Leviticus 26

This chapter closes the main body of Leviticus. God sets two paths before Israel: blessing, peace and His own presence if they obey, or deepening discipline if they turn away. Even in the worst of the warnings, the chapter ends with God promising to remember His covenant and not to cast His people off for good.

Leviticus 26:1

God begins with the heart of the covenant: no rival gods and no worship shaped by human hands. Idols, carved images and standing stones were common in the nations around Israel. The reason given is simple: the LORD alone is their God, and He will not share their worship.

BSA: idols (“false gods, worthless objects”): The word marks idols as empty things that cannot help anyone, however impressive they look.

See also: Exodus 20:4-5.

Leviticus 26:2

Two things hold Israel’s worship together: the weekly Sabbath and respect for the sanctuary where God met with them. Keeping the Sabbath meant trusting God to provide while they rested. Reverence for His dwelling meant approaching Him as holy. Both are tied to who He is: ‘I am the LORD.’.

See also: Exodus 31:13.

Leviticus 26:3-4

The blessings begin with an ‘if’. Obedience here is not a set of cold rules but a way of life lived with God. Rain in its season was vital in a land that depended on it. God promises to give what only He can give, so that fields and orchards bear well.

BSA: follow (“walk in, obey”): Obeying is pictured as a daily walk, a steady way of living and not a single act.

See also: Deuteronomy 11:13-14.

Leviticus 26:5

The harvest will be so full that the seasons run into each other. Threshing will last until the grapes ripen, and the grapes until planting. There will be plenty to eat and no fear of raiders. God’s blessing here is both abundance and safety.

BSA: securely (“in safety, without fear”): The promise covers freedom from worry as well as a full stomach.

Leviticus 26:6

God promises peace across the land, so that people sleep without fear. Dangerous animals will be removed and no army will cross the border. This is real peace, not just a pause in fighting.

BSA: peace (“shalom, completeness and wellness”): Peace here means wholeness, with everything in life as it should be, and not only the lack of war.

Hebrew: שָׁלוֹם (shalom, H7965) — “wholeness, well-being, peace.” The word describes a life that is complete and well in every part, which is why God gives it to the land itself.

Leviticus 26:7-8

Under God’s blessing Israel’s enemies will fall before them, and a few will chase many. The numbers are a way of saying the victory comes from God, not from Israel’s strength. The same idea appears in Moses’ later song.

See also: Deuteronomy 32:30.

Leviticus 26:9-10

God promises to turn toward His people with favor, make them fruitful, and keep His covenant promise. The harvest will be so great that the old grain has to be cleared out to make room for the new. His kindness is not stingy.

BSA: turn (“face, look upon”): God looks on them with favor, as a father turns his face to a child.

Leviticus 26:11-12

The greatest blessing is God Himself. He will live among His people in the tabernacle and will not turn from them in disgust. He will walk among them as in the garden of Eden, and the covenant formula comes to its fullest: ‘I will be your God, and you will be My people.’.

BSA: walk (“habitually, in a special covenant relationship”): God does not just visit but goes among His people as a close and constant companion.

Hebrew: וְהִתְהַלַּכְתִּי (wehithalakhti, H1980) — “and I will walk about.” This is the same form used of God walking in the garden in Genesis 3:8. It pictures Him moving freely and closely among His people.

See also: 2 Corinthians 6:16; Revelation 21:3.

Leviticus 26:13

The promises rest on what God has already done. He brought Israel out of slavery and broke the yoke that bent their backs. He did not just free them but set them on their feet so they could walk with their heads high.

BSA: uprightness (“moral straightness, erectness”): The word pictures people standing tall after the yoke is gone.

Hebrew: קוֹמְמִיּוּת (qomemiyyut, H6968) — “standing upright.” The word means walking with an erect posture. God lifted Israel from the bent-over life of slaves into the dignity of free people.

See also: Exodus 6:6-7.

