. 26 When I break your staff of bread [that is, cut off your supply of food], ten women will bake your bread in one oven, and they will ration your bread; and you will eat and not be satisfied.
27 ‘Yet if in spite of this you will not [attentively] listen to Me but act with hostility against me, 28 then I will act with hostility against you in wrath, and I also will punish you seven times for your sins. 29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. 30 I will destroy your high places [devoted to idolatrous worship], and cut down your incense altars, and heap your dead bodies upon the [crushed] bodies of your idols, and My soul will detest you [with deep and unutterable loathing]. 31 I will lay waste your cities as well and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your sweet and soothing aromas [of offerings by fire]. 32 I will make the land desolate, and your enemies who settle in it will be appalled at it. 33 I will scatter you among the nations and draw out the sword [of your enemies] after you; your land will become desolate and your cities will become ruins.
34 ‘Then the land [of Israel] 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. 35 As long as it lies desolate, it will have rest, the rest it did not have on your Sabbaths, while you were living on it. 36 As for those who are left of you, I will bring despair (lack of courage, weakness) into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a scattered leaf will put them to flight, and they will flee as if [running] from the sword, and will fall even when no one is chasing them. 37 They shall stumble over one another as if to escape from a sword when no one is chasing them; and you will have no power to stand before your enemies. 38 You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will consume you. 39 Those of you who are left will rot away because of their wickedness in the lands of your enemies; also because of the wickedness of their forefathers they will rot away like them.
- CURSES OF SIN AND DISOBEDIENCE. Just as obedience and reverence with God comes with blessing, the sin of disobedience and distrust to God comes with consequences, penalties and curses. Knowing the effects or consequences to disobedience made me tremble and be filled with fear. When we allow stubbornness, hardness of heart and sin to rule over our life, it will not go well for us. We break the covenant and we will be accountable for our hostility to God. Knowing the grave consequences of sins should make someone humble and surrendered to God.
46 These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws which the Lord established between Himself and the Israelites through Moses at Mount Sinai.
Footnotes: Leviticus 26:1 Through Moses God explains clearly how He will bless the Israelites for their faithful obedience and repeatedly emphasizes that His blessings are contingent on Israel’s responsiveness. If the Israelites want God’s blessings, they must not take Him for granted.
Leviticus 26:17 These verses specify the penalties for disobedience. The Scripture references indicate where the fulfillments of these prophecies are recorded. God keeps His word, whether a blessing or a judgment.
Leviticus 26:23 Lit contrary to and so throughout the chapter.
- THERE IS HOPE. God is a God of justice, but He is also a God of love and mercy. If His people repented of their sins, God will receive them and He will remember His covenant because He is faithful. 1 John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.", and Psalm 51:17, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart— These, O God, You will not despise."
After reading, I always check out the Study Guide Commentary from David Guzik (very helpful!):
a. If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them, then I will give you rain in its season: God was determined to reveal Himself to the world through Israel, either by making them so blessed, the world would know only God could have blessed them so; or by making them so cursed, that only God could have cursed them and cause them to still survive. The choice was up to Israel.
b. And confirm My covenant with you: As a literary form, this chapter is similar to ancient treaties between a king and his people; this is God the King, making a covenant with His people, Israel.
c. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: This clearly speaks of a Divine blessing. These remarkable promises clearly have a supernatural element.
i. The principle behind that particular blessing is remarkable; the ratio of five to one hundred is one routing twenty; but the ratio of one hundred to ten thousand is one routing one hundred.
ii. Gideon's 300 defeated 135,000 Midianites; Jonathan and his armor bearer alone defeated a Philistine army.
d. I will set My tabernacle among you, and My soul shall not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people: The best promises are saved for last: First, that Israel would enjoy a special relationship with God. If not for this, all the material blessings described previously would be empty.
i. When Israel walked after the LORD, these blessings were real; one example of this is when the Queen of Sheba came to Solomon and saw a nation so blessed, she knew it had to be of God (1 Kings 10:1-13).
e. I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you walk upright: This final blessing speaks of freedom and dignity. This passage almost feels like the New Testament, God proclaims the liberty of His people and then invites them to walk in it.
a. If you do not obey Me … after all this, if you do not obey Me … if by these things you are not reformed by Me, but walk contrary … after all this, if you do not obey Me: These verses describe a progression of rebellion. God brought these curses slowly to a disobedient Israel, desiring repentance; but if Israel would not repent, the curses intensified.
b. I will punish you yet seven times for your sins: Significantly, God does not say He will forsake Israel, only that they will be cursed. Sadly, these curses became the tragic story of Israel's history - defeat, deprivation, exile, desolation, and disease all too often have marked Israel's past.
i. Even the horrific cannibalism described in Leviticus 26:29 was fulfilled in 2 Kings 6:26-29; Josephus also describes cannibalism in Jerusalem when under siege by the Romans; a woman killed and ate her own baby son (Wars, 6.3.4).
a. If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers: This displays the greatness of God's mercy. Despite how cursed Israel might be, God would always remember, receive, and bless a repentant Israel.
b. When they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them: This also applies to Christians under the New Covenant. God will always be faithful to the covenant, for the sake of the covenant we have with God through Jesus.
B. Blessing and cursing in a New Covenant perspective.
3. Jesus bore the curse that we (even Gentiles) might bear the blessings of Abraham (the blessing of righteousness and life by faith) - but these blessings only come to those in Christ Jesus.
a. So, we are blessed not because of obedience, but because we are in Christ Jesus; and there is no more curse for us from God, because all the curse was borne by Jesus.
b. This does not deny the chastening hand of God; but the correction of a loving parent is good and desirable, though not pleasant at the time (Hebrews 12:7-11).
c. Nor does it deny the cause-and-effect nature of sin in our world; sin often carries with its own curse, which in some ways is distinct from God's direct curse upon us.
4. These blessings and curses may be necessary motivation for the carnal man, but it is not the ground God wants us live on - believing Jesus didn't bear all the curses we deserved, and believing we can be blessed in any other way than in Christ Jesus.
Reference and credits to https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/guzik_david/StudyGuide2017-Lev/Lev-26.cfm © 2004 David Guzik
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