I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation. I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings. I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies that dwell in it will be astonished at it. I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it didn’t have in your Sabbaths when you lived on it.
“ ‘As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword. They will fall when no one pursues. They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues. You will have no power to stand before your enemies. You will perish among the nations. The land of your enemies will eat you up. Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they shall pine away with them.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv31, 33, 35, 36, 39 I will not accept your sacrifices.
I will not accept your sacrifices.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39 Lev 26:31 And I will make your cities waste,…
Lev 26:31 And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours.
Ver. 31. I will not smell.] I will show myself implacable, inexorable.
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 vv31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 39 Your sanctuaries; either,
Your sanctuaries; either,
1. God’s sanctuary, called sanctuaries here, as also Psa 73:17; 74:7; Jer 51:51; Eze 28:18, because there were divers apartments in it, each of which was a sanctuary, or, which is all one, a holy place, as they are severally called. And your emphatically, not mine, for I disown and abhor it, and all the services you do in it, because you have defiled it. Or,
Read full note →
2. The temples built by you to idols, therefore called
their sanctuaries, in opposition to God’s. Or,
3. Your synagogues. But the first is most probable, because he speaks of the place where they used to offer their sweet odours here following.
I will not smell, i.e. not own or accept them. See Gen 8:21; Isa 1:11, &c.
Of your sweet odours; either of the incense, or of your sacrifices, which when offered with faith and obedience, are very sweet and acceptable to me.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv31–39 And I will bring the land into desolation,.... The…
And I will bring the land into desolation,.... The whole country of Judea, cities, towns, villages, fields, vineyards, &c. through the ravage and plunder of the enemy; and they being driven out of it, and carried captive from it, and so the land left untilled, and become barren and unfruitful:
and your enemies which dwell therein; having destroyed them, or cast them out, and sent them into other countries, and took possession of theirs in their room:
Read full note →
shall be astonished at it; at the desolation of the land, that such a fruitful country, a land flowing with milk and honey, should be turned into barrenness, for the wickedness of its inhabitants, and shall be amazed at the judgments of God upon them and that.
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 vv31, 32, 33, 34, 37, 39 Sanctuaries - God's sanctuary, called sanctuaries here, as also…
Sanctuaries - God's sanctuary, called sanctuaries here, as also Psalm 7iii, 17; 7iv, 7 Jer. li, 51 Ezek. xxviii, 18, because there were divers apartments in it, each of which was a sanctuary, or, which is all one, an holy place, as they are severally called. And yours emphatically, not mine, for I disown and abhor it, and all the services you do in it, because you have defiled it. I will not smell - Not own or accept them. Your sweet odours - Either of the incense, or of your sacrifices, which when offered with faith and obedience, are sweet and acceptable to me.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv34, 38 Verse 34. Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths]…
Verse 34. Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths] This Houbigant observes to be a historical truth. - "From Saul to the Babylonish captivity are numbered about four hundred and ninety years, during which period there were seventy Sabbaths of years; for 7, multiplied by 70, make 490. 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 laws relative to the Sabbaths of the land." This is a most remarkable fact, and deserves to be particularly noticed, as a most literal fulfilment of the prophetic declaration in this verse: Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land.
May it not be argued from this that the law concerning the Sabbatical year was observed till Saul's time, as it is only after this period the land enjoyed its rest in the seventy years' captivity? And if that breach of the law was thus punished, may it not be presumed it had been fulfilled till then, or else the captivity would have lasted longer, i. e., till the land had enjoyed all its rests, of which it had ever been thus deprived?
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 vv31, 32, 34, 36, 39 Lev 26:31. Your sanctuaries into desolation — The sanctuary…
Lev 26:31. Your sanctuaries into desolation — The sanctuary of God, though but one, is expressed in the plural number here, as it is also Psa 73:17; and Psa 84:7; Jer 51:51; and Eze 28:18; because there were divers apartments in it, each of which was a sanctuary, or holy place. God vouchsafes not to call it his own, but theirs, to show that by their wickedness it would be polluted and rendered unworthy of him, and that therefore he would disown and abhor it, and all the services which they should perform in it; which was most awfully fulfilled. The savour of your sweet odours — The incense made of several sweet spices, which was daily offered to God in the sanctuary. These, though when offered to God with faith and obedience they were sweet and acceptable to him, he here threatens he will not smell, or accept, as being presented in hypocrisy and unbelief. The expression is metaphorical, and signifies that neither their prayers nor sacrifices should be accepted.