Leviticus 26:14-15

Now the other path. The warning builds in stages: not obeying, then rejecting God’s statutes, then hating His rules, then breaking the covenant. Sin here is not a slip but a settled turning away from God.

BSA: break (“frustrate, violate”): Breaking the covenant means making God’s promise of no effect on one’s own life.

Leviticus 26:16

The first discipline is trouble that wears people down: sudden terror, sickness and fever. Even the crops would fail them, because enemies would eat what they sowed. God lets the very things the blessings promised turn into their opposite.

BSA: terror (“fearful destruction, dismay”): The word describes a sudden dread that comes without warning.

Leviticus 26:17

God’s face, which had shone on them in blessing, would now be set against them. Defeat, rule by enemies, and panic would follow. They would run in fear even when no one was chasing them, because a guilty people cannot stand.

See also: Deuteronomy 28:25; Proverbs 28:1.

Leviticus 26:18

Here begins a pattern of ‘seven times’. If the first discipline does not turn them back, God will increase it. Discipline is meant to wake people up, and God does not skip to the worst. Each stage is a fresh call to return.

BSA: sevenfold (“seven times more, seven times over”): Seven suggests fullness, so the discipline grows complete and thorough.

Leviticus 26:19-20

Stubborn pride is what God aims to break. The sky turns hard as iron and the ground as bronze, so no rain falls and nothing grows. Their hard work will be wasted, because the land cannot give what they themselves refuse to give God.

BSA: pride (“arrogance, self-reliance”): Their trust in their own strength is the root problem God wants to break.

See also: Deuteronomy 28:23.

Leviticus 26:21-22

God now speaks of walking ‘in hostility’ toward Him, which means living in opposition and refusing to listen. Wild animals would take children and livestock until the roads stood empty. Their lives would shrink as their rebellion grew.

BSA: hostility (“in opposition, with hostility”): They are not simply careless but set against God.

Hebrew: קֶרִי (qeri, H7147) — “opposition, contrariness.” This rare word appears only in this chapter. It pictures a people who keep meeting God head-on with stubborn resistance, so that He answers in kind.

Leviticus 26:23-24

The goal of all this is to be taught, not just punished. God calls it discipline, the kind a father gives to correct a child. If they keep resisting, He will oppose them as they oppose Him. The loving purpose is to bring them back.

BSA: discipline (“correction, chastening”): God’s blows are meant to correct and train, not only to punish.

See also: Hebrews 12:6; Proverbs 3:11-12.

Leviticus 26:25

The sword would come to carry out the ‘vengeance of the covenant’, meaning the penalties Israel had agreed to when they entered it. Even hiding inside walled cities would not save them. Plague would follow them in, and enemies would finally take them.

See also: Deuteronomy 28:49-52.

Leviticus 26:26

Famine is described through an everyday scene. Ten women would need only one oven, because there was so little to bake. The bread would be weighed out in small portions, and people would eat without being filled.

BSA: supply of bread (“staff of life, food for sustenance”): Bread is what holds life up, as a staff holds up a walker, so losing it is deadly.

Leviticus 26:27-28

This is the fourth and final stage. After repeated warnings, God Himself would walk against them in fury. The strong repetition ‘I, even I’ shows that this is no accident of history but the deliberate answer of the God they kept resisting.

BSA: fury (“intense anger, wrath”): The anger comes from a God who is deeply and personally involved with His people.

Leviticus 26:29

A terrible picture of siege and famine: parents eating their own children. This is the lowest point of the curse. Later history records such horrors when cities were besieged. The text warns how far sin can drag people down.

See also: Deuteronomy 28:53; 2 Kings 6:28-29.

Leviticus 26:30

The places Israel trusted instead of God would be destroyed. Their high places would be torn down, and their dead would lie among their shattered idols. Idols cannot save even themselves. God would also turn from them in disgust.

BSA: idols (“false gods, logs or round pieces of wood”): The gloss hints that these gods are no more than lumps of wood or clay.

