Leviticus 26

Leviticus 26:1-13

1. YE shall make you ’no idols, nor graven image, neither rear you up a fianding image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the LORD your God. 2. YE shall keep my Sabbath, and reverence my landuary: I am the LORD. 3. YE if ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; 4. Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. 6. And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall be down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. 7. And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 8. And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. 9. For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you. 10. And ye shall eat old flour, and bring forth the old because of the new. 11. And I will set my tabernacle among you; and my soul shall not abhor you. 12. And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people. 13. I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.

God will not prove an unkind master to those who serve him: none follow him with fidelity, whom he will not follow with blessings. We have,

1. A solemn repetition of those commands, on the observance of which their happiness especially depended, viz. Abstaining Vol. I.

from idolatry, and keeping holy God’s Sabbath. Whilst they worshipped the true God, and in the ways of his own appointments, in long they would be a peculiar people to him.

2. Rich promises to the obedient. The things specified are temporal; but they look further, even to eternal blessings. Plenty shall crown the eyes, and peace be in their borders. Their enemies shall bow before them, and their people multiply exceedingly. God’s favour shall be continually towards them, his presence in the midst of them, and his covenant perpetually established with them. They shall be his people, and he will be their God for ever. To the Israel of God these promises are daily fulfilling: the rain of divine grace produces the abundance of spiritual gifts and holy dispositions: the peace of God shall keep our hearts and minds: our enemies, Satan, sin, and death, shall be vanquished: the in-dwelling presence of Jesus in our heart, shall exceed the tabernacle glory; and though in ourselves deserving God’s loathing, we shall be the objects of his everlasting love; the covenant he hath made with us shall stand full in eternity; and in death, and after death he will be our God for ever and ever, and we shall be his people. Amen!

3. But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; 15. And if ye shall defile my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant: 16. I also will do this unto you, I will even appoint: your your terms, continuations, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause furrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. 17. And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you, and ye shall flee when none purfueth you. 18. And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. 19. And I will break the pride of your power: and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass: 20. And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruit. 21. And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you, according to your sins. 22. I will also send with beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number, and your high-ways shall be desolate. 23. And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me: 24. Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins. 25. And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you, and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. 26. And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread: in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat and not be satisfied. 27. And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me: 28. Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. 29. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. 30. And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. 31. And I will make your cities waite, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation: and I will not smell the favour of your sweet odours. 32. And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. 33. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waite. 34. Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths as long as it is not desolate, and ye do in your enemies land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her Sabbaths. 35. As long as it is not desolate, it shall rest: because it did not rest in your Sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it. 36. And upon them, that are left alive of you, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a broken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword: and they shall fall when none

N n purfueth.

Before God purloeth. 37. And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none purloeth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies. 38. And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. 39. And they that are left of you, shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.

9. 14—39. As God encouraged to obedience by rewards, he threatened the disobedient with the most awful judgments. If mercy will not draw them, at least let terror drive them.

10. The sins God threatens are, wilful disobedience perished in, with impenitence under their challisements. This is supposed to begin in carelessness and disregard of God’s commandments, the consequence of which would form be to defyce them. Sin is a down-bill road; the transfusion from evil to worse is most natural. When they began to flight religion, destruction would hasten apace: they would then loath it, and breaking off every restraint, give hope to the infallible halls of their corrupted hearts. Such is the usual process of evil. God will rest for these things; and if his rod of correction is despised, his sword of judgment shall be unthreathed. Before he strikes, he warns; if they will hearken to the calls of his word, and the pleadings of their conscience; if they turn from the evil of their way, and reform their courts of evil, there would be hope; but when his calls were rejected with oblivency, and his judgments exasperated and hardened, instead of humbling them, then we unto them. Nite, They who resist the calls of God, and convictions of conscience; and, under the corrections of sickness and affliction, continue unhumbled, impatient, murmuring, and unreserved, have nothing to hope for, but wrath to the uttermost.

11. The punishments to be inflicted on the rebellious. The first and fourth judgment, and the cause of all the rest, is God’s face being set against them. They who contend with their Makers, will find the struggle most unequal. He threatens to cross their designs, and disappoint their hopes; evil and misfortune shall attend them as their shadows. Diseases, like a flight of insects, shall seize upon their bodies; untrusted seasons shall make their lands barren, and the sword of their enemies shall be decreed in their blood. If these judgments have no effect, greater shall follow: God will not stay his arm from punishment, which we refuse to bow our hearts in penitence. The heads of the earth shall devour their children, and, as executions of God’s wrath, make their habitations defolate. If they remain yet incorrigible, heavier and thicker strikes descend. Whilst the sinner is out of hell there is hope; but every rejected call hastens him thither. Famine shall stalk thro’ their barren land, and pestilence devour and dispopulate their cities. God arms thus all creation against his enemies, and heaven and earth conspire to destroy them. 15. after all, their desperate hearts reject the warning, and continue impenitent, the to ruin shall come. When God begins, he will make an end with the sinner, not have him till he is brought to everlasting humanity. Their cities should be besieged, and they shall eat their sons and daughters through the famine: their enemies shall throw down their walls, and lay their carcasses on their idols. And whilst in defoliation hearken the land enjoys her fabbaths, the poor resonant shall be scattered among the heathen, not even there be at rest. A sword shall perish them, and their fools withal be as miserable as their bodies. Continued terror within shall torment their coward guilty hearts; and in their iniquities they shall pine away, without prospect of redress. Defear in this life is the consummation of a sinner’s guilt, and, in hell, of his torment. Vengeance so exemplary shall even abounds their enemies, and they shall be seen and acknowledged the objects of God’s just abhorrence. Nite, (1.) What a dreadful thing is sin! (2.) How sure is the ruin of the impenitent sinner! (3.) How aggravated the guilt of that soul, whom mercies cannot engage, nor corrections deter. (4.) How just will God appear, to give up those to despair, who have given up themselves to work wickedness.

12. If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespasses which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me; 41. And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity: 42. Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Israel, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land. 43. The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her fabbaths, while the lieth defolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because

they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes. 44. And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not call them away, neither will I abhor them to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the LORD their God. 45. But I will for their fakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt, in the fights of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the LORD. 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.

9. 40—46. Whilst there is life, there is hope. It is never too late to return to God. The greatest of our possessions, or the length of our rebellions, prevent not his compassions towards us. May such patience and gunshirts of God lead us to repentance!

10. Their repentance is here described. They must confess their sins, and acknowledge God’s hand in their willations. Deep humiliation of heart must accompany these penitent acknowledgments, in the view of their hailiness and ingratitude to their gracious God, with humble acquaintance in their punishment, glorifying God in the justice of it. Nite, (1.) The great evil of sin is the opposition of the heart to God. This carnal mind is the heaviest burden to the awakened soul. (2.) When God’s grace joins with his afflictive providences, then the heart is fattened to fendibility, and bowed into the dull of humiliation. (3.) The humble soul will ever bear the miseries in hath brought upon him with patience, and be more follicitious to have the end of the visitation answered, than the burden of it removed.

(2.) Mercy promised them. Not indeed for their sake, or on account of their repentance; but because of that covenant which God had established with their fathers, he will not utterly call them away. He will remember mercy in the midst of judgment, and, as a tender father, extend to them that favour they have so justly forfeited. Nite, All the hopes of the sinner are bound up in the covenant of grace. It is for Jesus’s sake, not our own, the full regard can be shewed us; and in him there is such fathers of merit, and freedom of promise, that none need despair.

Thus Moses concludes his message from God, and Israel are to prove their obedience. Whilst they do so, God will be in the midst of them, and they shall experience the blessings of idolatry.