Leviticus 26
McGeeCHAPTER 26THEME: Prologue to Israel’s Magna Carta of the land; promise of blessing; pronouncement of judgment; prediction predicated on promise to patriarchsThis is a marvelous chapter. It is a prophetic history that covers Israel’s entire tenure of the Promised Land until the present hour and gives the conditions in the future on which they will occupy the land. This section stands in a peculiar relationship to the remainder of the Book of Leviticus. There are not great spiritual lessons and pictures here, but this is the direct word of Jehovah to the nation Israel concerning their future. This is history prewritten and reveals the basis on which Israel entered the land of Canaan and their tenancy there. This is an “iffy” chapter. “If” occurs nine times and it has to do with the conditions on which they occupy the land. God says “I will” twenty-four times. God will act and react according to their responses to the “if”. God gave them the land, but their occupancy of it is determined by their answer to the “if”. Obedience is the ground of blessing in the land. This chapter is not only the calendar of their history, but it serves as the barometer of their blessings. Their presence in the land, rainfall, and bountiful crops denote the favor of God. Their absence from the land, famine, and drought denote the judgment of God because of their disobedience. You and I are blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. However there are some “ifs” connected to that also. God loves you and wants to shower you with His blessings. But you can put up an umbrella of indifference, you can put up an umbrella of sin, you can put up an umbrella of stepping out of the will of God. When you do that, the sunshine of His love won’t get through to you. You must put down your umbrella to experience His spiritual blessings.
Leviticus 26:1
PROLOGUE TO ISRAEL’S MAGNA CARTA OF THE LANDThese two verses sum up the first part of the Ten Commandments, man’s relationship with God. These are essential for Israel to maintain residence in the land. They are to meet these injunctions if they are to occupy that land. The land is given to them, but their enjoyment of it, their occupation of it, depends upon their obedience to God. (1) They are to make no idols. The Hebrew word for an idol (elilim) means a “nothing.” They shall make no nothings. It’s pretty hard to make a nothing, friends, and yet there are a great many folk who make a nothing of their relationship to God. Anything that takes the place of God is a nothing. The word given for graven images means a carved wooden image. And the word for the image of stone means sculptured stone idols. The people were not to worship an image, nor even worship before an image. This is a repetition of what had already been told the people back in Lev_19:30. (2) Keep the Sabbaths. (3) Reverence the Sanctuary. The Sabbath, the Sanctuary, and this matter of worshiping God, all come in one package. The character of Jehovah is the basis for obeying these injunctions. “I am the Lord.”
Leviticus 26:3
PROMISE OF BLESSINGYou notice this starts with an “if”. If they walk in the prescribed manner, then God promised these things. Their occupancy of the land is contingent upon the obedience to God’s revealed will to them. God recognizes their free will. If you will obey, then God will bless. It seems that in that land the primary evidence of the blessing of God in response to their obedience is rainfall. We find this repeated in Deuteronomy and in the prophets. “And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing. And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the LORD …” (Eze_34:26-27). The prophets look forward to the day when this will be accomplished in Israel. It is a day yet to come. “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt” (Amo_9:13). “Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month. And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil” (Joe_2:23-24). God’s promise to them is the occupation of that land, showers, fruitfulness, peace. It’s interesting that the little nation can’t have peace today. It’s no use for us to point our finger at them because the rest of us can’t have peace either. It’s all tied up in one little word “if”. God has promised to bless if certain things are done.
Leviticus 26:7
Victory over their enemies would be a part of their blessing. Many times this was literally fulfilled, as you know. When they would return to God, God would raise up a Samuel, a David, a Deborah, a Gideon, or an Elijah. All these were raised up because God was making good His promise. They would be victorious over their enemies as part of their blessing. “One man of you shall chase a thousand: for the LORD your God, he it is that fighteth for you, as he hath promised you” (Jos_23:10).
Leviticus 26:9
A population explosion in Israel would be part of the blessing. Today the world doesn’t think that is a blessing at all. The increase in the population would not present the problem of food shortage because the food would be so multiplied that they would have to remove the old to make room for the new.
Leviticus 26:11
Don’t tell me that God does not abhor sin. Of course He does. And He will not compromise with it in your life or my life. The tabernacle in their midst was an evident token of blessing. This is the great hope of the future which will be fulfilled finally for the eternal earth. “And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God” (Rev_21:3).
Leviticus 26:12
God promises to fellowship with those who obey Him. That is also what He tells us today. “…if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1Jn_1:7). God wants to have fellowship with us. “And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (2Co_6:16).
Leviticus 26:13
The future promise of blessing rests upon the solid history of the past when God delivered them from Egypt. He is saying to them, “I have done this for you in the past; don’t you know I will do it for you in the future?” He tells us the same thing today. “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Php_1:6). You can be confident that since He has brought you up to this moment, He is going to lead you right through to the day of Jesus Christ. I’ll say a Hallelujah to that!
