And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me, I will bring sevenfold more plagues upon you according to your sins.
Leviticus 26 sets out the warnings God gave Israel before they entered the land, and each refusal to listen brings a heavier stroke, not a lighter one. So why would a God who wants His people back make their trouble worse, and what does it mean that He walks "contrary" to them?
The chapter has two halves, and the shorter one is the bright half.
Leviticus 26, which we have now reached, is an extremely solemn chapter. Verses 1-13 give a glowing picture of blessing and prosperity on earth. That is what their obedience would bring. Verses 14-39 give a terrible forecast of the evils that would follow if they lived in disobedience.
Judgment was never God's first choice for this nation.
How ready the Lord was to bless His people! How full was the blessing He could give them! He would have delighted to walk among them. But they would not. So He had to deal with them in judgment. Yet how slow to anger! He would only deal blow after blow when each preceding one had failed to bring them to repentance.
Verse 21 is one link in that chain. The stroke before it had already come and gone without result.
If these punishments did not soften their hearts into obedience, they could expect their troubles to increase sevenfold again (v. 21). God would send wild beasts among them. The beasts would destroy great numbers of their children, their livestock and their adults too (v. 22). Their highways would lie deserted, with no one passing through.
"Contrary" points to self-will, a direction the people chose. God answers that walk with a walk of His own.
If that is not enough to humble them before Him, He will punish seven times more, to break their arrogance. He will make their heaven like iron and their earth like bronze, holding back all heat and moisture and growth. Their work would then be useless... And if this failed to discipline their stubborn spirit, He would walk as contrary to them in displeasure as they walked to Him in self-will.
The wild animals of verse 22 are not a random horror. They belong to a set of four that reappears in the prophets.
Most of the chapter warns of the dreadful evils their disobedience would provoke. Those evils would fall on them with sevenfold intensity. In the days of Ezekiel, Israel's sad history of law-breaking was reaching its climax. Through him the Lord spoke of "my four disastrous acts of judgment... sword, famine, wild beasts, and pestilence" (Ezekiel 14:21). In our chapter the same four appear. Only the sword comes fourth here instead of first.
Centuries later, during the siege of Samaria, the warning came true word for word.
Now God's government allows the enemy to besiege Samaria, and "a great famine" follows in the city. The people are driven to terrible straits, and there the solemn prophecy spoken more than five hundred years before comes true. Moses had warned God's people about turning away from Him. The time would come when their enemies besieged them and brought them so low that tender, delicate women would eat their own children in secret (Leviticus 26:21-29; Deuteronomy 28:49-57). This abomination had at last come to pass.
Because the warnings held, the nation itself became a public lesson.
Under the heavy weight of these judgments they are suffering at this very hour. Scattered and stripped, wasted and outcast, they are the monuments of the Lord's unbending truth and justice. They read aloud to all the nations of the earth a most impressive lesson about the moral government of God. Those nations would gain much by studying that lesson closely, and our own hearts would do well to ponder it too.
The escalation stops the moment two things appear, and the second is the one people skip.
First, there must be the confession of their iniquities. Second, the acceptance of the punishment that their iniquities have brought upon them. Notice that this second condition comes twice, and clearly it matters a great deal... A man may confess his sin. But if he still kicks against the punishment it brings, his confession is only on the surface and lacks real sorrow. This is as true for us today as it was for Israel long ago. God's dealings with His children are always in love, but they are also in strict righteousness.
- Contrary — The word means a chosen direction, not a stumble. God answers in kind and walks contrary to those who walk contrary to Him.
- Graduated — The judgments arrive in stages. Each one comes only after the one before it failed to bring repentance.
- Sevenfold — Ignored discipline is not withdrawn. God multiplies it, because the aim is to break arrogance, not just to punish.
- Fulfilled — Wild beasts, famine, sword and pestilence all came centuries later, just as warned. The scattered nation still reads that lesson to the world.
