Chapter 26

In my old NKJV, the formatting of this chapter is very different.  It is indented, and it seems that there are many "You shalls...", and many "I wills...".  As if this is a contract written to highlight the promises and covenants of each party.  Looking at the MSB, it says that vss 3-13 detail the covenant blessings for obedience, and vss 14-39 are the covenant curses for disobedience.  Vss 1, 2 are a restatement that it is the 10 that will be used to determine whether they are obedient or not. 

God promises that if Israel keeps his covenant, he will give them rain in season for their crops, that their crops will do well, that they will have plenty, that wild beasts will be driven from their land and that their enemies will flee before them, even when the enemy has greater numbers. 

Interesting that their is no word here about maintenance of all species, preservation of habitat or any of that...

2023 - Oh my...perhaps God's intent is that domesticated animals - cattle, sheep, goats, are the only really  necessary animals, the only ones that accrue solely to the benefit of man.  You don't need lions and tigers and rhinos and elephants...in fact it is possible that the implication here is that the fewer of them you have the more peaceful and productive life will be.  So....why create them?  To keep the land vital until man arrives?  This seems like the wrong road...but it's a thought...

2022 - Elsewhere, God says that nature, wild beasts, enemies, and pestilence will be used to correct them.  Only pestilence is left out here.  As long as they behave, nature will provide only good things, and enemies will run away.  Pestilence comes in as a punishment.  Nature does not naturally cause pestilence perhaps.  Even if they don't behave, it is not nature, but God who causes pestilence and disease and sickness as punishment/correction.  And sure enough, look what shows up in vs 16, as the result of spurning God's covenant:  panic, wasting disease, and fever, PLUS their crops will provide strength for their enemies, not for themselves. 

If Israel won't keep the covenant, God promises to send panic, wasting disease, and fever.  Those they hate will rule over them.  And if this still doesn't work, then they will receive 7 times the punishment that should have been enough, plus the sky will be iron and the earth bronze.  They will not be able to grow food crops at all.

2022 - Look at this verse:

"18 And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins," [Lev 26:18 ESV]

Seven times what they deserve as discipline.  Bad things happen at first as correction.  But if the correction is ignored, then punishment/discipline comes (look up the definitions) and it is seven times the severity and seven times the quantity that the correction was.  Not diseases for a year, diseases for seven.  Not crop problems for a year, but for seven years. 

Possible FB post.

2025 - This phrase "seven times more" appears a number of times in this chapter.  In the ESV, the word used is "sevenfold", and it appears four separate times.  Four is the number of man.  Seven of completion. 

2022 - I have to make a note of this:

"22 And I will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that your roads shall be deserted." [Lev 26:22 ESV]

What would this look like in our day?  How can this happen with roads and towns and civilization.  With cars.  Wild beasts marauding to the point of reducing the population?  This can only happen with a complete and total breakdown of civilization as we know it today.  That is why we aren't seeing it yet in this country.  People are safe in their homes and when they travel, it is in cars.  When they farm, it is in enclosed tractor cabs.  But someday, this could come also.  This is one to watch for.  One further note...it says the animals will take their livestock - their source of meat.  We could see something like this today.  Another one to watch for.  A case can be made right now that God is sending wasting disease and that rain isn't falling and crops are beginning to fail.  But the sword has not yet come upon us, nor have wild beasts.  We can still turn back and avoid the seven fold punishment.

2023 - Wild pigs marauding everywhere, populations increasing rapidly.  They destroy land and crops.  At some point and in some places, it could become dangerous to walk from place to place.  It's a stretch...but what does happen if their numbers continue to increase as they are?

This part goes on and on.  God will punish in layers, each discipline more terrible than the last, in order to motivate them back to keeping the covenant.  Things get worse and worse, like the birth pangs in the NT.  At one point it says:

29 You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. [Lev 26:29 ESV]

This is several layers in, but eventually, God will deprive them of any food at all and they will be forced to turn to cannibalism.  You have to remember the hardheadedness of the people that will stick around to let things get this bad.  Remember how unwilling they will have been up to that point to see the plain and simple truth that God is in charge, and they made a covenant and they are determined not to honor it.  This is a very dangerous attitude.

2022 - It can get worse than being eaten by wolves as you lie helplessly sick in your bed...

And a few verses later is this one:

33 And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. [Lev 26:33 ESV]

Perhaps this is what Hitler's persecution of the Jews was about.  Seven times what their sin called for, the end of punishments was a scattering, a loss of their nation, only transients living in their land.  And the Jews pursued by the sword just because they are Jews so that any could see God Himself was their enemy.

2023 - This verse:

34 "Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies' land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. [Lev 26:34 ESV].  This is what Babylon, and the 70 years of captivity were about.  Restoration of the "missed Sabbaths".  So this part of the chapter is in fact a prophecy of the future history of Israel, from Mt. Sinai to the Babylonian captivity.  All condensed into these few verses. 

40 "But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, 41 so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies--if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, 42 then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. [Lev 26:40-42 ESV]

Note that after all these punishments, no matter how bad it gets, there is still relief and restoration available.  But it is NOT FREE!  They must confess, they must turn away from disobedience in their hearts, and they must sincerely turn back to God.  If they do this, they can be restored, but half measures are completely useless.

45 But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the LORD." [Lev 26:45 ESV]

Even during punishment at this level, with God this angry, He will not destroy them completely, because He has those unconditional promises He made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob still to keep.  Still, this verse is part of the conditional statement of what it will take for God to forgive and restore them.  We surely do not see anything like this revival today.  This will only happen as the tribulation starts, and then continue on into the Millennial.