Leviticus
26:14 ¶ But if ye will not hearken unto
me, and will not do all these commandments; 15
And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments,
so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my
covenant: 16 I also will do this unto
you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague,
that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your
seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. 17
And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your
enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none
pursueth you. 18 And if ye will not yet
for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your
sins. 19 And I will break the pride of
your power; 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
ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven
times more plagues upon you according to your sins. 22 I will also send wild beasts among you, 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 ye will not be reformed by me by these
things, but will walk contrary unto me; 24
Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven
times for your sins. 25 And I will bring
a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when
ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among
you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. 26 And when I have broken the staff of
your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver
you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied.
27 And if ye will not for all this
hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me; 28
Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will
chastise you seven times for your sins. 29
And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters
shall ye eat. 30 And I will destroy your
high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases
of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. 31
And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto
desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours. 32 And I 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 heathen, 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 lieth desolate, and ye be in your
enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths.
35 As long as it lieth desolate it shall
rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye 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 pursueth. 37 And they shall fall one upon another, as it
were before a sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand
before your enemies. 38 And ye 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 iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities
of their fathers shall they pine away with them.
Notice
perhaps one fulfillment of verse 22;
2Kings
2:23 And he went up from thence unto
Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out
of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up,
thou bald head. 24 And he turned back,
and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came
forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
These are pretty tough punishments for disobedience that the Jews
will often simply ignore and like us, even while they are being judged and
suffering they will deny their pathetic condition as in Jeremiah. Verse 24,
perhaps, could be used for the time period in prophecy of the tribulation to
come for the Jews under the Beast of Revelation, whom we call Antichrist,
although that name is not used in that book. This might be a veiled reference
to the Time of Jacob’s Trouble in prophecy or for a more literal take simply a
warning of the intensity of God’s judgment on them in their Promised Land
before Christ.
In considering these passages; first a potential blessing, then a
potential curse we must remember that the Law was not only the religious and
ceremonial law for the Hebrews but it was their civil law as well. God was
their God, their mentor, their benefactor, but He had a plan and they must go
along with it or the suffering of these former slaves would be legendary. God
was the reason for their existence as a people, His plan, His will, not theirs
was what would lead them on or crush them.
Verse 34 and 35 refer to the land enjoying its sabbaths in the
event the people disobey God. Go back to my comments on Leviticus 25 to see
this command. 2Chronicles talks about
the fulfillment of this curse on the disobedient Israelities.
2Chronicles
36:11 ¶ Zedekiah was one and twenty
years old when he began to reign, and reigned eleven years in Jerusalem.
12 And he did that which was evil in the
sight of the LORD his God, and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet
speaking from the mouth of the LORD. 13
And he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear
by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the
LORD
God of
Israel. 14 Moreover all the chief of the
priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of
the heathen; and polluted the house of the LORD which he had hallowed in
Jerusalem. 15 And the LORD God of their
fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because
he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place: 16 But they mocked the messengers of God, and
despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose
against his people, till there was no remedy. 17 Therefore he brought upon them the king of
the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their
sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that
stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand. 18 And all the vessels of the house of God,
great and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures
of the king, and of his princes; all these he brought to Babylon. 19 And they burnt the house of God, and brake
down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and
destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. 20
And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon;
where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the
kingdom
of Persia: 21 To fulfil the word of the
LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as
long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.
Leviticus 26:40 ¶ If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me; 41 And that I also have walked contrary unto 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 lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul 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: for I am the LORD 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 children of Israel in mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.
But, God always leaves a door open so that one can return. Just as
Peter denied Christ and yet was restored in spite of New Testament admonitions
so can God’s people return to Him.
Matthew
10:33 But whosoever shall deny me before
men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.
Matthew
26:75 And Peter remembered the word of Jesus,
which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he
went out, and wept bitterly.
With every Christian a type of the nation of Israel accepting the
judgment for our iniquity and humbling ourselves before God we can be restored
to fellowship with Him. This is an important point for us to consider. We can
turn from our sin but without humbling ourselves before God and confessing
those sins to Him we have not put ourselves in the position to have that
fellowship restored. I know people who had children without any commitment to
be united in Christian marriage for life and then decided to, “make it right,”
by getting married but have never confessed their sins to God or humbled
themselves in front of Him. In fact, because they feel they, “made it right,”
there is even some aspect of pride in themselves. The pattern here in Leviticus
is the pattern to put you in the position for God to have mercy on you and
forgive you.
God has given instructions and edified the Hebrew people in His
standard of righteousness and what He expects from them, separating them from
the depraved world around them.
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