Leviticus 26:27–39

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 have it. So judgment had to come. Yet how slow to anger! He would only deal blow after blow when each earlier one had failed to bring them to repentance. At last exile had to be their lot.

He said it to Israel again and again: they walked contrary to Him, and that was why they were miserable. God knows that walking with Him is what secures the happiness and holiness of His people. A way of their own will always end in misery. And even now, after all He has revealed of Himself in Jesus — even now He says to faith, "Walk before me."

The furnace of wrath grows hotter against guilty Israel, and the Lord says, "I Myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins." They would eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters. The high places and sun-pillars they had honoured would be cut down. Their own dead bodies would be heaped on those of their idols, and His soul would abhor them.

He is gracious beyond measure. But we know Him who said, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord," and again, "The Lord will judge his people." "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Heb. 10:30-31). He punished the vile practices of the doomed nations who had pushed into His land. He chastens His own people even more strictly. "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities" (Amos 3:2).

Some have guessed at the meaning of the words about judgments coming on them seven times. These "seven times" cannot mean the exact length of Israel's scattering. They point ahead instead to the time of Jacob's trouble. That is the last seven years of the times of the Gentiles, when their judgments will be at their worst.

We are very prone to confuse two things that Scripture keeps clearly apart: God's government and God's grace. This confusion does harm in many ways. It is sure to weaken our sense of the dignity and solemnity of government, and of the purity, fullness, and elevation of grace. It is quite true that in government God keeps the sovereign right to act in patience, long-suffering, and mercy. But we must never confuse that with the unconditional working of pure and absolute grace.

With verse 40 a ray of light begins to shine. A door of hope opens, if two things happen. First, they must confess their iniquities. Second, they must accept the punishment their iniquities have brought on them. This second condition comes up twice, you notice, and it clearly matters a great deal. Both things appear in Daniel's prayer (Dan. 9), so he got a speedy answer. A man may confess his sin. But if he still kicks against the punishment it brings, his confession is only surface-deep and lacks real, deep sorrow. This is as true for us today as it was for Israel long ago. God's governmental dealings with His children are always in love, but they are also in strict righteousness.

Leviticus 26, which we have now reached, has a very solemn character. Verses 1-13 give a glowing picture of the earthly blessing and prosperity that obedience would bring. Verses 14-39 give a terrible forecast of the evils that disobedience would bring.

These steps, as detailed here, are five in number. How they tell of the longings of the LORD's heart over His rebellious people, chastising them only as much as was needed to lead them to repentance.

Verses 27 and 28 practically repeat verses 23 and 24. How wearying it must have been for God to find Israel rebellious again and again, despite His many disciplinary dealings! But His chastisement would then bring something dreadful: they would eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters (v. 29). Compare 2 Kings 6:26-29.

He is gracious beyond measure. But we know Him who said, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord," and again, "The Lord will judge his people." It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb. 10:30-31). He punished the vile practices of the doomed nations who had intruded into His land. How much more strictly does He chasten His own people. "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities" (Amos 3:2).

If the Lord's dealings still would not reform them, and they kept walking contrary to Him, then He would walk contrary to them. He would punish them seven times for their sins... Should that fail too, the Lord would walk contrary to them in fury. The people, brought to the last extremity, would eat their own children... That happened at last in the days of Zedekiah. Nebuchadnezzar's siege of Jerusalem brought the predicted miseries, as Lamentations 1 and 2 describe.

But, sad to say, Israel failed altogether. They had a solemn and appalling picture set before their eyes in verses 14-33 of this chapter. Even so, they forsook the Lord and served other gods, and so brought on themselves the severe judgements threatened in this section... They read aloud, to all the nations of the earth, a most impressive lesson on the moral government of God. These nations would gain much by studying that lesson. And our own hearts would do well to ponder it too.

When they are brought this low, into misery and shame, the goodness of God leads them to repentance. What a lesson to all the nations! Yet the nations never learn it, until Israel shows the way. Israel is forgiven by grace, at the very time when they cannot forgive themselves before the LORD and His anointed.

If the Lord's dealings still did not correct them, and they went on walking contrary to Him, then He would walk contrary to them. He would punish them seven times for their sins. He would bring a sword to avenge the covenant, along with the two things that so often come with it: hunger and disease. Should that too fail, the Lord would walk contrary to them in fury. The people, pushed to the very last extreme, would eat their own children. And Jehovah would destroy the idols, showing them up to be idols.

