Leviticus 26

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Dave Burnette's Commentary

Leviticus Chapter 26

Written By: God through Inspiration

Penned By: Moses

Date Penned: (1445-1444 BC)

Overview: A Handbook for the Priests and Levites (c 1-27)

Theme: Living a Holy Life (c 18-27)

Message: Receiving God's Blessing (v 1-46)

Leviticus 26 Commentary

(26:1) Obedience and Disobedience - This chapter presents the two paths that God set before the people: obedience and disobedience (see also Deuteronomy 28). The people of the Old Testament were warned over and over against worshiping idols. We wonder how they could deceive themselves with these objects of wood and stone. Yet God could well give us the same warning, for we are prone to put idols before him. Idolatry is making anything more important than God, and our lives are full of that temptation. Money, appearance, success, relationships, reputation, security--these are today's idols. As you look at these false gods that promise everything you may want, does idolatry seem so far removed from your experience?

(26:13) Freedom from Slavery - Imagine the joy of a slave set free. God took the children of Israel out of bitter slavery and gave them freedom and dignity. We, too, are set free when we accept Christ's payment that redeems us from sin's slavery. We no longer need to be bogged down in shame over our past sins; we can walk with dignity because God has forgiven us and forgotten them. But just as the Israelites were still in danger of returning to a slave mentality, we need to beware of the temptation to return to our former sinful patterns.

(26:18) A Crucial Choice - If the Israelites obeyed, there would be peace in the land. If they disobeyed, disaster would follow. God used sin's consequences to draw the people to repentance, not to get back at them. Today, sin's consequences are not always so apparent. When calamity strikes us, we may not know the reason. It may be (1) the result of our own disobedience, (2) the result of someone else's sin, or (3) the result of natural disaster. Because we don't know, we should search our hearts and be sure we are at peace with God. His Spirit, like a great searchlight, will reveal those areas we need to deal with. Because calamity is not always the result of wrongdoing, we must guard against assigning or accepting blame for every tragedy we encounter. Misplaced guilt is one of Satan's favorite weapons against believers.

(26:33-35) God's Warning on Disobedience - In 2 Kings 17 and 25, the warning pronounced in these verses came true. The people persistently disobeyed God, and eventually they were conquered and carried off to the lands of Assyria and Babylonia. The Israelites were held in captivity for 70 years, making up for all the years that they did not observe the law of the sabbath year (2 Chronicles 36:21).

(26:40-45) God is Longsuffering - These verses show what God meant when he said he is longsuffering (Exodus 34:6). Even if the Israelites chose to disobey him and were scattered among their enemies, God would still give them the opportunity to repent and return to him. His purpose was not to destroy them but to help them grow. Our day-to-day experiences and hardships are sometimes overwhelming. We may despair unless we can see that God's purpose is to bring about continual growth in us. The hope we need is well expressed in Jeremiah 29:11-12: "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you." Retaining hope while we suffer shows we understand God's merciful ways of relating to his people.

Dave Burnette's Life Application

God's Blessings

Each day we walk through the Bible chapter by chapter making an application of our text to help us grow in the Lord. Many applications can be made from each day's text. Today we continue in the book of Leviticus with Chapter 26 and in today's text we see the rewards for obedience and the results of disobedience. What catches my eye is that the Lord again warns Israel of idolatry. After all they have witnessed and experienced you would think Israel would stay far away from idolatry but it still is their besetting sin. In making application we still find idolatry today to be the Churches besetting sin. We have renamed it as money, success, security, vanity, the list goes on and on but idolatry is anything you lift up in the place of God. It is what we spend our time dwelling on, spending time with, devoting our resources too, simply put it is the thing you worship and adore. How about you? Do you have an idol? If so, identify your idol, and then repent of it and put the Lord on the throne of your heart. Let us learn from today's text and Receive God's Blessings by refraining from idols.

Leviticus 26

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Leviticus 26

¹Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing 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.

²Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD.

³If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them;

⁴Then 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.

⁵And 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.

⁶And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie 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.

⁷And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.

⁸And 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.

⁹For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you.

¹⁰And ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new.

¹¹And I set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you.

¹²And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.

¹³I 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.

¹⁴But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments;

¹⁵And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant:

¹⁶I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

¹⁷And 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 pursueth you.

¹⁸And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.

¹⁹And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass:

²⁰And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.

²¹And 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.

²²I will also send wild 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.

²³And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me;

²⁴Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins.

²⁵And 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.

²⁶And 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.

²⁷And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me;

²⁸Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.

²⁹And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.

³⁰And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.

³¹And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours.

³²And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it.

³³And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.

³⁴Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths.

³⁵As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.

³⁶And 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 shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth.

³⁷And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies.

³⁸And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.

³⁹And 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.

⁴⁰If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me;

⁴¹And 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:

⁴²Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.

⁴³The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate 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.

⁴⁴And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast 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.

⁴⁵But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the LORD.

⁴⁶These 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.

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