Leviticus 26:27-45

27 "But ¹if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me,

28 then I will walk contrary to you ²in fury, and I myself will discipline you ³sevenfold for your sins.

29 ⁴You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.

30 And ⁵I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and ⁶cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you.

31 And I will ⁷lay your cities waste and will ⁸make your sanctuaries desolate, and ⁹I will not smell your pleasing aromas.

32 And ¹⁰I myself will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be ¹¹appalled at it.

33 And ¹²I 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.

34 ¹³"Then the land shall enjoy^[a] its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies' land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths.

35 As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it.

36 And as for those of you who are left, ¹⁴I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The ¹⁵sound of a ¹⁶driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues.

37 They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though none pursues. And ¹⁷you shall have no power to stand before your enemies.

38 And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.

39 And those of you who are left shall ¹⁸rot away in your enemies' lands because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquities of their fathers they shall rot away like them.

40 "But if ¹⁹they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they ²⁰committed 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 ²¹uncircumcised heart is ²²humbled and they make amends for their iniquity,

42 then I will ²³remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will ²⁴remember the land.

43 But ²⁵the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes.

44 Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, ²⁶I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and ²⁷break my covenant with them, for I am the LORD their God.

45 But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, ²⁸whom I brought out of the land of Egypt ²⁹in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the LORD."

Leviticus 26:27-45 Meaning and Commentary

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, Le 26:1,2; 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, Le 26:3-13; 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, Le 26:14-39; 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, Le 26:40-46.

Cross References

• 1. ver. 21, 24
• 2. Isaiah 59:18; Isaiah 63:3; Isaiah 66:15; Jeremiah 21:5; Ezekiel 5:13, 15; Ezekiel 8:18
• 3. [See ver. 18 above]
• 4. Deuteronomy 28:53; Ezekiel 5:10; [2 Kings 6:29; Lamentations 4:10]
• 5. 2 Chronicles 14:5; 2 Chronicles 34:3, 4, 7; See Ezekiel 6:3-6
• 6. [2 Kings 23:20; 2 Chronicles 34:5; Ezekiel 6:5]
• 7. Nehemiah 2:3; Jeremiah 4:7; See 2 Kings 25:4-10
• 8. Psalms 74:7; Lamentations 1:10; Ezekiel 9:6; Ezekiel 21:2
• 9. Jeremiah 6:20; See Isaiah 1:11-15; Amos 5:21-23
• 10. Jeremiah 9:11; Jeremiah 25:11, 18
• 11. Deuteronomy 28:37; 1 Kings 9:8; Jeremiah 18:16; Jeremiah 19:8; Ezekiel 5:15
• 12. Deuteronomy 4:27; Deuteronomy 28:64; Nehemiah 1:8; Psalms 44:11; Jeremiah 9:16; Ezekiel 12:15; Ezekiel 20:23; Ezekiel 22:15; Zechariah 7:14; [Luke 21:24]
• 13. 2 Chronicles 36:21; See Leviticus 25:2
• 14. Ezekiel 21:7
• 15. ver. 17
• 16. Job 13:25
• 17. Joshua 7:12, 13; Judges 2:14
• 18. Deuteronomy 28:65; Ezekiel 4:17; Ezekiel 24:23; Ezekiel 33:10; [Ezekiel 6:9]
• 19. [Nehemiah 9:2; Proverbs 28:13; 1 John 1:9]; See 1 Kings 8:33-36; Daniel 9:4-19
• 20. Leviticus 6:2; Numbers 5:6
• 21. See Exodus 6:12
• 22. [1 Kings 21:29; 2 Chronicles 12:6, 7; 2 Chronicles 32:26; 2 Chronicles 33:12, 13]
• 23. Exodus 2:24; Exodus 6:5; Psalms 106:45; Ezekiel 16:60
• 24. [Psalms 85:1]
• 25. [See ver. 34 above]
• 26. [Deuteronomy 4:31; 2 Kings 13:23; Nehemiah 9:31; Romans 11:2]
• 27. ver. 15
• 28. Leviticus 22:33
• 29. Psalms 98:2; Ezekiel 20:9, 22

Footnotes

• [a]. Or pay for; twice in this verse; also verse 43