Hebrew: גִּלּוּלֵיכֶם (gillulekhem, H1544) — “your idols.” This is a scornful word for idols, probably related to a word for dung pellets. God shows how filthy and worthless they are.

Leviticus 26:31

Cities and sanctuaries would lie in ruins. Offerings, which should please God, would no longer be accepted. Worship done without obedience is empty. God refuses the sweet smell of sacrifice from hands that keep turning away from Him.

See also: Isaiah 1:11-13.

Leviticus 26:32-33

The land would be so laid waste that even the enemies living there would be shocked. The people themselves would be scattered among the nations, with a sword still behind them. The land was God’s gift, and they would lose the gift they had misused.

See also: Deuteronomy 28:64.

Leviticus 26:34-35

While the people were away, the land would finally enjoy the Sabbath rests it was owed. Israel had been commanded to let the ground rest every seventh year, and they had not. God Himself would see that the land got its rest. Later Scripture connects this with the years of exile.

BSA: rest (“cease from work, be renewed”): The land gets the renewal it was denied while the people used it without a break.

See also: Leviticus 25:1-7; 2 Chronicles 36:21.

Leviticus 26:36-37

Those who survived in exile would lose their courage. A leaf blowing in the wind would send them running. They would stumble over one another as if hunted. Without God’s help they could not stand against anyone.

See also: Proverbs 28:1.

Leviticus 26:38-39

Many would perish in foreign lands, and those who remained would waste away. They would carry both their own sins and those of the generations before them. This is the lowest point, and the chapter now turns toward hope.

BSA: waste away (“pine away, decay”): It describes a slow wasting, like something rotting from within.

Leviticus 26:40-41

Even now the way home stays open. The road back begins with honest confession of their sin and their fathers’ sin. A hard, closed heart must be humbled, and they must accept that the punishment was just. God meets repentance with mercy.

BSA: uncircumcised (“unregenerate, spiritually unresponsive”): A heart left ‘uncircumcised’ is closed to God and needs to be opened and made soft. make amends (“accept punishment, be pleased with correction”): They are to take God’s discipline as right and accept it as the path to restoration.

Hebrew: וְהִתְוַדּוּ (wehitwaddu, H3034) — “and they will confess.” The verb means to openly admit, to say out loud what one has done. Confession here is a plain acknowledgment of guilt before God.

See also: 1 John 1:9; Deuteronomy 30:1-3.

Leviticus 26:42

God promises to remember the covenant He made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and to remember the land. Remembering in Scripture is more than recalling a fact. It means acting on a promise. The people’s hope lies not in their goodness but in God’s faithfulness.

BSA: remember (“recall, bring to mind”): God brings His promise back into play and acts on it.

Hebrew: וְזָכַרְתִּי (wezakharti, H2142) — “and I will remember.” When God ‘remembers’ in the Bible, He moves to act on what He promised, and does not simply call it to mind.

See also: Genesis 17:7-8; Exodus 2:24.

Leviticus 26:43

This verse restates the justice of what happened. The land rested while the people were gone, and they bore the cost of rejecting God’s laws. The two sides stand together: the discipline is deserved, and yet God’s covenant still holds.

BSA: penalty (“accept punishment, suffer the consequences”): They must receive the consequences of their sin as fair and right.

Leviticus 26:44-45

Even in exile God will not cast them off completely or break His covenant with them. He is still their God. He remembers the covenant made with the generation He brought out of Egypt before the nations’ eyes. His commitment outlasts their failure.

BSA: reject (“cast away, spurn”): Whatever happens, God will not throw His people away for good.

See also: Romans 11:28-29; Jeremiah 31:35-37.

Leviticus 26:46

This sentence closes the laws given at Sinai through Moses, from the start of Leviticus to here. These were the terms between God and Israel: His holiness, their obedience, His blessing, and His mercy for those who return. The reader leaves with a God who is both just and faithful.

BSA: established (“set up, gave”): God Himself set these terms, so they come with His authority and His promise.