“ ‘But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments, and 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, I 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. I 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.
“ ‘If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like bronze. Your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won’t yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit.
“ ‘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.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv15–21 Which I made with you in choosing you to…
Which I made with you in choosing you to be my people.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv14–21 Lev 26:14 But if ye will not hearken unto…
Lev 26:14 But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments;
Ver. 14. But if ye will not hearken.] Here we may observe twice so many threatenings as promises; which serves to set forth the baseness of our natures, that will do more for fear than love.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv15, 16, 19, 20, 21 i.e. Break your part or conditions of that covenant…
i.e. Break your part or conditions of that covenant made between me and you, and thereby discharge me from the blessings promised on my part.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v14 After God had set the blessing before them (the…
After God had set the blessing before them (the life and good which would make them a happy people if they would be obedient), he here sets the curse before them, the death and evil which would make them as miserable if they were disobedient. Let them not think themselves so deeply rooted as that God's power could not ruin them, nor so highly favoured as that his justice would not ruin them if they revolted from him and rebelled against him; no You only have I known, therefore I will punish you soonest and sorest. Amo 3:2. Observe,
I. How their sin is described, which would bring all this misery upon them. Not sins of ignorance and infirmity; God had provided sacrifices for those. Not the sins they repented of and forsook; but the sins that were presumptuously committed, and obstinately persisted in. Two things would certainly bring this ruin upon them: -
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1. A contempt of God's commandments (Lev 26:14): "If you will not hearken to me speaking to you by the law, nor do all these commandments, that is, desire and endeavour to do them, and, wherein you miss it, make use of the prescribed remedies." Thus their sin is supposed to begin in mere carelessness, and neglect, and omission. These are bad enough, but they make way for worse; for the people are brought in (Lev 26:15) as, (1.) Despising God's statutes, both the duties enjoined and the authority enjoining them, thinking meanly of the law and the Law-maker. Note, Those are hastening apace to their own ruin who begin to think it below them to be religious. (2.) Abhorring his judgments, their very souls abhorring them. Note, Those that begin to despise religion will come by degrees to loathe it; and mean thoughts of it will ripen into ill thoughts of it; those that turn from it will turn against it, and their hearts will rise at it. (3.) Breaking his covenant. Though every breach of the commandment does not amount to a breach of the covenant (we were undone if it did), yet, when men have come to such a pitch of impiety as to despise and abhor the commandment, the next step will be to disown God, and all relation to him. Those that reject the precept will come at last to renounce the covenant. Observe, It is God's covenant which they break: he made it, but they break it. Note, If a covenant be made and kept between God and man, God must have all the honour; but, if ever it be broken, man must bear all the blame: on him shall this breach be.
2. A contempt of his corrections. Even their disobedience would not have been their destruction if they had not been obstinate and impenitent in it, notwithstanding the methods God took to reclaim them. Their contempt of God's word would not have brought them to ruin, if they had not added to that a contempt of his rod, which should have brought them to repentance. Three ways this is expressed: - (1.) "If you will not for all this hearken to me, Lev 26:18, Lev 26:21, Lev 26:27. If you will not learn obedience by the things which you suffer, but be as deaf to the loud alarms of God's judgments as you have been to the close reasonings of his word and the secret whispers of your own consciences, you are obstinate indeed." (2.) "If you walk contrary to me, Lev 26:21, Lev 26:23, Lev 26:27. All sinners walk contrary to God, to his truths, laws, and counsels; but those especially that are incorrigible under his judgments. The design of the rod is to humble them, and soften them, and bring them to repentance; but, instead of this, their hearts are more hardened and exasperated against God, and in their distress they trespass yet more against him, Ch2 28:22. This is walking contrary to God. Some read it, "If you walk at all adventures with me, carelessly and presumptuously, as if you heeded not either what you do, whether it be right or wrong, or what God does with you, whether it be for you or against you, blundering on in wilful ignorance." (3.) If you will not be reformed by these things. God's design in punishing is to reform, by giving men sensible convictions of the evil of sin, and obliging them to seek unto him for relief: this is the primary intention; but those that will not be reformed by the judgments of God must expect to be ruined by them. Those have a great deal to answer for that have been long and often under God's correcting hand, and yet go on frowardly in a sinful way; sick and in pain, and yet not reformed; crossed and impoverished, and yet not reformed; broken with breach upon breach, yet not returning to the Lord, Amo 4:6, etc.
II. How the misery is described which their sin would bring upon them, under two heads: -
1. God himself would be against them; and this is the root and cause of all their misery. (1.) I will set my face against you (Lev 26:17), that is, "I will set myself against you, set myself to ruin you." These proud sinners God will resist, and face those down that confront his authority. Or the face is put for the anger: "I will show myself highly displeased at you." (2.) I will walk contrary to you (Lev 26:24, Lev 26:28); with the forward he will wrestle, Psa 18:26 [margin]. When God in his providence thwarts the designs of a people, which they thought well laid, crosses their purposes, breaks their measures, blasts their endeavours, and disappoints their expectations, then he walks contrary to them. Note, There is nothing got by striving with God Almighty, for he will break either the heart or the neck of those that contend with him, will bring them either to repentance or ruin. "I will walk at all adventures with you," so some read; "all covenant loving-kindness shall be forgotten, and I will leave you to common providence." Note, Those that cast off God deserve that he should cast them off. (3.) As they continued obstinate, the judgments should increase yet more upon them. If the first sensible tokens of God's displeasures do not attain their end, to humble and reform them, then (Lev 26:18), I will punish you seven times more, and again (Lev 26:21), I will bring seven times more plagues, and (Lev 26:24), I will punish you yet seven times, and (Lev 26:28), I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. Note, If less judgments do not do their work, God will send greater; for, when he judges, he will overcome. If true repentance do not stay process, it will go on till execution be taken out. Those that are obstinate and incorrigible, when they have weathered one storm must expect another more violent; and, how severely soever they are punished, till they are in hell they must still say, "There is worse behind," unless they repent. If the founder have hitherto melted in vain (Jer 6:29), the furnace will be heated seven times hotter (a proverbial expression, used Dan 3:19), and again and again seven times hotter; and who among us can dwell with such devouring fire? God does not begin with the sorest judgments, to show that he is patient, and delights not in the death of sinners; but, if they repent not, he will proceed to the sorest, to show that he is righteous, and that he will not be mocked or set at defiance. (4.) Their misery is completed in that threatening: My soul shall abhor you, Lev 26:30. That man is as miserable as he can be whom God abhors; for his resentments are just and effective. Thus if any man draw back, as these are supposed to do, God's soul shall have no pleasure in him (Heb 10:38), and he will spue them out of his mouth, Rev 3:16. It is spoken of as strange, and yet too true, Hath thy soul loathed Zion? Jer 14:19.
