Leviticus
Leviticus 26
1“ ‘You shall make for yourselves no idols, and you shall not raise up a carved image or a pillar, and you shall not place any figured stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am Yahweh your God.
2“ ‘You shall keep my Sabbaths, and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am Yahweh.
3“ ‘If you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments, and do them, 4then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5Your threshing shall continue until the vintage, and the vintage shall continue until the sowing time. You shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.
6“ ‘I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one will make you afraid. I will remove evil animals out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. 7You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 8Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand; and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.
9“ ‘I will have respect for you, make you fruitful, multiply you, and will establish my covenant with you. 10You shall eat old supplies long kept, and you shall move out the old because of the new. 11I will set my tent among you, and my soul won’t abhor you. 12I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you will be my people. 13I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. I have broken the bars of your yoke, and made you walk upright.
14“ ‘But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments, 15and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, 16I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it. 17I will set my face against you, and you will be struck before your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you; and you will flee when no one pursues you.
18“ ‘If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. 19I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like bronze. 20Your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won’t yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit.
21“ ‘If you walk contrary to me, and won’t listen to me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins. 22I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number. Your roads will become desolate.
23“ ‘If by these things you won’t be turned back to me, but will walk contrary to me, 24then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins. 25I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy. 26When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight. You shall eat, and not be satisfied.
27“ ‘If you in spite of this won’t listen to me, but walk contrary to me, 28then I will walk contrary to you in wrath. I will also chastise you seven times for your sins. 29You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters. 30I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you. 31I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation. I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings. 32I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies that dwell in it will be astonished at it. 33I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. 34Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. 35As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it didn’t have in your Sabbaths when you lived on it.
36“ ‘As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword. They will fall when no one pursues. 37They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues. You will have no power to stand before your enemies. 38You will perish among the nations. The land of your enemies will eat you up. 39Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they shall pine away with them.
40“ ‘If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me; and also that because they walked contrary to me, 41I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity, 42then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land. 43The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes. 44Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly and to break my covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their God. 45But I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am Yahweh.’ ”
46These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws, which Yahweh made between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by Moses.
Commentary
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What others are saying
5 commentators · 107 notes on this chapter
Matthew Henry3
Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.
Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.
Here is, I. The inculcating of those precepts of the law which were of the greatest consequence, and by which were of the greatest consequence, and by which especially their obedience would be tried, Lev 26:1, Lev 26:2. They are the abstract of the second and…
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…
Here the chapter concludes with gracious promises of the return of God's favour to them upon their repentance, that they might not (unless it were their own fault) pine away in their iniquity. Behold, with wonder, the riches of God's mercy to a people that…
John Gill46
The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.
Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.
Ye shall have no idols, or graven image,.... Some of the Jewish writers, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra, think this law against idolatry is mentioned on account of the Israelite sold to a stranger, spoken of in the latter part of the preceding chapter, lest he…
Ye shall keep my sabbaths,.... The seventh day sabbaths, and the seventh year sabbaths; especially the former are meant, in which religious worship was given to the one true and living God, and therefore the observance of them is strictly enjoined; and hence…
If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them. Both moral, ceremonial, and judicial, which had been delivered unto them, and now completely recorded in this and the preceding book; for what follow in the two next are chiefly repetitions of…
Adam Clarke14
The linguist of this set. Expect Hebrew and Greek word study, oriental custom, and geography — and an Arminian reading of grace and free will where Gill or Henry would read election. Note one real divergence: Clarke denied the eternal sonship of Christ, a position most of the tradition rejects, so read him closely on the person of Christ.
Why this voice is here: Where you want to know what a word actually says, Clarke is the one who will tell you — with the caveat above on Christ’s sonship.
Ye shall make you no idols - See note on Exo 20:4, and see the note on Gen 28:18-19 (note), concerning consecrated stones. Not only idolatry in general is forbidden here, but also the superstitious use of innocent and lawful things. Probably the stones or…
If ye walk in my statutes - For the meaning of this and similar words used in the law, See the note on Lev 26:15.
Rain in due season - What in Scripture is called the early and the latter rain. The first fell in Palestine at the commencement of spring, and the latter in autumn - Calmet.
Keil & Delitzsch24
The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.
Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.
Lev 26:1 and Lev 26:2 form the introduction; and the essence of the whole law, the observance of which will bring a rich blessing, and the transgression of it severe judgments, is summed up in two leading commandments, and placed at the head of the blessing…
The Blessing of Fidelity to the Law. - Lev 26:3-5. If the Israelites walked in the commandments of the Lord (for the expression see Lev 18:3.), the Lord would give fruitfulness to their land, that they should have bread to the full. "I will give you…
The Lord would give peace in the land, and cause the beasts of prey which endanger life to vanish out of the land, and suffer no war to come over it, but would put to flight before the Israelites the enemies who attacked them, and cause them to fall into…
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown20
The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.
Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.
Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary--Very frequently, in this Book of the Law, the Sabbath and the sanctuary are mentioned as antidotes to idolatry.
A BLESSING TO THE OBEDIENT. (Lev 26:3-13) If ye walk in my statutes--In that covenant into which God graciously entered with the people of Israel, He promised to bestow upon them a variety of blessings, so long as they continued obedient to Him as their…
I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase--Rain seldom fell in Judea except at two seasons--the former rain at the end of autumn, the seedtime; and the latter rain in spring, before the beginning of harvest (Jer 5:24).
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