Leviticus 26:27-45

27 " 'And if through this you do not listen to me and you go against me in hostility,

28 then I will go against you in hostile anger, and also I myself will discipline you seven times for your sins.

29 And you shall eat the flesh of your sons; and the flesh of your daughters you shall eat.

30 And I will destroy your high places, and I will cut down your incense altars, and I will place your corpses on your idols' corpses; and my inner self shall abhor you.

31 And I will lay your cities [in] ruins, and I will lay waste your sanctuaries; and I shall not smell your [sacrifices'] appeasing fragrance.

32 And I myself will lay waste the land, and your enemies who are living in it shall be appalled over it.

33 And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw a sword behind you; and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a ruin.

34 Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths all the days of its lying desolate, and you [shall be] in the land of your enemies; then the land shall rest, and it shall enjoy its Sabbaths.

35 All the days of its lying desolate it shall rest [for the time] that it had not rested during your Sabbaths while you were living on it.

36 As for the ones who remain among you, I will bring fearfulness in their hearts in the land of their enemies; and a sound of a windblown leaf shall pursue them, and they shall flee [like] flight {before} a sword, and they shall fall, but there shall not be a pursuer.

37 And they shall stumble over {one another} as {from before} a sword, but there shall not be a pursuer; and {you shall have no resistance} {before} your enemies.

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

39 And because of their guilt, the ones among you who remain shall decay in the land of their enemies; and also because of the iniquities of their ancestors, they shall decay with them.

40 " 'But when they confess their guilt and the guilt of their ancestors in their infidelity that they displayed against me, and moreover that they went against me in hostility--

41 I myself also went against them in hostility, and I brought them into the land of their enemies--or [if] then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and then they pay for their guilt,

42 I will remember my covenant [with] Jacob; and I will remember also my covenant [with] Isaac and also my covenant [with] Abraham, and I will remember the land.

43 And the land shall be deserted by them, and it shall enjoy its Sabbaths in its being desolate from them, and they themselves must pay for their guilt, {simply because} they rejected my regulations, and their inner self abhorred my statutes.

44 And {in spite of} this, {when they are} in the land of their enemies I will not reject them, and I will not abhor them to destroy them, to break my covenant with them, because I [am] Yahweh their God.

45 And I will remember [the] first covenant for them--whom I brought out from the land of Egypt {in the sight of} the nations {to be their God}. I [am] Yahweh.'"

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.

Footnotes

• [a]. Or "and"
• [b]. Or "surely"
• [c]. Emphatic personal pronoun
• [d]. Or "soul"
• [e]. Implied by the use of the same phraseology in regard to the sacrifices in the early chapters of the book
• [f]. Emphatic personal pronoun
• [g]. Implied by context
• [h]. Or "And"
• [i]. Or "and I will bring"
• [j]. Literally "of"
• [k]. Or "and"
• [l]. Literally "a man on his brother"
• [m]. Literally "from the faces of"
• [n]. Or "and"
• [o]. Literally "it shall not be for you resistance"
• [p]. Literally "to the faces of"
• [q]. Or "fathers"
• [r]. Or "And"
• [s]. Or "fathers"
• [t]. Emphatic personal pronoun
• [u]. Or "surely"
• [v]. Or "and I will remember"
• [w]. Emphatic personal pronoun
• [x]. Literally "because and in because"
• [y]. Or "soul"
• [z]. Literally "also even" or "moreover also" or "moreover even"
• [aa]. Literally "in their being"
• [ab]. Or "on behalf of them" or "on their behalf"
• [ac]. Literally "to the eyes of" or "for the eyes of"
• [ad]. Literally "to be for them for God" or "to be for them as a God"