2. The whole creation would be at war with them. All God's sore judgments would be sent against them; for he hath many arrows in his quiver. The threatenings here are very particular, because really they were prophecies, and he that foresaw all their rebellions knew they would prove so; see Deu 31:16, Deu 31:29. This long roll of threatening shows that evil pursues sinners. We have here,
(1.) Temporal judgments threatened. [1.] Diseases of body, which should be epidemical: I will appoint over you, as task-masters, to rule you with rigour, terror, consumption, and the burning ague, Lev 26:16. What we translate terror, some think, signifies a particular disease, probably (says the learned bishop Patrick) the falling sickness, which is terror indeed: all chronical diseases are included in the consumption, and all acute diseases in the burning ague or fever. These consume the eyes, and cause sorrow both to those that are visited with them and to their friends and relations. Note, All diseases are God's servants; they do what he appoints them, and are often used as scourges wherewith he chastises a provoking people. The pestilence is threatened (Lev 26:25) to meet them, when they are gathered together in their cities for fear of the sword. The greater the concourse of people is, the greater desolation does the pestilence make; and, when it gets among the soldiers that should defend a place, it is of most fatal consequence. [2.] Famine and scarcity of bread, which should be brought upon them several ways; as, First, By plunder (Lev 26:16): Your enemies shall eat it up, and carry it off as the Midianites did, Jdg 6:5, Jdg 6:6. Secondly, By unseasonable weather, especially the want of rain (Lev 26:19): I will make your heaven as iron, letting fall no rain, but reflecting heat, and then the earth would of course be as dry and hard as brass, and their labour in ploughing and sowing would be in vain (Lev 26:20); for the increase of the earth depends upon God's good providence more than upon man's good husbandry. This should be the breaking of the staff of bread (Lev 26:26), which life leans upon, and is supported by, on which perhaps they had leaned more than upon God's blessing. There should be so great a dearth of corn that, whereas every family used to fill an oven of their own with household bread, now ten families should have to fill but one over, which would bring themselves and their children and servants to short allowance, so that they should eat and not be satisfied. The less they had the more craving should their appetites be. Thirdly, By the besieging of their cities, which would reduce them to such an extremity that they should eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, Lev 26:29. [3.] War, and the prevailing of their enemies over them: "You shall be slain before your enemies, Lev 26:17. Your choice men shall die in battle, and those that hate you shall reign over you, and justly, since you are not willing that the God that loved you should reign over you;" Ch2 12:8. Miserable is that people whose enemies are their rulers and have got dominion over them, or whose rulers have become their enemies and under-hand seek the ruin of their interests. Thus God would break the pride of their power, Lev 26:19. God had given them power over the nations; but when they, instead of being thankful for that power, and improving it for the service of God's kingdom, grew proud of it, and perverted the intentions of it, it was just with God to break it. Thus God would bring a sword upon them to avenge the quarrel of his covenant, Lev 26:25. Note, God has a just quarrel with those that break covenant with him, for he will not be mocked by the treachery of perfidious men; and one way or other he will avenge this quarrel upon those that play at fast and loose with him. [4.] Wild beasts, lions, bears, and wolves, which should increase upon them, and tear in pieces all that come in their way (Lev 26:22), as we read of two bears that in an instant killed forty-two children, Kg2 2:24. This is one of the four sore judgments threatened Eze 14:21, which plainly refers to this chapter. Man was made to have dominion over the creatures, and, though many of them are stronger than he, yet none of them could have hurt him, nay, all of them would have served him, if he had not first shaken off God's dominion, and so lost his own; and now the creatures are in rebellion against him that is in rebellion against his Maker, and, when the Lord of those hosts pleases, they are the executioners of his wrath and the ministers of his justice. [5.] Captivity, or dispersion: I will scatter you among the heathen (Lev 26:33), in your enemies' land, Lev 26:34. Never were any people so incorporated and united among themselves as they were; but for their sin God would scatter them, so that they should be lost among the heathen, from whom God had graciously distinguished them, but with whom they had wickedly mingled themselves. Yet, when they were scattered, divine justice had not done with them, but would draw out a sword after them, which would find them out, and follow them wherever they were. God's judgments, as they cannot be outfaced, so they cannot be outrun. [6.] The utter ruin and desolation of their land, which should be so remarkable that their very enemies themselves, who ha helped it forward, should in the review be astonished at it, Lev 26:32. First, Their cities should be waste, forsaken, uninhabited, and all the buildings destroyed; those that escaped the desolations of war should fall to decay of themselves. Secondly, Their sanctuaries should be a desolation, that is, their synagogues where they met for religious worship every sabbath, as well as their tabernacle where they met thrice a year. Thirdly, The country itself should be desolate, not tilled or husbanded (Lev 26:34, Lev 26:35); then the land should enjoy its sabbaths, because they had not religiously observed the sabbatical years which God appointed them. They tilled their ground when God would have them let it rest; justly therefore were they driven out of it; and the expression intimates that the ground itself was pleased and easy when it was rid of the burden of such sinners, under which it had groaned, Rom 8:20, etc. The captivity in Babylon lasted seventy years, and so long the land enjoyed her sabbaths, as is said (Ch2 36:21) with reference to this. [7.] The destruction of their idols, though rather a mercy than a judgment, yet, being a necessary piece of justice, is here mentioned, to show what would be the sin that would bring all these miseries upon them: I will destroy your high places, Lev 26:30. Those that will not be parted from their sins by the commands of God shall be parted from them by his judgments; since they would not destroy their high places, God would. And, to upbraid them with the unreasonable fondness they had shown for their idols, it is foretold that their carcases should be cast upon the carcases of their idols. Those that are wedded to their lusts will sooner or later have enough of them. Their idols would not be able to help either themselves or their worshippers; but, those that made them being like them, they should both perish alike, and fall together as blind into the ditch.
(2.) Spiritual judgments are here threatened. These should seize the mind; for he that made the mind can, when he pleases, make his sword approach to it. It is here threatened, [1.] That they should find no acceptance with God: I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours, Lev 26:31. Though the judgments of God upon them did not separate them and their sins, yet they extorted incense from them; but in vain - even their incense was an abomination, Isa 1:13. [2.] That they should have no courage in their wars, but should be quite dispirited and disheartened. They should not only fear and flee (Lev 26:17), but fear and fall, when none pursued, Lev 26:36. A guilty conscience would be their continual terror, so that not only the sound of a trumpet, but the very sound of a leaf, should chase them. Note, Those that cast off the fear of God expose themselves to the fear of every thing else, Pro 28:1. Their very fears should dash them one against another, Lev 26:37, Lev 26:38. And those that had increased one another's guilt would now increase one another's fears. [3.] That they should have no hope of the forgiveness of their sins (Lev 26:39): They shall pine away in their iniquity, and how should they then live? Eze 33:10. Note, It is a righteous thing with God to leave those to despair of pardon that have presumed to sin; and it is owing to free grace if we are not abandoned to pine away in the iniquity we were born in and have lived in.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv14–21 And if ye shall despise my statutes,.... Which is…
And if ye shall despise my statutes,.... Which is an aggravated sin; to be negligent hearers of the commands of God is bad, not to be doers of them worse, but to treat them with contempt is worse still:
or if your soul abhor my judgments: which is worst of all, to despise them as if not wisely or righteously made is a dreadful reflection upon the Maker of them; but to abhor them as bad things, not fit to be regarded, but to be had in the utmost detestation, is shocking impiety:
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so that ye will not do all my commandments; nor any of them, but are set against them, and determined and resolved on the contrary:
but that ye break my covenant; the covenant made with them at Sinai, when they promised, on their part, that they would hearken and be obedient, Exo 24:7.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv15, 16, 20 Break my covenant - Break your part of that…
Break my covenant - Break your part of that covenant made between me and you, and thereby discharge me from the blessings promised on my part.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv15–16 Verse 15. If ye shall despise my statutes -…
Verse 15. If ye shall despise my statutes - abhor my judgments] As these words, and others of a similar import, which point out different properties of the revelation of God, are frequently occurring, I Judge it best to take a general view of them, once for all, in this place, and show how they differ among themselves, and what property of the Divine law each points out.
1. STATUTES. חקת chukkoth, from חק chak, to mark out, define, c. This term seems to signify the things which God has defined, marked, and traced out, that men might have a perfect copy of pure conduct always before their eyes, to teach them how they might walk so as to please him in all things, which they could not do without such instruction as God gives in his word, and the help which he affords by his Spirit.
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2. JUDGMENTS. שפטים shephatim, from שפט shaphat, to distinguish, regulate, and determine meaning those things which God has determined that men shall pursue, by which their whole conduct shall be regulated, making the proper distinction between virtue and vice, good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice; in a word, between what is proper to be done, and what is proper to be left undone.
3. COMMANDMENTS. מצות mitsvoth, from צוה tsavah, to command, ordain, and appoint, as a legislator. This term is properly applied to those parts of the law which contain the obligation the people are under to act according to the statutes, judgments, c., already established, and which prohibit them by penal sanctions from acting contrary to the laws.
4. COVENANT. ברית berith, from בר bar, to clear, cleanse, or purify because the covenant, the whole system of revelation given to the Jews, was intended to separate them from all the people of the earth, and to make them holy. Berith also signifies the covenant-sacrifice, which prefigured the atonement made by Christ for the sin of the world, by which he purifies believers unto himself, and makes them a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Besides those four, we may add the following, from other places of Scripture.
