1490 B.C.
Leviticus 26)
1 You (refers to any Israelite sold to heathen masters, who hence were in danger of being tempted to idolatry, while in this servitude) shall make you no idols (= non-entities. Heb . 'elilim = clay or terra cotta "gods", Cp. 1 Cor. 8:4) nor graven image (an idol of wood or stone), neither rear you up a standing image (Heb. Mazzebah, a sacred pillar), neither shall you set up any image of stone (Heb. maskith, a sculptured or painted stone) in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the LORD (Yahaveh) your God (Elohim).
2 You shall keep My sabbaths, and reverence My sanctuary: I am the LORD.
A3 B1 26:3-46. Yahaveh's charge to the offerers.
B2 27:1-34. The offerers' vows to Yahaveh.
B1 C E 3. The People. Obedience.
F 4-13. Blessings.
D G1 14,15. Disobedience.
H1 16,17. Punishment.
G2 18-. Disobedience.
H2 -18-20. Punishment.
G3 21-. Disobedience.
H3 -21,22. Punishment.
G4 23. Disobedience.
H4 24-26. Punishment.
G5 27. Disobedience.
H5 28-39. Punishment.
C E 40,41. The People. Repentance.
F 42-46. Blessings.
3 If you walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments, and do them; (Note the 4 occ. of "If" and "Then" in this chapter.)
4 Then I will give you rain in due season (i.e. the early and latter rains. Deut. 11:14; 28:12. Jer. 14:22. Deut. 32:2. Ps. 72:6), and the land shall yield her increase (= produce, sustenance), and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.
5 And your threshing shall reach to the vintage, and the vintage shall reach to the sowing time: and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.
6 And I will give peace (or prosperity) in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land (cp. Ezek. 34:25,28), neither shall the sword go through your land.
7 And you shall chase your foes, and they shall fall before you by the sword.
8 And five of you shall chase an hundred (this promise enlarged in Deut. 32:30. Josh. 23:10. Cp. 2 Sam. 23:8,18. 1 Chron. 11:11,18. Isa. 30:17), 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 turn to you (see Ezek. 46:9), and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish My covenant with you.
10 And you shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new.
11 And I set My habitation (Heb. mishkan) among you: and Myself (or, I) shall not abhor you.
12 And I will walk among you (Fig., Ascribing to God what belongs to human and rational beings, irrational creatures, or inanimate things. Or, literally, as in Eden. See Gen. 3:8. Quoted 2 Cor. 6:16), and will be your God, and you shall be My people.
13 I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their bondmen; and I have broken [in pieces] the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright. (The yoke makes the wearer stoop.)
(This shows God's fivefold threatenings for disobedience. We have the fivefold execution in Isa. 5:25; 9:12,17,21; 10:4; and His fivefold lamentations in Amos 4:6-12.)
14 But if you will not hearken to Me, and will not do all these commandments;
15 And if you shall despise My statutes, or if you (emphatic) abhor My judgments, so that you will not do all My commandments, but that you violate (Heb. parar, break assunder) My covenant:
16 I also will do this to you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague (probably = fever), that shall cause the sight to fail, and cause sorrow of heart (= soul): and you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
17 And I will set My face against you, and you shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall rule over you; and you shall flee when none pursue you.
18 And if you will not yet for all this hearken to Me,
then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.
19 And I will break the great pride of your power (cp. Ezek. 30:6; 34:21); 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 fruits.
21 And if you walk contrary to Me, and will not hearken to Me;
I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins.
22 I will also send wild beasts among you (these abounded in Palestine [Deut. 32:24. 2 AKings 17:25. Isa. 13:21,22. Ezek. 14:15, &c), 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 you will not be reformed by Me by these things, but will walk contrary to Me;
24 Then will I also walk contrary to you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins.
25 I also will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of My covenant: and when you are withdrawn within your cities (cp. Jer. 21:6-9. Ezek. 5:12; 7:15), I will send the pestilence among you; and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
26 And when I have broken the staff of your bread (bread being put for the support it gives, and staff which it is; and the breaking of the staff put for the cutting off the supply. Cp. Isa. 3:1. Ezek. 4:16; 5:16; 14:13. Ps. 105:15), [then] ten women shall bake your bread in one oven (i.e. one oven shall be sufficient for 10 families. Cp. 2 Kings 6:28,29), and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and you shall eat, and not be satisfied.
27 And if you will not for all this hearken to Me, but walk contrary to Me;
28 Then I will walk contrary to you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.
29 And you shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall you eat.
30 And I will destroy your high places (used for adulterous worship [Num. 22:41; 33:52. Deut. 12:2. Josh. 13:17. Thus showing the helplessness of the gods worshiped), and cut down your images (sun-idols. Cp. v. 1. 2 Chron. 34:4. This was prophetic), and cast your carcasses (this was another prophecy. See 2 Kings 23:26. 2 Chron. 34:5) upon the carcasses of your logs of wood (Heb. gallulim, trunks, blocks, used in derision for idols. Also derived from galal = dung, or detestable thing), and My soul shall abhor you.
31 And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the savor of your sweet odors.
32 And I (emphatic = I Myself) 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 nations, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.
34 Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lies desolate, and you be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths.
35 As long as it lies desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when you 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 shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursues.
37 And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursues: and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies.
38 And you 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 perverseness in your enemies' lands; and also in the perverseness of their fathers shall they pine away with them.
40 If they shall confess (this is the one abiding condition for national blessing and restoration) their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against Me, and that also they have walked contrary to Me;
41 And that I also have walked contrary to 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 Isaac, 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 sabbaths, while she lies desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised My judgments, and because they abhorred My statutes.
44 And 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 (cp. Deut. 4:31. 2 Kings 13:23. Rom. 11:1,2,28,29.): for I am the LORD (cp. Ps. 144:15; 33:12) their God.
45 But 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.
46 These are the statutes and judgments and laws, which the LORD made between him and the sons of Israel in mount Sinai (thus concluding with the words with which this section began in 25:1) by the hand of Moses.' "