Leviticus 26. Blessing and Curses

Blessings for Obedience

“You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God. ² You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.

• God starts out this chapter reminding His people to worship Him only, keep the Sabbath, and reverence the sanctuary.
• There are so many reminders in this book to honor the Sabbath! This was/is so important to God.

³ “If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, ⁴ then 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. ⁵ Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely. ⁶ I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And I will remove harmful beasts from the land, and the sword shall not go through your land. ⁷ You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. ⁸ Five 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 turn to you and make you fruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you. ¹⁰ You shall eat old store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new. ¹¹ I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. ¹² And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. ¹³ I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

•  Blessings for Obedience “If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments…”
  • Rain in its season, abundant harvests
  • Peace in the land, protection from enemies
  • Victory over foes
  • Fruitfullness/multiplication
  • God’s presence
  • Freedom

Punishment for Disobedience

¹⁴ “But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, ¹⁵ if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, ¹⁶ then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. ¹⁷ I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you. 

• Curses for Disobedience “But if you will not listen to Me…”
  • First wave: Sudden terror, disease, defeat by enemies

¹⁸ And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins, ¹⁹ and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. ²⁰ And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.

• Second wave: Drought, fruitless labor

²¹ “Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you, sevenfold for your sins. ²² And I will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that your roads shall be deserted.

• Third wave: Wild beasts, loss of children livestock loss

²³ “And if by this discipline you are not turned to me but walk contrary to me, ²⁴ then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins. ²⁵ And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the covenant. And if you gather within your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. ²⁶ When I break your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven and shall dole out your bread again by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied.

• Fourth wave: War, plague, famine

²⁷ “But if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, ²⁸ then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. ²⁹ You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. 

• !!!
• Fulfilled in 2 Kings 6:26-29

³⁰ And I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you. ³¹ And I will lay your cities waste and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing aromas. ³² And I myself will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled at it. ³³ And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.

• Fifth wave: Devastation, siege, exile, desolation of land

³⁴ “Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. ³⁵ As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it. 

• Aftermath: The land enjoys its Sabbaths while the people waste away in foreign lands
  • call back to verse 2

³⁶ And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues. ³⁷ They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though none pursues. And you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. ³⁸ And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. ³⁹ And those of you who are left shall rot away in your enemies’ lands because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquities of their fathers they shall rot away like them.

• Those who are left will perish

⁴⁰ “But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, ⁴¹ so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, ⁴² then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 

• Why does it say if Israel is humble then God will remember covenant but then it goes on to say God will always remember even when they are unfaithful?
  • Covenant blessing vs covenant punishment?

⁴³ But the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes. ⁴⁴ Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. ⁴⁵ But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.”

• Promise of Restoration “But if they confess their iniquity…”
  • God will remember His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
  • He will not reject or destroy them
  • God’s covenant is eternal, even if the people are unfaithful

⁴⁶ These are the statutes and rules and laws that the Lord made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai.

• It seems that Leviticus 26 should be the end chapter!

I included table of symmetry of blessings and curses from https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/leviticus-26/ by Mark Rooker