5. TESTIMONIES. עדות edoth, from עד ad, beyond, farther, besides; because the whole ritual law referred to something farther on or beyond the Jewish dispensation, even to that sacrifice which in the fulness of time was to be offered for the sins of men. Thus all the sacrifices, c., of the Mosaic law referred to Christ, and bore testimony to him who was to come.
6. ORDINANCES. משמרות mishmaroth, from שמר shamar, to guard, keep safe, watch over those parts of Divine revelation which exhorted men to watch their ways, keep their hearts, and promised them, in consequence, the continual protection and blessing of God their Maker.
7. PRECEPTS. פקודים pikkudim, from פקד pakad, to overlook, take care or notice of, to visit; a very expressive character of the Divine testimonies, the overseers of a man's conduct, those who stand by and look on to see whether he acts according to the commands of his Master; also the visiters, because God's precepts are suited to all the circumstances of human life; some are applicable in adversity, others in prosperity; some in times of temptation and sadness, others in seasons of spiritual joy and exultation, c., c. Thus they may be said to overlook and visit man in all times, places, and circumstances.
8. TRUTH. אמת emeth, from אם am, to support, sustain, confirm because God is immutable who has promised, threatened, commanded, and therefore all his promises, threatenings, commandments, c., are unalterable and eternal. Error and falsity promise to direct and sustain, but they fail. God's word is supported by his own faithfulness, and it supports and confirms them who conscientiously believe it.
9. RIGHTEOUSNESS. צדקה tsedakah, from צדק which, though not used as a verb in the Hebrew Bible, seems to convey, from its use as a noun, the idea of giving just weight or good measure, see Le 19:36. This is one of the characters which is attributed to the revelation God makes of himself (see Ps 119:137-144) and by this the impartiality of the Divine testimonies is pointed out. God gives to all their due, and his word distributes to every man according to his state, circumstances, talents, graces, c. to none too much, to none too little, to all enough.
10. WORD of JEHOVAH. דבר יהוה debar Yehovah, from דבר, dabar, to drive, lead, bring forward, hence to bring forward, or utter one's sentiments; so the word of God is what God has brought forth to man from his own mind and counsel; it is a perfect similitude of his own righteousness, holiness, goodness, and truth. This Divine law is sometimes expressed by: -
11. אמרה imrah, speech or word, variously modified from אמר amar, to branch out, because of the interesting details into which the word of God enters in order to instruct man and make him wise unto salvation, or, as the apostle expresses it, "God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake unto the fathers by the prophets," πολυμερως και πολυτροπως, in many distinct parcels, and by various tropes or figures; a curious and elegant description of Divine revelation; Heb 1:1.
12. All these collectively are termed the LAW תורה torah, or תורת יהוה torath Yehovah, the law of the Lord, from ירה yarah, to direct, set straight and true, as stones in a building, to teach and instruct, because this whole system of Divine revelation is calculated to direct men to the attainment of present and eternal felicity, to set them right in their notions concerning the supreme God, to order and adjust them in the several departments of civil and religious society, and thus to teach and instruct them in the knowledge of themselves, and in the true knowledge of God. Thus those who receive the truth become the city of the living God - the temple of the Most High, built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. To complete this description of the word law, See Clarke on Ex 12:49, where other properties of the law of God are specified.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv14, 15, 16, 19, 21 Lev 26:14. If ye will not hearken, &c. —…
Lev 26:14. If ye will not hearken, &c. — If, notwithstanding these great promises, which were designed to work upon their gratitude and obedience, they should generally become transgressors of his laws, God threatens that they should be visited with as extraordinary plagues; with poverty and vexation at home, and alarms of war and destruction from foreign enemies, such as would dispirit and rob them of all true comfort, even in the land of promise.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv16, 18, 19 Heat. Hebrew kaddachath, is rendered "scab and jaundice," by…
Heat. Hebrew kaddachath, is rendered "scab and jaundice," by the Septuagint: and by others "a dangerous wind," like that which causes so many diseases in Egypt. The precise meaning of some terms in this verse is not well known.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv14, 16, 18, 19 A CURSE TO THE DISOBEDIENT. (Lev. 26:14-39)
A CURSE TO THE DISOBEDIENT. (Lev. 26:14-39)
But if ye will not hearken unto me, &c.--In proportion to the great and manifold privileges bestowed upon the Israelites would be the extent of their national criminality and the severity of their national punishments if they disobeyed.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21 THREATENINGS AGAINST DISOBEDIENCE, Lev_26:14-39.
THREATENINGS AGAINST DISOBEDIENCE, Lev_26:14-39.
Law is necessary to government. But we can no more have law without penalty than we can have a coin without a reverse side. Accountability implies free agents, with intelligence sufficient to apprehend the consequences of actions in the form of rewards and punishments distinctly announced beforehand. The seasonableness and the clearness of this announcement enhance the guiltiness of transgression and intensify the punishment. This graphic portrayal of the issues of disobedience leaves rebellious Israel without excuse. “This graduated advance of the judgments of God is so depicted in the following passage that four times in succession new and multiplied punishments are announced: 1) Utter barrenness in their land, that is to say, one heavier punishment, Lev_26:18-20; Leviticus 2) the extermination of their cattle by beasts of prey, and childlessness — two punishments, Lev_26:21-22; Leviticus 3) war, plague, and famine — three punishments, Lev_26:23-26; Leviticus 4) the destruction of all idolatrous abominations, the overthrow of their towns and holy places, the devastation of the land, and the dispersion of the people among the heathen — four punishments — which would bring the Israelites to the verge of destruction, Lev_26:27-33. These divine threats embrace the whole of Israel’s future.” — Keil and Delitzsch.
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14. Not hearken… not do — A refusal to give undivided attention and earnest heed to the law of God by the proper use of our perceptive and reflective powers is as culpable as wilful disobedience, inasmuch as it implies a disregard of the divine authority. The most solemn and frequent injunction of Christ was this, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” It is worthy of remark that the process of apostasy begins with sins of omission, and in the next verse ends with sins of commission.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv14, 16, 17, 19, 21 14–39. The penalties that shall ensue, if Israel prove…
14–39. The penalties that shall ensue, if Israel prove disobedient (Cp. Deu_28:15 ff.)
They are arranged in five groups, viz. (a) Lev_26:16-18, (b) Lev_26:19-20, (c) Lev_26:21; Lev_26:32, (d) Lev_26:23-26, (e) Lev_26:27-39, overthrow and exile of the nation.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv14–21 (14) But if ye will not hearken unto me.—The…
(14) But if ye will not hearken unto me.—The glowing promises of blessings for obedience are now followed by a catalogue of calamities of the most appalling nature, which will overtake the Israelites if they disobey the Divine commandments. The first degree of punishment with which this verse begins extends to Lev_26:17.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv14, 18, 21 Vers. 14-17. Punishment in its first degree. Terror, consumption,…
Vers. 14-17. Punishment in its first degree. Terror, consumption, that is, wastingand the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: a proverbial expression for great distress (see 1Sa_2:33) and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it (see Jer_5:17, and Mic_6:15, "Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil ... and ye shall be slain before your enemies (as took place often in their after history, see Jud_1:2:14 3:8 4:2); they that hate you shall reign that is, ruleover you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.
Vers. 14-39. Prophetic maledictions.
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The promises of God are prophecies of good; so are his threatening prophecies of evil. Prophecy, therefore, gives no countenance to fatalism, since it is made to depend upon conditions. God may, therefore, repent him of evils threatened, viz. when sinners repent of the sin that provoked him. So long as the Hebrews were faithful to their God, they found him faithful in mercy; when they rebelled, they found him no less faithful in judgment. What a commentary upon the verses before us is the history of the Israelites! Let us review
I THE JUDGMENTS DENOUNCED AGAINST THEM IN THEIR LAND. For their rebellion:
1. They were to be visited with plagues.
(1) The plague of terror. This is the natural plague of a guilty conscience. The apprehension of formidable judgments.
(2) Of consumption. This term expresses all chronic diseases.
(3) Of burning ague. This describes those diseases which are more acute.
(4) All these plagues are to "consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart.