Leviticus 26:14
PRONOUNCEMENT OF JUDGMENTListen to His three “ifs” in these two verses. These are the “ifs” of a breach of the covenant: refusal to hear, refusal to do, despising and abhorring God’s statutes and judgments. Breaking God’s covenant would bring judgment upon the people and the land.
Leviticus 26:16
This is the first degree judgmentterror, consumption, burning ague, sorrow of heart, and crop failure. Their enemies will slay them, enslave them, and cause them great fear. This happened often in their sad and sordid history. We read that the anger of the Lord waxed hot against Israel, and He delivered them into the hands of spoilers who spoiled them (Jdg_2:14; Jdg_3:8; Jdg_4:2). What the prophets did in their messages was call their attention to the fact that they had broken the covenant which God had made with them. “And they shall eat up thine harvest, and thy bread, which thy sons and thy daughters should eat …” (Jer_5:17). “Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil; and sweet wine, but shalt not drink wine” (Mic_6:15).
Leviticus 26:18
This is the second degree of judgment. If they were obdurate and continual in their disobedience, then God would judge them seven times, which indicates a complete and absolute judgment. Their pride would be broken. There would be no rain; there would be continual crop failure.
Leviticus 26:21
This is the third degree judgment. Plagues and wild beasts will decimate the population. All of this came upon them. Read in Judges where they traveled on the byways while the highways were unoccupied. Man has lost his dominion over nature.
Leviticus 26:23
This is the fourth degree judgment. Notice the repetition of the number seven, which indicates completeness. The enemy will breach their defenses, and the pestilence will strike the people. Captivity would be the end result. Ezekiel warned them that a third part would die of the pestilence and with famine, a third part would be scattered (Eze_5:12). Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel all warned them of famine which would overtake them. It all happened. This will take place again at the time of the Great Tribulation, as we find it in the sixth chapter of the Book of Revelation.
Leviticus 26:27
This seems terribly harsh, and one would think it could never come to pass. But it did.
Leviticus 26:30
This is the fifth degree judgment, and it is extreme. It was the result of warfare in the siege of the cities. This was fulfilled in the siege of Samaria (2Ki_6:28-29), and again in the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar (Lam_2:20; Lam_4:10), and again when Titus the Roman attacked Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Verse Lev_26:33 is a picture of the land as it stood for 1900 years. God does what He says He will do.
Leviticus 26:34
Here is the reason they went into the Babylonian captivity. During 490 years Israel failed to give the land its Sabbaths. That means the land missed seventy Sabbath years. The people of Israel thought they were getting by with it, but finally God said it was enough. If they wouldn’t give the land its Sabbaths, God would. So He put them out of the land for seventy years. How accurate God is! This is why the Babylonian captivity lasted seventy years (2Ch_36:21).
Leviticus 26:36
This is an accurate prophetic portrayal of the Jew since the days of the Babylonian captivity, as he has been scattered among the nations. Wave after wave of anti-Semitism has descended upon him to destroy him. This section is a striking picture of the Nazi anti-Semitic movement. You can see that this Book of Leviticus is up-to-date.
Leviticus 26:40
PREDICTION PREDICATED ON PROMISE TO PATRIARCHSAll of their past iniquity does not destroy the fact that Israel holds the title deed to that land. This is a remarkable prophecy and one that God says He will fulfill when the time has come. God will not utterly destroy them because of His covenant with Abraham and other patriarchs. We found in the Book of Exodus that when Israel was in slavery in Egypt, God heard their groaning, God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and so God delivered them out of Egypt (Exo_2:24-25). Now God tells them they can stay in the land if they will obey Him. If not, they must leave the land. But if they will repent and turn to God when they are out of the land, then He will bring them back into the land. So we find that Daniel turned to God in prayer when he was down in Babylon. He turned his face toward Jerusalem, he confessed his sins and the sins of his people, and when he did that, God heard. God sent a messenger to him to tell him they would return to the land. And they did return back to the land! God still has a future purpose for the nation which the judgment of the past cannot nullify. Read Rom_11:1-25 and Jer_31:31-34 in this connection.
Leviticus 26:43
This is a remarkable passage of Scripture. Can you say that God is through with the nation Israel after you have read this passage? If you believe that God means what He says, then He is not through with them at all.
Leviticus 26:45
They brought judgment upon Palestine just as Adam brought judgment upon the whole earth by his sin. Because of God’s covenant with their fathers, He will return them to the land and restore all that He had promised to them. We have come to the end of the giving of these laws here in Leviticus. God confirms the Pentateuch here as given through Moses. This verse seems to end the book, but it doesn’t. God looks down through the ages to their repeated failures and His faithfulness and final victory. Moses could not bring them eternal blessings, although he was a mediator. The world must look to Another. John gives us the answer: “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (Joh_1:17).