Levitico 26:2 Commento

This chapter is a solemn conclusion of the main body of the levitical law. The precepts that follow in this and the following book either relate to some particular matters or are repetitions and explications of the foregoing institutions. Now this chapter contains a general enforcement of all those laws by promises of reward in case of obedience on the one hand, and threatenings of punishment for disobedience on the other hand, the former to work upon hope, the latter on fear, those two handles of the soul, by which it is taken hold of and managed. Here is, I. A repetition of two or three of the principal of the commandments (Lev 26:1, Lev 26:2). II. An inviting promise of all good things, if they would but keep God's commandments (Lev 26:3-13). III. A terrible threatening of ruining judgments which would be brought upon them if they were refractory and disobedient (v. 14-39). IV. A gracious promise of the return of mercy to those of them that would repent and reform (Lev 26:40, etc.). Deu. 28 is parallel to this.

INTRODUCTION TO LEVITICUS 26 In this chapter, after a repetition of some laws against idolatry, and concerning keeping sabbaths, and reverencing the sanctuary of God, Lev 26:1; in order to encourage the Israelites to keep the various statutes and commandments in this book, and in the preceding, many promises are made of plenty, and peace, and safety from enemies, and of the presence of God with them, Lev 26:3; and on the contrary, to such as should despise and break his commandments, the most grievous things are threatened, as diseases of body, destruction by their enemies, barrenness and unfruitfulness of land, the sore judgments of wild beasts, famine, sword, and pestilence, Lev 26:14; and yet after all, when they should confess their sins, and were humbled for them, the Lord promises to remember the covenant he made with their ancestors, and would deal kindly with them, and not cast them away, and utterly destroy them, Lev 26:40.

Ye shall keep my sabbaths,.... The seventh day sabbaths, and the seventh year sabbaths; especially the former are meant, in which religious worship was given to the one true and living God, and therefore the observance of them is strictly enjoined; and hence this law follows closely upon the former, though Aben Ezra restrains it to the sabbatical years, or seventh year sabbaths, as he applies the sanctuary in the following clause to the jubilee year, which is said to be holy, Lev 26:12; supposing that this refers unto and stands in strict connection with the laws of the preceding chapter, concerning the sabbatical, Lev 25:1, and jubilee years, Lev 25:8, and reverence my sanctuary; by attending in it, and on the worship in it, with reverence and godly fear, see Lev 19:30, I am the Lord; who had a right to such religious worship, and to command such things, in which he ought to be obeyed, his sabbaths kept, and sanctuary reverenced.

Idolatry forbidden, Lev 26:1. The Sabbath to be sanctified, Lev 26:2-3. Promises to obedience, of fruitful fields, plentiful harvests, and vintage, Lev 26:4-5. Of peace and security, Lev 26:6. Discomfiture of their enemies, Lev 26:7-9. Of abundance, Lev 26:10. Of the divine presence, Lev 26:11-13. Threatenings against the disobedient, Lev 26:14-15. Of terror and dismay, Lev 26:16. Their enemies shall prevail against them, Lev 26:17-18. Of barrenness, Lev 26:19-20. Of desolation by wild beasts, Lev 26:21-22. And if not humbled and reformed, worse evils shall be inflicted upon them, Lev 26:23-24. Their enemies shall prevail, and they shall be wasted by the pestilence, Lev 26:25-26. If they should still continue refractory, they shall be yet more sorely punished, Lev 26:27-28. The famine shall so increase that they shall be obliged to eat their own children, Lev 26:29. Their carcasses shall be cast upon the carcasses of their idols, Lev 26:30. Their cities shall be wasted, and the sanctuary desolated, Lev 26:31; the land destroyed, Lev 26:32; themselves scattered among their enemies, and pursued with utter confusion and distress, Lev 26:33-39. If under these judgments they confess their sin and return to God, He will remember them in mercy, Lev 26:40-43; visit them even in the land of their enemies, Lev 26:44; and remember His covenant with their fathers, Lev 26:45. The conclusion, stating these to be the judgments and laws which the Lord made between himself and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai, Lev 26:46.