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 vv31, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 Odours. Even the sanctuary of the Lord shall be…
Odours. Even the sanctuary of the Lord shall be destroyed, as you will be unworthy to have it among you, or to offer sacrifices to me. (Haydock)
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 vv31, 33, 34, 38 I will make your cities waste--This destruction of its…
I will make your cities waste--This destruction of its numerous and flourishing cities, which was brought upon Judea through the sins of Israel, took place by the forced removal of the people during, and long after, the captivity. But it is realized to a far greater extent now.
bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours--the tabernacle and temple, as is evident from the tenor of the subsequent clause, in which God announces that He will not accept or regard their sacrifices.
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 vv31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39 31. I will make your cities waste — Palestine…
31. I will make your cities waste — Palestine is filled with ruined cities. Says Porter, in his Giant Cities of Bashan: “Every opening to the right and left revealed ruins; now a tomb in a quiet nook; now a temple in a lonely forest glade; now a shapeless and nameless heap of stones and fallen columns; and now, through a long green vista, the shattered walls and towers of an ancient city. The country is filled with ruins. In every direction to which the eye turns, in every spot on which it rests, ruins are visible — so truly, so wonderfully, have the prophecies been fulfilled. Every view we got in Bashan was an ocular demonstration of the literal fulfilment of the curse pronounced on the land by Moses more than three thousand years ago. One day I climbed a peak which commands the sea of Galilee and the Jordan valley up to the waters of Merom. I was able to distinguish, by the aid of a glass, in a region thirty miles long by ten wide, every spot celebrated in sacred history. My eye swept the sea from north to south, from east to west; not a single sail, not a solitary boat, was there. My eye swept the great Jordan valley, the little plains, the glens, the mountain sides from base to summit — not a city, not a village, not a house, not a sign of settled habitation was there, except a few huts at Magdala and the shattered houses of Tiberias. Desolation keeps unbroken sabbath in Galilee now. Nature has lavished on the country some of her choicest gifts — a rich soil, a genial climate — but the curse of Heaven has come upon it because of the sin of man.” Keith, after enumerating a large number of celebrated cities in the Holy Land lying in utter desolation, exclaims: “How marvellously are the predictions of their desolation verified, when, in general, nothing but ruined ruins form the most distinguished remnants of the cities of Israel; and when the multitude of its towns are almost all left, with many a vestige to testify of their number, but without a mark to tell their name.”
Your sanctuaries — By the use of the plural number there may be an implied reference to idolatrous temples, but it is more probable that the future sanctuary cities, Bethel, Shiloh, and Jerusalem, are proleptically referred to, including the numerous synagogues scattered over the land.
Read full note →
I will not smell the savour — In other words, “I will not smell with pleasure, 1 will not enjoy, the savour of your sweet odours.” Only the penitent, obedient, and devout heart can please God or appropriate spiritual good. The mere mechanical performance of sacrifice and burning of incense, dissevered from the appropriate state of the moral and religious sensibilities, is a solemn mockery and abomination. See Introductory notes 7 and 8. Isa_1:11-15.
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 vv31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 39 31. I will not smell, etc.] Cp. Isa_1:11 ff.;…
31. I will not smell, etc.] Cp. Isa_1:11 ff.; Amo_5:21 f.
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 vv31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39 (31) I will make your cities waste.—Not only will…
(31) I will make your cities waste.—Not only will the elevated spots outside the cities with their idols be destroyed, and the carcases of the deluded worshippers be scattered among their remains, but the cities themselves will be converted into ruins and desolations (Jer_4:7; Jer_9:11; Eze_6:6; Eze_12:20; Neh_2:17, &c.).
And bring your sanctuaries unto desolation.—Even the sanctuary with all its holy places (Jer_51:51; Eze_21:7; Amo_7:9; Pss. 68:36, Psa_74:7. &c.), sacred edifices, synagogues, &c. (Lev_21:23), will not be spared, God thus reversing the promise which He made to the Israelites, that He will set up His dwelling place in the midst of them (see Lev_26:11) if they will walk according to His commandments.
Read full note →
I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours.—When this awful destruction of the sanctuary is to take place God will not regard the fact that the odour of sweet sacrifices is there being offered up. (See Lev_1:9.) The service which may then be performed to Him will not hinder Him from executing this judgment.