2. They were to suffer from invasion.
(1) The sword of the enemy was to consume them. How fearfully they suffered under the judges, under the kings, and afterwards!
(2) The exactions of the tyrant were to distress them. When the invaders mastered them, how grievously were they oppressed!
3. They were to encounter the anger of their God.
(1) The plague and the sword of the enemy could not otherwise have visited them.
(2) But in the source itself there is the most formidable terror. "I will set nay face against you.
4. Their obstinacy was to bring upon them aggravated evils.
(1) The land was to become unfruitful. For the heaven was to be like iron, which might reflect the glare of heat, but could distil no rain or dew.
(2) Wild beasts were to come among them. When the people become diminished by war and pestilence and famine, wild animals multiply and become formidable. (see Num_21:6 2Ki_17:25 2Ki_2:24 Eze_5:17)
(3) It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Rather let us seek his mercy.
II THOSE DENOUNCED AGAINST THEM IN THE LANDS OF THEIR CAPTIVITY.
1. They were to be scattered amongst the heathen (verse 33).
(1) Thus ten of the tribes were carried away by the Assyrians.
(2) The two remaining tribes were afterwards removed by the Babylonians.
(3) Some of these returned under Ezra and Nehemiah, and were ultimately carried away by the Romans.
2. The sword was to follow them there.
(1) The sword of war.
(2) The sword of persecution. So they suffered from pagans, from papists, from Mohammedans.
3. They were to suffer astonishment (verses 36-39).
(1) Faintness of heart, suspicion of danger where it existed not, susceptibility to panic.
(2) Pining in terror.
(3) Perishing through the rapacity of their enemies.
4. Their sufferings were to be protracted.
(1) The land was to enjoy her sabbaths, Houbigant observes how literally this was fulfilled in the seventy years of the Babylonish Captivity. "From Saul to the Babylonish Captivity are numbered about four hundred and ninety years, during which period there were seventy sabbaths of years; for seven, multiplied by seventy, make four hundred and ninety. Now, the Babylonish Captivity lasted seventy years, and during that time the land of Israel rested. Therefore the land rested just as many years in the Babylonish Captivity as it should have rested sabbaths if the Jews had observed the law relative to the sabbaths of the land.
(2) The longer term of "seven times" thrice repeated (verses 21, 24, 28) is also notable. These are the "times of the Gentiles," during which Jerusalem is to be trodden down of them. (Luk_21:24)
5. Meanwhile their land was to lie desolate (verses 31-35).
(1) Such has been its history, under the Romans, under the Saracens, under the Crusaders, under the Turks.
(2) Who but God could have foreseen all this? How unreasonable is unbelief! J.A.M.
Vers. 14-39. Divine retribution.
The Divine Legislator of Israel knew well that he must contemplate disobedience as well as obedience to his laws. When he had intimated the fullness of the reward he would bestow on the faithful, he was compelled to pass on to "But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do," etc. It is sad to think that it did not need Divine prescience to foretell this issue. Human disobedience is too constantly occurring a factor in human history to require that: it may always be safely assumed. We have now to deal with God"s treatment of it; and we see
I THAT GOD PUNISHES IT WITH VARIOUS EVILS. (Verses 14-18) God always says to us, "If ye will not do my commandments, I will set my face against you." To the Israelites he threatened specifically:
(1) bodily sickness;
(2) unprofitable labour;
(3) defeat in battle;
(4) subjection to a hated rule;
(5) ignominious terror and flight.
If we sin we must expect to suffer in mind, body, or estate. Guilt and misery are necessarily conjoined. Sin deserves to suffer: there needs no further explanation of suffering than that God"s holy and righteous Law has been transgressed. Yet, while the Divine Lawgiver visits sin with retribution because it is right that it should receive this mark of his holy disapproval, it is also true
II THAT GOD"S PUNISHMENT IS MEANT TO BE REMEDIAL. "If ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me" (verse 18). Then it is clear that these providential visitations would be meant to lead to a better spirit, to a disposition to hearken and to obey. God, when he punishes, not only does an act of righteous retribution, which his position as Supreme Judge demands of him, but he also does that which he desires shall lead to penitence and restoration. He smites us in one member that he may heal us altogether. lie takes away a little that he may give very largely, lie sends passing pain that he may give enduring joy. God"s retributions are his" corrections," his paternal chastisements, his strong but kind admonitions. By them he lays his hand upon us and says to us, in tones we cannot fail to understand, "Repent and return, and be restored." But we learn from these verses
III THAT MAN TOO OFTEN REFUSES TO HEED THE DIVINE CORRECTION. "If ye will not yet for all this hearken" (verse 18); "if ye will not hearken unto me" (verse 21); "if ye will not be reformed by me by these things" (verse 23). Often men do listen and learn and obey when God comes to them in sickness or in sorrow; but only too often they do not. They continue in or revert to their evil course, they fall again into crime, into vice, into unconcern, into indecision.
IV THAT GOD LAYS A HEAVIER HAND ON PERSISTENT AND OBDURATE IMPENITENCE. He gave to his people fair and full warning of what they were to expect at his hand. They knew that obduracy on their part would entail gathering and growing evils, leading on and down to uttermost destruction. There would come the enmity of the elements, with consequent disaster in the field (verses 19, 20); desolation and bereavement (verse 22); pestilence and famine (verses 25, 26); revolting and unnatural cruelties wrought among themselves (verses 28, 29); exile and dispersion (verse 33); terror of soul (verses 36, 37); national destruction and impending extinction (verses 38, 39). These solemn and fearful threatenings are, no doubt, directed against Israel, the specially instructed people. As God "exalted that land unto heaven" in privilege and opportunity, so he "brought it down to hell" in condemnation and doom. But when we remember with what retribution God visited the sins of the antediluvian world, of the cities of the plain, the Canaanites, the great cities of Babylon and Nineveh, and when we recall the sufferings and humiliations he has brought down on lands and cities in more modern times, we may conclude that those nations which will not learn when God speaks to them in wrath and in "his high displeasure" may look forward to a time of gathering disaster and final ruin.
God"s retributive dealings with nations have their counterpart in his action toward individual lives. Men who sin and suffer, and who will not learn by the things they suffer, may take to heart the truth that God"s manifested wrath will reach them here or will overtake them hereafter; they may well wish that it may arrive soon rather than late, for as time passes and as sin indurates and blinds the soul, there is the less likelihood that the sacred lesson will be learnt before death shuts the book of opportunity, and eternity opens that other book of judgment and award. C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v14 But if ye will not hearken.
Lev_26:14-19
But if ye will not hearken.
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National transgression and disaster
I. A nations progressive apostasy.
1. Passive indifference to Divine teachings and appeals: Not hearken.
2. Non-compliance with Divine calls and claims: Not do.
3. Contemptuous rejection of Gods statutes: Despise (Mal_3:14-15).
4. Spiritual revolt from all sacred demands: Your soul abhor My judgments (Joh_3:20; Job_24:13). A fearful departure from God.
5. Violation of all covenant relationship: Ye break My covenant.
II. An apostate nations, calamities.
1. Sin brings disease and physical suffering in its train (Lev_26:16): Terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. Impiety inevitably drifts into impurity.
2. Failure and penury follow quickly upon habits of indulgence and impurity: Sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it (Lev_26:16). Nothing succeeds in the hands of a dissipated and dissolute man, and he becomes a prey to his hated scorners and rivals.
3. A godless life invites the ravages of the enemy (Lev_26:17). God withdrew His protection, and adversaries swept down upon Israel. They who repudiate Divine government are taken captive by the devil at his will, and serve their enemies. Sin is very cruel. It slays its victims; slaughters their virtue, peace, happiness, hopes; destroys precious souls.
4. Sin also fills the life of wrongdoers with terrors; they flee when none pursueth. Even in nations there is strong confidence and a sound mind only when conscious of rectitude and the enjoyment of Gods approval. It paralyses a peoples heart to feel that Heaven is alienated and Divine favour lost. Armies, too, have gone with assurance into battles when convinced that God is with them--as Cromwells Ironsides--while enemies have fled with panic, as did the Spanish Armada, when possessed with alarm that God was against them.