OF IDOLATRY. (Lev 26:1-2) Ye shall make you no idols--Idolatry had been previously forbidden (Exo 20:4-5), but the law was repeated here with reference to some particular forms of it that were very prevalent among the neighboring nations. a standing image--that is, "upright pillar." image of stone--that is, an obelisk, inscribed with hieroglyphical and superstitious characters; the former denoting the common and smaller pillars of the Syrians or Canaanites; the latter, pointing to the large and elaborate obelisks which the Egyptians worshipped as guardian divinities, or used as stones of adoration to stimulate religious worship. The Israelites were enjoined to beware of them.

Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary--Very frequently, in this Book of the Law, the Sabbath and the sanctuary are mentioned as antidotes to idolatry.

Promises and Threats - Leviticus 26 Just as the book of the covenant, the kernel containing the fundamental principles of the covenant fellowship, which the Lord established with the children of Israel whom He had adopted as His nation, and the rule of life for the covenant nation (Ex 20:22-23:19), concluded with promises and threats (Exo 23:20-33); so the giving of the law at Sinai, as the unfolding of the inner, spiritual side of the whole of the covenant constitution, closes in this chapter with an elaborate unfolding of the blessing which would be secured by a faithful observance of the laws, and the curse which would follow the transgression of them. But whilst the former promises and threats (Ex 23) related to the conquest of the promised land of Canaan, the promises in this chapter refer to the blessings which were to be bestowed upon Israel when the land was in their possession (Lev 26:3-13), and the threats to the judgments with which the Lord would visit His disobedient people in their inheritance, and in fact drive them out and scatter them among the heathen (vv. 14-39). When this had been done, then, as is still further proclaimed with a prophetic look into the distant future, would they feel remorse, acknowledge their sin to the Lord, and be once more received into favour by Him, the eternally faithful covenant God (Lev 26:40-45). (Note: When modern critics, who are carried away by naturalism, maintain that Moses was not the author of these exhortations and warnings, because of their prophetic contents, and assign them to the times of the kings, the end of the eighth, or beginning of the seventh century (see Ewald, Gesch. i. 156), they have not considered, in their antipathy to any supernatural revelations from God in the Old Testament, that even apart from any higher illumination, the fundamental idea of these promises and threats must have presented itself to the mind of the lawgiver Moses. It required but a very little knowledge of the nature of the human heart, and a clear insight into the spiritual and ethical character of the law, to enable him to foresee that the earthly-minded, unholy nation would not fulfil the solemn demand of the law that their whole life should be sanctified to the Lord God, that they would transgress in many ways, and rebel against God and His holy laws, and therefore that in any case times of fidelity and the corresponding blessing would alternate with times of unfaithfulness and the corresponding curse, but that, for all that, at the end the grace of God would obtain the victory over the severely punished and deeply humbled nation, and bring the work of salvation to a glorious close. It is true, the concrete character of this chapter cannot be fully explained in this way, but it furnishes the clue to the psychological interpretation of the conception of this prophetic discourse, and shows us the subjective points of contact for the divine revelation which Moses has announced to us here. For, as Auberlen observes, "there is a marvellous and grand display of the greatness of God in the fact, that He holds out before the people, whom He has just delivered from the hands of the heathen and gathered round Himself, the prospect of being scattered again among the heathen, and that, even before the land is taken by the Israelites, He predicts its return to desolation. These words could only be spoken by One who has the future really before His mind, who sees through the whole depth of sin, and who can destroy His own work, and yet attain His end. But so much the more adorable and marvellous is the grace, which nevertheless begins its work among such sinners, and is certain of victory notwithstanding all retarding and opposing difficulties." The peculiar character of this revelation, which must deeply have affected Moses, will explain the peculiarities observable in the style, viz., the heaping up of unusual words and modes of expression, several of which never occur again in the Old Testament, whilst others are only used by the prophets who followed the Pentateuch in their style.) The blessings and curse of the law were impressed upon the hearts of the people in a still more comprehensive manner at the close of the whole law (Deut 28-30), and on the threshold of the promised land.