1You shall not make idols for yourselves; neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves; nor shall you set up an image of stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am Jehovah your God. 2You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary: I am Jehovah. 3If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and do them, 4then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5Your threshing shall last till the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last till the time of sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. 6I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one shall make you afraid; I will rid the land of evil beasts, and the sword shall not go through your land. 7You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. 8Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you. 9For I will look on you favorably and make you fruitful, multiply you and establish My covenant with you. 10You shall eat the old harvest, and clear out the old because of the new. 11I will set My tabernacle among you, and My soul shall not abhor you. 12I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people. 13I am Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves; I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you walk upright. 14But if you do not obey Me, and do not do all these commandments, 15and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not do all My commandments, but break My covenant, 16I also will do this to you: I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause pining away of soul. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. 17I will set My face against you, and you shall be smitten by your enemies. Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you. 18And after all this, if you do not obey Me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. 19I will break the pride of your power; I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. 20And your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit. 21And if you walk contrary to Me, and are not willing to obey Me, I will bring upon you seven times more plagues, according to your sins. 22I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number; and your highways shall be desolate. 23And if by these things you do not let yourselves be corrected by Me, but walk contrary to Me, 24then I also will walk contrary to you, and I will punish you yet seven times for your sins. 25And I will bring a sword against you that shall execute the vengeance of the covenant; when you are gathered together within your cities I will send pestilence among you; and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. 26And when I have cut off your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall bring back your bread by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied. 27And after all this, if you do not obey Me, but walk contrary to Me, 28then I also will walk contrary to you in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. 29And you shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. 30And I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols; and My soul shall abhor you. 31And I will lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell your soothing aromas. 32I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it. 33I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you; your land shall be desolate and your cities waste. 34Then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in the land of your enemies; then the land shall rest and enjoy its sabbaths. 35As long as it lies desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest on your sabbaths when you dwelt in it. 36And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a driven leaf shall cause them to flee; they shall flee as though fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when no one is pursuing. 37They shall stumble over one another, as it were before a sword, when no one is pursuing; and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. 38You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall consume you. 39And those of you who are left shall rot away in their iniquity in the lands of their enemies; also in their fathers' iniquities, which are with them, they shall rot away. 40But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, and that they also have walked contrary to Me, 41and that I also have walked contrary to them and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they accept their guilt; 42then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham I will remember; and I will remember the land. 43The land also shall be forsaken by them, and shall be satisfied with its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; they shall accept their guilt, because they had despised My judgments and because their soul had abhorred My statutes. 44Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them; for I am Jehovah their God. 45But for their sake I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the eyes of the nations, that I might be their God: I am Jehovah. 46These are the statutes and judgments and laws which Jehovah has set between Himself and the children of Israel on Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 1 OF IDOLATRY. (
Lev 26:1-
Lev 26:2)
Ye shall make you no idols--Idolatry had been previously forbidden (
Exod 20:4-
Exod 20:5), 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.
2 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.
3 A BLESSING TO THE OBEDIENT. (
Lev 26:3-
Lev 26:13)
If ye walk in my statutes--In that covenant into which God graciously entered with the people of Israel, He promised to bestow upon them a variety of blessings, so long as they continued obedient to Him as their Almighty Ruler; and in their subsequent history that people found every promise amply fulfilled, in the enjoyment of plenty, peace, a populous country, and victory over all enemies.
4 I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase--Rain seldom fell in Judea except at two seasons--the former rain at the end of autumn, the seedtime; and the latter rain in spring, before the beginning of harvest (
Jer 5:24).
5 your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time, &c.--The barley harvest in Judea was about the middle of April; the wheat harvest about six weeks after, or in the beginning of June. After the harvest came the vintage, and fruit gathering towards the latter end of July. Moses led the Hebrews to believe that, provided they were faithful to God, there would be no idle time between the harvest and vintage, so great would be the increase. (See
Amos 9:13). This promise would be very animating to a people who had come from a country where, for three months, they were pent up without being able to walk abroad because the fields were under water.