5. There are the yet darker calamities of abject overthrow and Divine desertion: I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass (Lev_26:19)--a picture of prostration and helplessness which finds verification in
(1) Babylons fall--now lying buried amid bleaching sands, emblem of rebuked pride;
(2) the desolation of Jerusalem--now a waste scene, and her children the tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast;
(3) the buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum--interred beneath volcanic ashes, a monument of sudden wrath on a voluptuous people. Such historic admonitions warn against national impiety, and call mankind to seriousness and prayer; for even in the solemn threatenings of God there lies an overt assurance of mercy, that if a nation or individual will cease from apostasy and hearken unto Him (Lev_26:18), He will turn aside the seven times more punishment for sins, and show the forgiveness in which He delights, and the salvation which the glorious gospel of His grace proclaims. (W. H. Jellie.)
Gods warning against rebellion
I. How their sin is described, which would bring all this misery upon them. Not sins of ignorance and infirmity--God had provided sacrifices for these; not the sins they repented of and forsook, but sins presumptuously committed and obstinately persisted in.
1. A contempt of Gods commandments.
(1) Despising His statutes; both the duties enjoined, and the authority enjoining them. Those are hastening apace to their own ruin who begin to think it below them to be religious.
(2) Abhorring His judgments. They that begin by despising religion will soon come to loathe it; mean thoughts of it will ripen into ill thoughts of it. They that turn from it will turn against it, and their hearts rise at it.
(3) Breaking His covenant. They that reject the precept will come at last to renounce the covenant. Observe, it is Gods covenant they break--He made it, but they break it. Note--If a covenant be made and kept between God and man, God must have all the honour; but if ever it be broken, man must bear all the blame; on him shall this breach be.
2. A contempt of Gods corrections. Their contempt of Gods Word would not have brought them to ruin if they had not added to that a contempt of His rod, which should have brought them to repentance. Three ways this is expressed.
(1) If you will not for all this hearken to Me (Lev_26:18; Lev_26:21; Lev_26:27). If ye will not learn obedience by the things which you suffer, but be as deaf to the loud alarms of Gods judgments as you have been to the close reasonings of His Word, and the secret whispers of your own consciences, you are obstinate indeed.
(2) If ye will walk contrary to Me (Lev_26:21; Lev_26:23; Lev_26:27). All sinners walk contrary to God, to His truths, laws, and counsels, but those especially that are incorrigible under His judgments. The design of the rod is to humble them, and soften them, and bring them to repentance; but instead of this, their hearts are more hardened and exasperated against God, and in their distress they trespass yet more against Him (2Ch_28:22). This is walking contrary to God.
(3) If ye will not be reformed by these things. Gods design in punishing is to reform, by giving men sensible convictions of the evil of sin, and obliging them to seek unto Him for relief. This is the primary intention, but those that will not be reformed by the judgments of God must expect to be ruined by them.
II. How the misery is described which their sin would bring upon them.
1. God Himself would be against them; and this is the root and cause of all their misery.
(1) I will set My face against you (Lev_26:17); i.e., I will set Myself against you, set Myself to ruin you. These proud sinners God will resist, and face those down that confront His authority; or the face is put for the anger--I will show Myself highly displeased at you.
(2) I will walk contrary to you (Lev_26:24; Lev_26:28). With the froward He will wrestle (Psa_18:26). When God in His providence thwarts the designs of a people, which they thought well laid, crosseth their purposes, breaks their measures, blasts their endeavours, and disappoints their expectations-then He walks contrary to them. Note--There is nothing got by striving with God Almighty; for He will either break the heart or break the neck of those that contend with Him, will bring them either to repentance or ruin. I will walk at all adventures with you; so some read it, All covenant lovingkindness shall be forgotten, and I will leave you to common providence. Note, those that cast God off, it is just with Him to cast them off.
(3) As they continued obstinate, the: judgments should increase yet more upon them. If the first sensible tokens of Gods displeasure do not attain their end to humble and reform them, then (Lev_26:18), I will punish you seven times more; and again (Lev_26:21), I will bring seven times more plagues; and (Lev_26:24), I will punish you yet seven times; and (Lev_26:28), I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. Note--If lesser judgments do not do their work, God will send greater; for when He judgeth He will overcome. If true repentance do not stay process, it will go on till execution be taken out. Those that are obstinate and incorrigible, when they have weathered one storm, must expect another more violent; and how severely soever they are punished till they are in hell, still they must say there is worse behind, unless they repent. If the founder have hitherto melted in vain (Jer_6:29), the furnace will be heated seven times hotter (a proverbial expression used Dan_3:19), and again and again seven times hotter. And who among us can dwell with such devouring fire? God doth not begin with the sorest judgments, to show that He is patient, and delights not in the death of sinners; but if they repent not, He will proceed to the sorest, to show that He is righteous, and that He will not be mocked or set at defiance.
(4) Their misery is completed in that threatening (Lev_26:30), My soul shall abhor you. That man is as miserable as he can be whom God abhors, for His resentments are just and effective. Thus, if any man draw back, as these here are supposed to do, Gods soul shall have no pleasure in them (Heb_10:38); and He will spue them out of His mouth (Rev_3:16). It is spoken of as strange, and yet too true, Hath thy soul loathed Sion? (Jer_14:19.)
2. The whole creation would be at war with them; all Gods sore judgments would be sent against them, for He hath many arrows in His quiver. The threatenings here are very particular, because really they were prophecies; and He that foresaw all their rebellions knew they would prove so (see Deu_31:16; Deu_31:29). This long roll of threatenings shows that evil pursues sinners. Here is
(1) temporal judgments threatened.
(a) Diseases of body, which should be epidemical (Lev_26:16). All diseases are Gods servants, and do what He appoints them, and are often used as scourges wherewith He chastiseth a provoking people. The pestilence is threatened (Lev_26:25) to meet them when they are gathered together in their cities for fear of the sword. And the greater the concourse of people is, the greater desolation doth the pestilence make; and when it gets among the soldiers that should defend a place, it is of most fatal consequences.
(b) Famine and scarcity of bread, which should be brought upon them several ways, as:
(i.) By plunder (Lev_26:16): Your enemies shall eat it up, and carry it off, as the Madianites did (Jdg_6:5-6).
(ii.) By unseasonable weather, especially the want of rain (Lev_26:19); I will make your heaven as iron, letting fall no rain, but reflecting heat; and then the earth would of course be as hard and dry as brass, and their labour in ploughing and sowing would be in vain (Lev_26:26); for the increase of the earth depends upon Gods good providence more than upon mans good husbandry.
(iii.) By the besieging of their cities; for sure that must be supposed to reduce them to such extremity, as that they should eat the flesh of their sons and daughters (Lev_26:29).
(c) War, and the prevalency of their enemies over them: Ye shall be slain before your enemies (Lev_26:17).
(d) Wild beasts--lions, and bears, and wolves--which should increase upon them, and tear in pieces all that came in their way (Lev_26:22), as we read of two bears that in an instant killed forty and two children (2Ki_2:24). This one of the four sore judgments threatened (Eze_14:21), which plainly refers to this chapter. Man was made to have dominion over the creatures, and though many of them are stronger than he, yet none of them could have hurt him, nay, all of them should have served him, if he had not first shaken off Gods dominion, and so lost his own; and now the creatures are in rebellion against him that is in rebellion against his Maker, and when the Lord of those hosts pleaseth, are the executioners of His wrath and ministers of His justice.
(e) Captivity, or dispersion: I will scatter you among the heathen (Lev_26:33) in your enemies land (Lev_26:34). Never were more people so incorporated and united among themselves as they were; but for their sin God would scatter them, so that they should be lost among the heathen, from whom God had so graciously distinguished them, but with whom they had wickedly mingled themselves. Yet when they were scattered Divine justice had not done with them, but would draw out a sword after them, which should find them out, and follow them, wherever they were. Gods judgments, as they cannot be outfaced, so they cannot be outrun.
(f) The utter ruin and desolation of their land, which should be so remarkable that their very enemies themselves, who had helped it forward, should in the review be astonished at it (Lev_26:32).