Verses 27 and 28 repeat almost exactly what verses 23 and 24 said. How tiring it must have been for God to find Israel rebelling again and again, in the face of all His discipline! But His discipline would then bring the awful experience of eating the flesh of their own sons and daughters (v. 29)! Compare 2 Kings 6:26-29. Instead of turning to God in repentant faith and praying to Him, they would take the horrible alternative: murdering their children to satisfy their bodily hunger!

Now, in the government of God, God lets the enemy besiege Samaria, and "a great famine" follows in the city. Desperate need grips the people inside, and the solemn prophecy spoken more than five hundred years earlier comes true. Moses had warned the people of God about this. If they turned away from Him, the time would come when their enemies would besiege them. Need would press them so hard that tender, delicate women would eat their young children in secret (Lev. 26:21-29; Deut. 28:49-57). This abomination had at last come to pass.

The same horror occurred during the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (Lam. 4:10) and also, according to Josephus, during the siege by Titus in A.D. 70.

We very easily confuse two things that the Bible keeps apart: God's government and God's grace. The evils that come from this confusion are various. It is sure to weaken our sense of how dignified and serious God's government is. It also weakens our sense of how pure, full, and high His grace is. It is quite true that God in government reserves to Himself the sovereign right to act in patience, long-suffering, and mercy. But when He shows those attributes from His throne of government, we must never confuse them with the unconditional actings of pure and absolute grace.

Then they will confess and humble themselves before God. On that, He will remember His covenant with their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and He will remember the land. They will never be completely destroyed, for their God is that Jehovah who brought them out of Egypt to be their God.

These steps, as set out here, are five in number. How they tell of the longing of Jehovah's heart over His rebellious people! He disciplines them only as much as is needed to lead them to repentance. (1) He threatens sickness, along with slaughter by their enemies, and the crops of the soil, the fruit of their labours, left at the mercy of the invader (verses 16-17). If that had brought them to repentance, God's dealing in government would have stopped. But when that failed, drought and the famine that follows would come (18-20).

The usual word for the high place is bamah. It means what is high or raised up, and then the hills where people built altars. Such places stood in Canaan before the Israelites entered it, and they had orders to destroy them. If the Israelites had such places, God would destroy them and cut down their images.

God would destroy those places. In those very places some would die, and their bodies would lie on the lifeless forms of their broken idols (v. 30). It is as much as to say, "Where is the help they expected the idol to give to its deluded victim?"

Should that too fail, the Lord would walk contrary to them in fury. Then (5) the people, driven to the last extremity, would eat their own children. And the idols — shown to be nothing but idols — Jehovah would destroy. The people He had once regarded as the apple of His eye He would abhor. He would lay their cities waste and bring their sanctuaries to desolation.

In Leviticus 26 God threatens the people if they fail in their conduct… "But if you will not listen to me" (v. 14) — He warns them of the heaviest judgments, and at last He will cast them out of their land (v. 31-39). This is exactly what happened to them when Babylon carried them away captive (compare 2 Chronicles 36:21 with Leviticus 26:34). The land enjoyed her Sabbaths while Jerusalem lay desolate. Once every seven years there was to be a year of rest, but the people had no faith in God to keep it. Because they would not believe God and let the land rest, God found this way to enforce obedience to His law.

Israel made and worshipped idols. Israel rebelled, despising their nearness to Jehovah. Israel braved His discipline. Israel brought waste on their cities and desolation on their land. But away in exile they will confess their sin and accept its punishment from Jehovah. He will remember His covenant with their fathers, and remember their land. Mercy will glory over judgment. Jehovah's end is this: He is full of tender compassion and pity.

How ready the Lord was to bless His people! How full was the blessing He could have given them, since He would have delighted to walk among them. But they refused. So judgment had to come. Yet how slow He is to anger! He sent the next blow only when the one before it had failed to bring them to repentance. At last exile had to be their lot.

You might have thought it hard to find blows heavier than those the Lord had already brought on His people in the first half of our chapter. But Israel grew stubborn and kept on in their sin, so here we see Him deal even more terribly with their hard rebellion. He is gracious beyond measure... If He punished the vile practices of the doomed nations who had pushed into His land, He disciplines His own people even more strictly. "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities" (Amos 3:2).