10 ye shall eat old store--Their stock of old corn would be still unexhausted and large when the next harvest brought a new supply.
13 I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright--a metaphorical expression to denote their emancipation from Egyptian slavery.
14 A CURSE TO THE DISOBEDIENT. (Lev. 26:14-39)
But if ye will not hearken unto me, &c.--In proportion to the great and manifold privileges bestowed upon the Israelites would be the extent of their national criminality and the severity of their national punishments if they disobeyed.
16 I will even appoint over you terror--the falling sickness [PATRICK].
consumption, and the burning ague--Some consider these as symptoms of the same disease--consumption followed by the shivering, burning, and sweating fits that are the usual concomitants of that malady. According to the Septuagint, "ague" is "the jaundice," which disorders the eyes and produces great depression of spirits. Others, however, consider the word as referring to a scorching wind; no certain explanation can be given.
18 if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more--that is, with far more severe and protracted calamities.
19 I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass--No figures could have been employed to convey a better idea of severe and long-continued famine.
22 I will also send wild beasts among you--This was one of the four judgments threatened (
Ezek 14:21; see also
2Kgs 2:4).
your highways shall be desolate--Trade and commerce will be destroyed--freedom and safety will be gone--neither stranger nor native will be found on the roads (
Isa 33:8). This is an exact picture of the present state of the Holy Land, which has long lain in a state of desolation, brought on by the sins of the ancient Jews.
26 ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, &c.--The bread used in families is usually baked by women, and at home. But sometimes also, in times of scarcity, it is baked in public ovens for want of fuel; and the scarcity predicted here would be so great, that one oven would be sufficient to bake as much as ten women used in ordinary occasions to provide for family use; and even this scanty portion of bread would be distributed by weight (
Ezek 4:16).
29 ye shall eat the flesh of your sons--The revolting picture was actually exhibited at the siege of Samaria, at the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (
Lam 4:10), and at the destruction of that city by the Romans. (See on
Deut 28:53).
30 I will destroy your high places--Consecrated enclosures on the tops of mountains, or on little hillocks, raised for practising the rites of idolatry.
cut down your images--According to some, those images were made in the form of chariots (
2Kgs 23:11); according to others, they were of a conical form, like small pyramids. Reared in honor of the sun, they were usually placed on a very high situation, to enable the worshippers to have a better view of the rising sun. They were forbidden to the Israelites, and when set up, ordered to be destroyed.
cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, &c.--Like the statues of idols, which, when broken, lie neglected and contemned, the Jews during the sieges and subsequent captivity often wanted the rites of sepulture.
31 I will make your cities waste--This destruction of its numerous and flourishing cities, which was brought upon Judea through the sins of Israel, took place by the forced removal of the people during, and long after, the captivity. But it is realized to a far greater extent now.
bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours--the tabernacle and temple, as is evident from the tenor of the subsequent clause, in which God announces that He will not accept or regard their sacrifices.
33 I will scatter you among the heathen, &c.--as was done when the elite of the nation were removed into Assyria and placed in various parts of the kingdom.
34 Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, &c.--A long arrear of sabbatic years had accumulated through the avarice and apostasy of the Israelites, who had deprived their land of its appointed season of rest. The number of those sabbatic years seems to have been seventy, as determined by the duration of the captivity. This early prediction is very remarkable, considering that the usual policy of the Assyrian conquerors was to send colonies to cultivate and inhabit their newly acquired provinces.
38 the land of your enemies shall eat you up, &c.--On the removal of the ten tribes into captivity, they never returned, and all traces of them were lost.
40 If they shall confess their iniquity, &c.--This passage holds out the gracious promise of divine forgiveness and favor on their repentance, and their happy restoration to their land, in memory of the covenant made with their fathers (Rom. 2:1-29).
46 These are the statutes and judgments and laws--It has been thought by some that the last chapter was originally placed after the twenty-fifth [ADAM CLARKE], while others consider that the next chapter was added as an appendix, in consequence of many people being influenced by the promises and threats of the preceding one, to resolve that they would dedicate themselves and their possessions to the service of God [CALMET].