(i.) Their cities should be waste, forsaken, uninhabited, and all the buildings destroyed; those that escaped the desolations of war should fall to decay of themselves.
(ii.) Their sanctuaries should be a desolation, i.e., their synagogues, where they met for religious worship every Sabbath, as well as their Tabernacle, where they met thrice year.
(iii.) The country itself should be desolate, not tilled or husbanded (Lev_26:34-35); then the land should enjoy its sabbaths, because they bad not religiously observed the sabbatical years which God appointed them. They tilled their ground when God would have them let it rest, justly therefore were they driven out of it; and the expression intimates that the ground itself was pleased and easy when it was rid of the burthen of such sinners, under which it had groaned (Rom_8:20. &c.). The captivity in Babylon lasted seventy years, and so long the land enjoyed her sabbaths, as is said (2Ch_36:21) with reference to this here.
(g) The destruction of their idols, though rather a mercy than a judgment, yet being a necessary piece of justice, is here mentioned, to show what would be the sin that would bring all these miseries upon them (Lev_26:30).
(2) Spiritual judgments are here threatened which should seize the mind, for He that made that can, when He pleaseth, make His sword approach unto it. It is here threatened--
(a) that they should find no acceptance with God (Lev_26:31).
(b) That they should have no courage in their wars, but should be quite dispirited and disheartened (Lev_26:17; Lev_26:36). Those that cast off the fear of God expose themselves to the fear of everything else (Pro_28:1).
(c) That they should have no hope of the forgiveness of their sins (Lev_26:39; Eze_33:10). Note--It is a righteous thing with God, to leave those to despair of pardon that have presumed to sin; and it is owing to free grace, if we are not abandoned to pine away in the iniquity we are born in and have lived in. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)
Imprecations among the ancients
Imprecations like those set forth in our section were not unusual among the ancients; one brief parallel may here be inserted. When the people of Cirrba and others had polluted the temple of Delhi and profaned its holy treasures, the Amphictyons, after having devastated their territories, and sold the inhabitants as slaves, protested and swore that no one should ever cultivate the devoted land, and they publicly pronounced this curse: If any persons transgress this edict, whether private individuals, or a tribe, or a people, their land shall, bear no fruit, and the women shall bring forth no children who resemble their fathers, but shall give birth to monsters; nor shall the beasts produce young of a normal shape; misfortune shall befall them in their wars, their tribunals, and their public assemblies; they themselves, with their houses and their whole race, shall be destroyed; and they shall never again present to the gods an acceptable offering. (M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D.)
Gods warning a blessing
In the summer of 1884, when the cholera was raging in Spain, our newspapers constantly warned the people that dirt bred disease, and opened up a highway for the cholera to spread rapidly, if once it reached our shores. This theme was not dwelt on for the sake of frightening people, for the sake of the alarm, but to frighten them into doing a good thing which otherwise they would have left undone. The result, at least in New York City, was most beneficial. Alarm bred action and action cleansed the city as it never had been cleansed before. And not only did we have no cholera, but in the fall of 1885 the death-rate of the city had been unusually low. In this case forewarned was forearmed, and the warning was a blessing, and not a curse. The same is true of the patient and his wise physician. The latter sees, perhaps, that the manner of his patients living is injurious. It will end fatally, so he warns him. He does not do it merely to frighten him, but to frighten him away from the folly of his present manner of life. (A. F. Schauffler.)
Gods presence a source of blessing to a nation
When the king removes, the court and all the carriages follow after, and when they are gone the hangings are taken down; nothing is left behind but bare walls, dust, and rubbish. So if God removes from a man or a nation where He kept His court, His graces will not stay behind; and if they be gone, farewell peace, farewell comfort; down go the hangings of all prosperity, nothing is left behind but confusion and disorder. (J. Spencer.)
God unchangeable
The sun hath but one simple act of shining; yet do we not see that it doth unite clay and straw, dissolve ice and water? It hardens clay, and melteth wax; it makes the flowers to smell sweetly, and a dead corpse to scent loathsomely; the hot fire to be cold, and the cold water hotter; cures one man with its heat, yet therewith kills another. What is the reason? The cause is in the several objects, and their divers dispositions and constitutions, and not in the suns act of shining, which is one and the same thing. Or let a looking-glass be set in the window. Will it not represent to the eye diversity of objects? If thou go to it in decent and seemly apparel, shalt thou not see the like figure? If dejected, and in coarse raiment, will it not offer to thy view the same equal proportion? Do but stretch thyself, bend thy brow, and run against it, will it not resemble the like person and actions? Where now is the change--shall we conclude in the glass? No; for it is neither altered from the place nor in the nature. Thus the change of love and affection is not in God, but in respect of the object about which it is exercised. If one day God seem to love us, another to hate us, there is alteration within us first, not any in the Lord. We shall be sure to find a change, but it must be when we do change our ways; but God never changeth. Such as we are to ourselves, such will He be to us; if we run stubbornly against Him, He will walk stubbornly against us; with the froward He will be froward, but with the meek He will show Himself meek; yet one and the same God still, in whom there is not the least shadow of change imaginable. (J. Spencer.)
God proceeds from milder to sharper courses
The physician, when he findeth that the potion which he hath given his patient will not work, he seconds it with one more violent; but if he perceive the disease to be settled, then he puts him into a course of physic, so that, medice misere, he shall have at present but small comfort of his life. And thus doth the surgeon too: if a gentle plaster will not serve, then he applies that which is more corroding; and to prevent a gangrene, he makes use of his cauterising knife, and takes off the joint or member that is so ill affected. Even so God, when men profit not by such crosses as He hath formerly exercised them with, when they are not bettered by lighter afflictions, then He sends heavier, and proceeds from milder to sharper courses. If the dross of their sin will not come off, He will throw them into the melting-pot again and again, crush them harder in the press, and lay on such irons as shall enter more deep into their souls. If He strikes and they grieve not or they be so foolish that they will not know the judgment of their God, He will bring seven times more plagues upon them, cross upon cross, loss upon loss, trouble upon trouble, one sorrow upon the neck of another, till they are in a manner wasted and consumed. (J. Spencer.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v14 "But if ye will not hearken unto Me, and…
"THE VENGEANCE OF THE COVENANT"
Lev_26:14-46
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"But if ye will not hearken unto Me, and will not do all these commandments; and if ye shall reject My statutes, and if your soul abhor My judgments, so that ye will not do all My commandments, but break My covenant; I also will do this unto you; I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. And I will set My face against you, and ye shall be smitten before your enemies: they that hate you shall rule over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you. And if ye will not yet for these things hearken unto me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass: and your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruit. And if ye walk contrary unto Me, and will not hearken unto Me I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins. And I will send the beast of the field among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your ways shall become desolate. And if by these things ye will not be reformed unto Me, but will walk contrary unto Me; then will I also walk contrary unto you; and I will smite you, even I, seven times for your sins. And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute the vengeance of the covenant and ye shall be gathered together within your cities: and I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied. And if ye will not for all this hearken unto Me; but walk contrary unto Me; then I will walk contrary unto you in fury; and I also will chastise you seven times for your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your sun images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols; and My soul shall abhor you. And I will make your cities a waste, and will bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours. And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And you will I scatter among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you: and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall have rest; even the rest which it had not in your sabbaths when ye dwelt upon it. And as for them that are left of you I will send a faintness into their heart in the lands of their enemies: and the sound of a driven leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as one fleeth from the sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth. And they shall stumble one upon another, as it were before the sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies. And ye shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them. And they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against Me, and also that because they have walked contrary unto Me, I also walked contrary unto them, and brought them into the land of their enemies: if then their uncircumcised heart be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity; then will I remember My covenant with Jacob; and also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land. The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them; and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they rejected My judgments, and their soul abhorred My statutes. And yet for all that, when they be 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 the Lord their God: but I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord. These are the statutes and judgments and laws, which the Lord made between Him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by the hand of Moses."
