Leviticus 26

This chapter follows the regulations on the sabbatical year and the Jubilee in Leviticus 25 and concludes the laws for holy living that begin in chapter 17 of Leviticus. Verse 46 serves as the closing statement of the law received at Mount Sinai, and chapter 27, which follows and deals with vows and dedications, functions as an appendix.

Structure

• Verses 1–2 Israel is commanded not to set up idols or standing images (stone pillars), to keep the Sabbath, and to reverence the sanctuary.
• Verses 3–13 Obedience will bring rain in its season, abundant harvests, and peace in the land. Five will chase a hundred, and a hundred will put ten thousand to flight; God will set His tabernacle among the people and walk among them. The passage recalls how He broke the yoke of Egypt.
• Verses 14–17 Disobedience will bring disease and defeat, so that the people will flee when no one pursues them.
• Verses 18–20 If they still will not listen, God will punish them "seven times more," making the heavens like iron and the earth like brass.
• Verses 21–22 He will send wild beasts to destroy their children and their cattle.
• Verses 23–26 He will send the sword and pestilence, and food will become so scarce that ten women will bake bread in a single oven and hand it out by weight.
• Verses 27–39 In His fury the people will eat the flesh of their own children, their high places will be destroyed, and they will be scattered among the nations. Meanwhile the land will enjoy the sabbaths it had been denied.
• Verses 40–45 If the people confess their own iniquity and that of their fathers and humble themselves, God will remember His covenant with Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham and will not destroy them utterly, even in the land of their enemies.
• Verse 46 The chapter concludes by stating that these are the statutes, judgments, and laws established at Mount Sinai through Moses.

Key Verses

• Leviticus 26:12: "And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people." — A concise expression of the covenant relationship, also quoted in the New Testament.
• Leviticus 26:44: "I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them." — This verse expresses the hope that the covenant endures even after judgment.

People and Places

• Moses — Received these regulations at Mount Sinai and delivered them to the people.
• Abraham, Isaac, Jacob — They do not appear directly but are named as the parties to the covenant that God will remember.
• Egypt — The land where Israel was enslaved and from which it was brought out.
• Mount Sinai — The mountain where the law was given.

Points for Reflection

• The arrangement that sets blessings and punishments side by side resembles Deuteronomy 28. The punishments grow progressively heavier across five stages, with the phrase "seven times" repeated throughout.
• Some preachers apply the promises of prosperity for obedience to believers today as material blessings. Other interpreters, viewing these as promises given to the nation of Israel under the Sinai covenant, are cautious about applying them directly. This discussion also bears on the debate over prosperity theology.
• Some interpreters read the promises of verses 44–45 as referring to a future restoration of ethnic Israel (the dispensationalist view), while others read them as fulfilled within the church (the covenant theology view).
• Verses 34–35, which speak of the land enjoying its sabbaths, are linked in 2 Chronicles 36:21 to the seventy years of the Babylonian exile. Paul quotes verse 12 in 2 Corinthians 6:16.