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 vv34, 36 Vers. 34, 35. The land had not participated in…
Vers. 34, 35. The land had not participated in the sins of its inhabitants. The latter had thought that, by the neglect of the sabbatical years, they had enriched themselves by the fruits of those years which would otherwise have been wasted. The result was that they lost the land altogether for a period equal to that during which it ought to have kept sabbath, and the land "as long as she lay desolate kept sabbath, to fulfill threescore and ten years". (2Ch_36:21) From the entrance into the holy land until the Babylonish Captivity there elapsed eight hundred and sixty-three years, in which time there ought to have been kept one hundred and twenty-three sabbatical years. As only seventy are made up by the duration of the Captivity, it may be concluded that fifty-three sabbatical years were observed by the Israelites; but this conclusion is very doubtful. It is more likely that seventy, being a multiple of the sacred number seven, was regarded as sufficient to purge all previous neglects, whatever they might have been.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v34 The Effects of these Visitations and the Restoration of…
The Effects of these Visitations and the Restoration of the Covenant
v. 34. 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. It is here implied that Israel, in its revolt against Jehovah and His commandments, would omit the observance of the sabbatical years, and that the land, suffering under the oppression of this greed, would feel the relief brought about by the deportation of the owners.
Read full note →
v. 35. As long as it lieth desolate, it shall rest, because it did not rest in your Sabbaths when ye blood upon it.
v. 36. And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies, filling their hearts with a cowardly fear, with the despondency of an unreasonable terror; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth, victims more of their own terror than of any harm done to them by their enemies,
v. 37. And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth; and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies.
v. 38. And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. Cf Numbers 13-32; Eze 36:13.
v. 39. And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands, So long as they remain in their unrepentant attitude toward God; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them; for if the children follow in the footsteps of their sinful parents, the sins of the latter are visited upon them also. But now the mercy of the Lord comes into the foreground Again.
v. 40. If they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, the guilt which they brought upon themselves by their misdeeds, with their trespass which they trespassed against Me, and that also they have walked contrary unto Me, an open confession being necessary to show the sincerity of their repentance;
v. 41. and that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies, thereby freely acknowledging that they were suffering a well-deserved punishment; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity,
v. 42. then will I remember My covenant with Jacob, and also My covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember, with all the blessings promised therein; and I will remember the land, turn back to it with thoughts of love and kindness.
v. 43. The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her Sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them, being free from the oppression of a population that disregarded the will of the Lord; and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity, bowing their backs to the Lord’s chastening rod; because, even because they despised My judgments, and because their soul abhorred My statutes.
v. 44. And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, when it seems that they are absolutely forsaken by God, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them to destroy them utterly, for that had not been the purpose of His punishment in the first place, and to break My covenant with them; for I am the Lord, their God, who always has mercy upon the repentant sinner.
v. 45. 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 heathen. I am the Lord. In this way the punishment of the Lord would finally result in blessing the people, in bringing them back to the fellowship of the covenant which He had never repudiated.
v. 46. 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. The history of Israel, as foreshadowed in this Chapter, is an example of warning to all men. Unto those that are disobedient to the truth the Lord will render tribulation and anguish, Rom 2:8-9. He will in flaming fire take vengeance on them that know not God, that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, 2Th 1:8-9. But His mercy is always ready to turn to those that come to Him with a sorrowful and repentant heart.
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 vv31, 34, 37 I will turn your cities into ruins and destroy…
I will turn your cities into ruins and destroy your sanctuaries
Because God would send armies to do these things, he speaks as if he would do them. AT: "I will send enemy armies to turn your cities into ruins and destroy your sanctuaries" (See: Metonymy)
Read full note →
your sanctuaries
These were places where people worshiped idols instead of God.
I will not be pleased with the aroma of your offerings
Normally the Lord's pleasure with the aroma represents his pleasure with those who burn the offering. But in this case, people would burn offerings, but God would not be pleased with them. AT: "You will burn offerings, but I will not be pleased with you" (See: Metaphor)
I will draw out my sword and follow you
This represents sending armies to attack them. AT: "I will send enemy armies to attack you" or "I will send enemy armies to attack you with their swords" (See: Metonymy)
Your land will be abandoned, and your cities will be ruined
This can be stated in active form. AT: "You will abandon your land, and your enemies will destroy your cities" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
ruin
sanctuary
sacrifice
devastate
nation
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 vv34, 36 26:34 With the people gone into captivity in a…
26:34 With the people gone into captivity in a foreign land, there would be no one to work the land. It would at last have the “rest” of lying fallow that the people had denied it (see 25:1-7).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.