So, if Israel should not obey the commandments of the Lord, but break that covenant which they had made with Him, when they had said unto the Lord: {Exo_24:7} "All that the Lord hath spoken will we do, and be obedient"; then they are threatened, first in a general way (Lev_26:14-17) with terrible judgments, which shall reverse, and more than reverse, all the blessings. God will appoint over them "terror"; disease shall ravage them, consumption and fever; their enemies shall lay waste the land, defeat them in battle, and rule over them; and instead of five of them chasing a hundred, they should flee when none was pursuing (Lev_26:17-18). Then follow four series of threats, each conditioned by the supposition that through what they should have already experienced of Jehovahs judgment they should not repent; each also introduced by the formula, "I will chastise (or "smite") you seven times for your sins." In these four times repeated series of denunciations, thus introduced, we are not to insist that numerical precision was intended; neither can we, with some, give to the "seven times" a numerical or temporal reference. The thought which runs through all these denunciations, and determines the form which they take, is this: that the judgments threatened as to follow each new display of hardness and impenitence on the part of Israel shall be marked by continually increasing severity; and the phrase "seven times," by the reference to the sacred number "seven," intimates that the vengeance should be "the vengeance of the covenant" (Lev_26:25), and also the awful thoroughness and completeness with which the threatened judgments, in case of their continued obduracy, would be inflicted.
This interpretation is sustained by the details of each section. The first series (Lev_26:18-20), in which the threatenings of Lev_26:14-17 are developed, adds to what had been previously threatened, the withholding of harvest for lack of rain. He who had promised to send the rains "in their season," if they were obedient, now declares that if they will not hearken unto Him for the other chastisements before denounced, He will "make their heaven as iron, and their earth as brass." The second series threatens in addition their devastation by wild beasts, which shall rob them of their children and their cattle; and also, in consequence of these great judgments, with a great diminution of their numbers. The third series (Lev_26:23-26) repeats under forms still more intense, the threats of sword, pestilence, and famine. The staff of bread shall be broken, and when, stricken with pestilence, they are gathered together in their cities, one oven shall suffice ten women for their baking, and bread shall be distributed by rations and in insufficient quantity (Lev_26:25-26).
It is intimated that with these extraordinary judgments it shall become increasingly evident that it is Jehovah who is thus dealing with them for the breach of His covenant. This is suggested (Lev_26:24) by the emphatic use of the personal pronoun in the Hebrew, only to be rendered in English by a stress of voice; and by the declaration (Lev_26:25) that the sword which should be brought upon them should "execute the vengeance of the covenant."
The same remark applies with still more emphasis to the next and last of these subsections (Lev_26:27-39), the terrific denunciations of which are introduced by these words, which almost seem to flash with the fire of Gods avenging wrath: "If ye will walk contrary unto Me; then I will walk contrary unto you in fury (lit., " I will walk with you in fury of opposition"); and I also will chastise you seven times for your sins." All that has been threatened before is here repeated with every circumstance which could add terror to the picture. Was famine threatened? it shall be so awful in its severity that they shall eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters. The high places which had been the scenes of their licentious worship should be destroyed, and the "sun images" which they had worshipped, going after Baal, should be cut down; and, in visible sign of the Divine wrath and of Gods holy contempt for the impotent idols for which they had forsaken the Lord, upon the fallen idols should lie the dead corpses of their worshippers. The sanctuaries (with special, -though, perhaps, not exclusive, -reference, as the following words show, to the holy places of Jehovahs tabernacle or temple) should become a desolation; the sweet savour of their sacrifices should be rejected. The holy people should be scattered into other lands; the land should become so desolate that those of their enemies who should dwell in it should themselves be astonished at its transformation. And so. while they should be scattered in their enemies land, the land would "enjoy her sabbaths"; i.e., it should thus, untilled and desolate, enjoy the rest which Jehovah had commanded them to give the land each seventh year, which they had not observed. Meanwhile, the condition of the banished nation in the lands of their captivity should be most pitiful: minished in number, those that were left alive should pine away in their iniquities, and in the iniquity of their fathers; timid and broken spirited, they should flee before the sound of a broken leaf, and the land of their enemies should "eat them up."
And herewith ends the second section of this remarkable prophecy. Promising Israel the highest prosperity in the land of Canaan, if they will keep the words of this covenant, it threatens them with successive judgments of sword, famine, and pestilence, of continually increasing severity, to culminate, if they yet persist in disobedience, in their expulsion from the land for a prolonged period; and predicts their continued existence, despite the most distressing conditions, in the lands of their enemies, while their own land meanwhile lies desolate and untilled without them.
The fundamental importance and instructiveness of this prophecy is evident from the fact that all later predictions concerning the fortunes of Israel are but its more detailed exposition and application to successive historical conditions. Still more evident is its profound significance when we recall to mind the fact, disputed by none, that not only is it an epitome of all later prophecy of Holy Scripture concerning Israel, but, no less truly, an epitome of Israels history. So strictly true is this that we may accurately describe the history of that nation, from the days of Moses until now, as but the translation of this chapter from the language of prediction into that of history.
The facts which illustrate this statement are so familiar that one scarcely needs to refer to them. The numerous visitations in the days of the Judges, when again and again the people were given into the hands of their enemies for their sins, and so often as then they repented, were again and again delivered; the heavier judgments of later days, first in the days of the earlier kings, and afterwards culminating in the captivity of the ten tribes, following the siege and capture of Samaria, 721 B.C., and, still later, the terrible siege and capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, 586 B.C., to the horrors of which the Lamentations of Jeremiah bear most sorrowful witness; -what were all these events, with others of lesser importance, but a historical unfolding of this twenty-sixth chapter of Leviticus?
And how, since Old Testament days, this prophecy has been continually illustrated in Israels history, is, or should be, familiar to all. As apostasy has succeeded to apostasy, judgment has followed upon judgment. To a Nebuchadnezzar succeeded an Antiochus Epiphanes; and, after the Greco-Syrian judgment, then, following the supreme national crime of the rejection and crucifixion of their promised Messiah, came the Roman captivity, the most terrible of all; a judgment continued even until now in the eighteen hundred years of Israels exile from the land of the covenant, and their scattering among the nations, -eighteen hundred years of tragic suffering, such as no other nation has ever known, or, knowing, has yet survived; sufferings which are still exhibited before the eyes of all the world today in the bitter experiences of the four millions of Jews in the Empire of the Czar, and the persecutions of Anti-Shemitism in other lands.
Existing, rather than living, under such conditions for centuries, as a natural result, the Jewish people became few in number, as here predicted; having been reduced from not less than seven or eight millions in the days of the kingdom, to a minimum, about two hundred years ago, of not more than three millions. And, strangest of all, throughout this time the once fertile land has lain desolate, for the Gentiles have never settled in it in any great number; and in place of a population of five hundred to the square mile in the days of Solomon, we find now only a few hundred thousand miserable people, and the most of the land, for lack of cultivation, in such a condition that nothing can easily exceed its desolation. And when we have said all this, and much more that might be said without exaggeration, we have but simply testified that Lev_26:31-34 of this chapter have in the fullest possible sense become historical fact. For it was written (Lev_26:32-34):
"I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And you will I scatter among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you: and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths."
These facts make this chapter to he an apologetic of prime importance. It is this, because we have here evidence of foreknowledge, and therefore of the supernatural inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God in the prophecy here recorded. The facts cannot be adequately explained, either on the supposition of fortunate guessing or of accidental coincidence. It was not indeed impossible to forecast on natural grounds that Israel would become corrupt, or that, if so, they should experience disaster in consequence of their moral depravation. For God has not one law for Israel and another for other nations. Nor does the argument rest on the details of these threatened judgments, as consisting in the sword, famine, and pestilence; for other nations have experienced these calamities, though, indeed, few in equal measure with Israel; and of these one has a natural dependence on another.
But setting aside these elements of the prophecy, as of less apologetic significance, two particulars yet remain in which this predicted experience has been unique, and antecedently to the event in so high degree improbable, that we can reasonably think here neither of shrewd human forecast nor of chance agreement of prediction and fulfilment. The one is the predicted survival of exiled Israel as a nation in the land of their enemies, their indestructibility throughout centuries of unequalled suffering; the other, the extraordinary fact that their land, so rich and fertile, which was at that time and for centuries afterwards one of the principal highways of the worlds commerce and travel, the coveted possession of many nations from a remote antiquity, should during the whole period of Israels banishment remain comparatively unoccupied and untilled.
