Leviticus 26:44

44 And yet not even thus, while they were in the land of their enemies, did I overlook them, nor did I loathe them so as to consume them, to break my covenant made with them; for I am the Lord their God.

Leviticus 26:44 Meaning and Commentary

Leviticus 26:44

And yet for all that
I will have on them, in or through my Word, as the Targum of Jonathan; notwithstanding their many and great sins and transgressions, and the sad and miserable condition they were brought into by them, the Lord would have mercy on them and be gracious to them, through Christ and for his sake, and convert and save them, see ( Romans 11:26 Romans 11:27 ) ; the Jews, as Fagius tells us, wonderfully delight themselves with this passage, and read it with the greatest joy and pleasure, and with an elevated voice; concluding from hence that they shall certainly return to their own land; and because the first word in this verse is in sound the same as the Germans use for an "ape", they call this paragraph "the golden ape", and say, when this shall be fulfilled the golden age will take place with them: a very learned man ^F6 has wrote a dissertation upon it: when

they shall be in the land of their enemies;
of the Romans and other nations, among whom they have been disposed ever since the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus:

I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them
utterly;
for though they have been cast away by the Lord out of their land, and from being his people, and enjoying either the civil or religious privileges they formerly did; and though they have been cast off with abhorrence, and had in great detestation by him, for their sin of rejecting the Messiah, as appears by the punishment inflicted on them; yet not so as to make an utter end of them as a body of people, for, notwithstanding their dispersion everywhere, and their long captivity, they remain a distinct people from all others, which seems to forebode something favourable to them:

and to break my covenant with them;
which he will not do, even his promise of the future call and conversion of them, and of their return to their own land:

for I [am] the Lord their God;
their covenant God, and a covenant keeping God, ( Romans 11:27 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F6 Carpzovius de aurea Judaeorum Simia, in Thesaur. Theolog. Philolog. vol. 1. p. 344. vid. Pfeiffer. dubia vexata cent. 2. loc. 17. p. 145.

Leviticus 26:44 In-Context

42 And I will remember the covenant of Jacob, and the covenant of Isaac, and the covenant of Abraam will I remember.

43 And I will remember the land, and the land shall be left of them; then the land shall enjoy her sabbaths, when it is deserted through them: and they shall accept their iniquities, because they neglected my judgments, and in their soul loathed my ordinances.

44 And yet not even thus, while they were in the land of their enemies, did I overlook them, nor did I loathe them so as to consume them, to break my covenant made with them; for I am the Lord their God.

45 And I will remember their former covenant, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage before the nation, to be their God; I am the Lord.

46 These are my judgments and my ordinances, and the law which the Lord gave between himself and the children of Israel, in the mount Sina, by the hand of Moses.