- Answered — The sequence ends when confession joins with accepting the punishment. Confession that resents the rod is only surface deep.
And I will send the beasts of the field among you, that they may rob you of your children, and cut off your cattle, and make you few in number; and your streets shall be desolate.
Leviticus 26 sets two futures before Israel. Obedience brings blessing. Refusal brings trouble that rises step by step, and verse 22 is one of those steps. Why would God turn wild animals loose on His own people?
The judgments of this chapter are not a single blow. They come in stages, each one applied after the one before it failed to produce repentance.
These steps, as detailed here, are five in number. How they tell of the longing of Jehovah's heart over His rebellious people! He disciplines them only as far as it takes to bring them to repentance. (1) First comes the threat of sickness, and of slaughter by their enemies. Their crops, the fruit of their labours, are left at the mercy of the invader (verses 16-17)... If that had succeeded in bringing them to repentance, God's dealing in government would have stopped. But when that failed, He would send drought and the famine that follows (18-20).
Earlier in the same chapter God promised to clear dangerous animals out of the land. Verse 22 takes that promise back.
Had Israel walked in obedience, they would have been unbeatable. "I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And I will remove harmful beasts from the land, and the sword shall not go through your land."
That safety rested on their walk with God.
The presence of God should always have been their shield and defence. No weapon formed against them could succeed. But only an obedient people could enjoy that presence. Jehovah could not put His presence behind disobedience or wickedness... Their strength was to walk with God in a spirit of dependence and obedience.
Children, livestock, numbers, empty roads: each loss strikes the nation's future, not just its comfort.
And if this was not enough to call them back, seven times more plagues would fall on them. The very beasts of the field would rob them of their children and cut off their cattle. This would cut their numbers down without limit and leave their very streets deserted.
The same wild beasts appear again in the prophets, as one of four judgments.
Most of the chapter gives warnings about the dreadful evils their disobedience would provoke. These would fall on them with sevenfold intensity. In Ezekiel's day the sad history of Israel's law-breaking was reaching its climax. Through him the Lord spoke of "my four disastrous acts of judgment... sword, famine, wild beasts, and pestilence" (Ezek. 14:21). In our chapter the four judgments appear, only the sword comes fourth instead of first.
In Ezekiel the list carries a further weight. When one of these judgments falls, even the most righteous people cannot shelter anyone but themselves.
The prophet hears the awful sentence. Evil reaches its last excess, and God strikes the land with one of His judgments. At that point the three men whose prayers for others appear at critical moments in God's dealings with man could save no one but their own souls by their righteousness. The question here is God's government in this world, not grace for eternal life. If famine were sent, if wild beasts, if a sword, if a pestilence, not even Noah nor Daniel nor Job would save son or daughter beyond themselves.
These threats were not vague. God put them in writing in advance because He knew what Israel would do.
This section takes up the largest part of the chapter because God knew that Israel would not obey Him. They needed the plain warning that would in fact become an accurate prophecy of their history. How can we be so insensitive that we read plain warnings like this and foolishly ignore them? God means what He says, whether He is promising blessing for obedience or warning of great suffering for disobedience. Simply to believe God is the only safe attitude for anyone.
A chapter built on "if" can only condemn the one who breaks it. The answer had to come from somewhere else.
The law as such knows no grace; its function must be to condemn every breach. Grace and truth came through our Lord Jesus... And sovereign mercy shall once more shine on Israel, and for ever.
- Measured, not random. The wild beasts are the third of five steps, each step going only as far as it takes to bring the people back.
- Withdrawn, not added. Verse 6 promised to remove harmful beasts. Verse 22 lifts the protection that obedience secured.
- Aimed at the future. The beasts take the children and the cattle, so the nation shrinks and its roads empty.
- Named again later. Wild beasts join sword, famine and pestilence in God's four judgments. In Ezekiel 14 no one's righteousness can shelter another person.
- Answered elsewhere. The chapter's "if" can only condemn. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, and God's mercy will shine on Israel again.