As regards the former particular, we may search history in vain for a similar phenomenon. Here is a people who, at their best, as compared with many other nations, such as the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Romans, were few in number and in material resources; who now have been scattered from their land for centuries, crushed and oppressed always, in a degree and for a length of time never experienced by any other people; yet never merging in the nations with whom they were mingled, or losing in the least their peculiar racial characteristics and distinct national identity. This, although now for a long time matter of history, was yet, a priori, so improbable that all history records no other instance of the kind; and yet all this had to be if those words of Lev_26:44 were to prove true: "When they be in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly." With abundant reason has Professor Christlieb referred to this fact as an unanswerable apologetic, thus:
"We point to the people of Israel as a perennial historical miracle. The continued existence of this nation up to the present day, the preservation of its national peculiarities throughout thousands of years, in spite of all dispersion and oppression, remains so unparalleled a phenomenon, that without the special providential preparation of God, and His constant interference and protection, it would be impossible for us to explain it. For where else is there a people over which such judgments have passed, and yet not ended in destruction?"
No less remarkable and significant is the long-continued depopulation of the land of Israel. For it was and is by nature a richly fertile land; and at the time of this prediction-whether it be assigned to an earlier or later period - it was upon one of the chief commercial and military routes of theworld, and its possession has thus been an object of ambition to all the dominant nations of history. Surely, one would have expected that if Israel should be cast out of such a land, it would at once and always be occupied by others who should cultivate its proverbially productive soil. But it was not to be so, for it had been otherwise written. And yet it seems as if it had scarcely been possible that through all these later centuries of the history of Christendom, the land could have thus lain desolate, except for the so momentous discovery in 1497 of the Cape route to India, by which event - which no one could in so remote days have well anticipated-the tide of commerce with the East was turned away from Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. to the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans; so that the land of Israel was left, like a city made to stand solitary in a desert by the shifting of the channel of a river; and its predicted desolation thus went on to receive its most complete, consummate, and now long-realised fulfilment.
So, then, stands the case. It is truly difficult to understand how one can fairly escape the inference from these facts, namely, that they imply in this chapter such a prescience of the future as is not possible to man, and therefore demonstrate that the Spirit of God must, in the deepest and truest sense, have been the author of these predictions of the future of the chosen people and their land.
And it is of the very first importance, with reference to the controversies of our day regarding this question, that we note the fact that the argument is of such a nature that it is not in the least dependent upon the date that any may have assigned to the origin of this chapter. Even though we should, with Graf and Wellhausen, attribute its composition to exilian or postexilian times, it would still remain true that the chapter contained unmistakable predictions regarding the nation and the land; predictions which, if fulfilled, no doubt, in a degree, in the days of the Babylonian exile and the return, were yet to receive a fulfilment far more minute, exhaustive, and impressive, in centuries which then were still in a far distant future. But if this be granted, it is plain that these facts impose a limitation upon the conclusions of criticism. That only is true science which takes into view all the facts with respect to any phenomenon for which one seeks to account; and in this case the facts which are to be explained by any theory, are not merely peculiarities of style and vocabulary, etc., but also this phenomenon of a demonstrably predictive element in the chapter; a phenomenon which requires for its explanation the assumption of a supernatural inspiration as one of the factors in its authorship. But if this is so, how can we reconcile with such a Divine inspiration any theory which makes the last statement of the chapter, that "these are the statutes which the Lord made in mount Sinai by the hand of Moses," to be untrue, and the preceding "laws" to be thus, in plain language, a forgery of exilian or post-exilian times?
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v14 The Curse upon the Disobedient
The Curse upon the Disobedient
v. 14. But if ye will not hearken unto Me, and will not do all these commandments,
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v. 15. and if ye shall despise My statutes, or if your soul abhor My judgments, so that ye will not do all My commandments, but that ye break My covenant, willfully set it aside,
v. 16. I also will do this unto you: I will even appoint over you terror, order it to strike them, to fill their hearts with nameless dread, consumption, and the burning ague, a consuming fever, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart; and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it, they would find no difficulty about entering the country and taking the standing grain or the contents of the granaries.
v. 17. And I will set My face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies, with no chance of overcoming them; they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you, which is characteristic of the godless and wicked, Pro 28:1; Psa 53:5. After this preliminary summary the Lord now announces the form which His punishment mould take in a carefully graded series which reaches its climax in the last part of the Chapter.
v. 18. And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.
v. 19. And I will break the pride, the majesty, the glory, the boast, of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron and your earth as brass, withholding both the rain above and the fruitfulness below;
v. 20. and your strength shall be spent in vain, in the fruitless endeavor to coax the land into producing; for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits. That was the first degree of the increased punishment: an absolute lack of fertility in the land.
v. 21. And if ye walk contrary unto Me and will not hearken unto Me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins, as the second step of the intensified curse.
v. 22. I will also send wild beasts among you, the larger predatory beasts and birds, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your highways shall be desolate on account of the reduced number of inhabitants. These were the two punishments of the second increased degree: loss caused by beasts of prey and bereavement.
v. 23. And if ye will not be reformed by Me by these things, if they would not learn their lesson as held before them by the Lord, but will walk contrary unto Me,
v. 24. then will I also walk contrary unto you, be engaged in continual acts of aggressive enmity, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins, as the third step in the increased revenge.
v. 25. And I will bring a sword upon you, permit the scourge of war to sweep their country, that shall avenge the quarrel of My covenant; and when ye are gathered together within your cities, where the greater density of the population made the spread of diseases easier, I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered in to the hand of the enemy, for war and epidemics usually come together.
v. 26. And when I have broken the staff of your bread, which is here also represented as the staff of life, the proverbial expression denoting the infliction of extreme scarcity, ten women, of as many households, shall bake your bread in one oven, where formerly ten were needed, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight, in careful rations; and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied. That was the third stage of God’s increased punishment: war, pestilence, and famine.
v. 27. And if ye will not for all this hearken unto Me, but walk contrary unto Me,
v. 28. then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury, in consuming anger; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins, in some last horrible catastrophes.
v. 29. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat, in a madness of cannibal hunger brought on by the severe famine.
v. 30. And I will destroy your high places, where idolatrous worship was carried on, and cut down your images, the pillars erected to the heathen deities, and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols, and My soul shall abhor you, be filled with loathing at their sight.
v. 31. And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, the houses of idolatry erected in spite of the warning of Jehovah; and I will not smell the savor of your sweet odors, the burnt sacrifices which they brought in the insolence of their hypocrisy, as though the Lord would accept the mere outward work, without faith of the heart.
v. 32. And I will bring the land in to desolation; and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it, even they would be surprised at the distinct marks of God’s punitive justice, as they were in evidence everywhere.
v. 33. And I will scatter you among the heathen, in a shameful captivity equivalent to slavery, and will draw out a sword after you, drive them from their homes with a drawn sword; and your land shall be desolate and your cities waste. That was the climax of God’s revenging justice: destruction of all idols and their sanctuaries, complete overthrow of the cities, desolation of the land, and deportation of its inhabitants. These threats hold good even today. If we turn away from God, deny Him faith and obedience, and despise His commandments, He will take away His blessings, peace and prosperity, from us and even visit His anger upon us. Therefore we should fear His wrath and not act contrary to His commandments.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv14, 16, 18, 21 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh is telling Moses what will happen if the people do not obey his commands.
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translationWords
obey
command
reject
decree
law
obey
covenant
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv14, 18, 19 26:14-39 The objective of God’s punishment of his people…
26:14-39 The objective of God’s punishment of his people is to change behavior and restore relationship. God responds to his disobedient people as a perfectly righteous and loving parent would to a child. The punishments designed to curb rebellious behavior gradually increase, giving Israel the opportunity to repent at any time (26:18-28). Even when Israel was punished with exile from the land in 722 and 586 BC, God was working to restore his people (see, e.g., Isa 40–66; Jer 29:10; Amos 9:11-15).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.