We learn from Huldah the prophetess's answer to Josiah the king (2 Kings 22:16-17) that this part of God's word was in the book which Shaphan the scribe read aloud to the king. We are told that the destruction of Jerusalem, especially because of idolatry, was predicted in that book, and that it would certainly be carried out. Deuteronomy 28 predicted the sorrows that would follow the people's sins. But Leviticus 26:31-32 plainly foretells what Deuteronomy 28:52 only hints at — the destruction of their cities and their sanctuaries, especially because they practised idolatry.

God calls His house at Jerusalem the place of His sanctuary... This is not simply God permitting the people to be trodden down as discipline for their sins. For that to happen, the temple itself is let fall, as it was at the time of the captivity in Babylon. It has to be so, for God to show that He has completely handed His people over to the fruit of their ways. While He owns His honour there, He must stand up and defend them, even while He disciplines them. But once the temple is destroyed and their city laid flat, He does leave them to the full-grown fruit of their sins — though He may still intend to bring them back.

Their pretence of honouring Him with sacrifice and feast day, with song or harp, was hateful to Him, because it all went together with self-will, turning away from His word, and setting up idols.

The people He once treasured as the apple of His eye He would come to detest... That took place at last in the days of Zedekiah. The sorrows foretold here came true during the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, which Lamentations 1 and 2 describe.

We very easily confuse two things that the word keeps clearly apart: God's government and God's grace... It is quite true that in His government God keeps the sovereign right to act in patience, long-suffering and mercy. But when He shows these qualities from His throne of government, we must never mistake them for the unconditional working of pure and absolute grace.

Once they are brought down to the lowest misery and disgrace, the goodness of God leads them to repentance.

From Huldah the prophetess and her answer to King Josiah we learn that this part of God's word was in the book which Shaphan the scribe read aloud to the king. The destruction of Jerusalem, especially because of idolatry, was foretold in that book, and it would certainly happen. Now Deuteronomy 28 predicted the sorrows of the people because of their sins. But Leviticus 26:31-32 plainly foretells what Deuteronomy 28:52 only hints at: the destruction of their cities and their sanctuaries, and that especially because of their idol worship.

This chapter is a summary of all the later prophecy of Holy Scripture concerning Israel. It is just as truly a summary of Israel's history. This is so strictly true that we can describe the history of that nation, from the days of Moses until now, in a single way. It is simply this chapter translated from the language of prediction into the language of history.

This is all that the enemy could do. He could not make it yield its fruit to him. We already see this in the long sabbaths of rest the land has had while Israel has been banished from it. It would not yield its strength to any of the nations, and the people now in possession are simply plunderers, and nothing else. But for the time being this suits the Lord's purpose. They are, as it were, His watchmen against anyone else coming in who might mean to make the land his own. Waves of invaders still sweep over it, and it stays under a government that makes anything like prosperity impossible. All this is only the sign that the land is still waiting for her true inhabitants.

Please make a special note of this. God's government, visiting the land with barrenness and dryness, was the way He chose to preserve the land for the people. The rightful inhabitants were scattered among the nations. So the way to keep the land for them was to make it undesirable to its conquerors and to the nations around it. The scantiness of the rainfall accomplished this in a very remarkable way. Indeed, one cannot imagine any other way of reaching this end. It is truly the finger of God.

He would go on to devastate their cities and sanctuaries, to the astonishment of their enemies living there. Their land would not escape either. They had despised His sabbaths in days, in years and in jubilee years, so there would be a judicial sabbath: the land would be desolate while Israel was in the enemies' land. The land that flows with milk and honey would lie desolate and have rest. This was in place of the rest it did not have when the tribes lived there.

God does not close this searching word of His without remembering His covenant — as it is said, His covenant with Jacob, and His covenant with Isaac, and His covenant with Abraham. He speaks here in this strikingly emphatic way of His covenant with every one of them. So even from the mouth of the One they had sinned against so long and so deeply, there would be a threefold witness for His mercy in that day. "And I will," says He, "remember the land."

But the Israelites have never had an unconditional possession of the land of Canaan. They entered on these terms: "If you walk in My statutes and observe My commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season," and other promised blessings... So the Israelites never had more than a conditional hold on the land. And a conditional gift is clearly no fulfilment of an unconditional promise.

Another phrase found only in Ezekiel and the books of Moses is, "I will draw out a sword after them." Compare Ex. 15:9 and Lev. 26:33 with Ezek. 5:2, 12 and Ezek. 12:14. Notice that in both Lev. 26:33 and Ezek. 12:14 the threat of drawing the sword comes with the threat of dispersion, expressed in the original in the very same words.

There is no record of the Sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee ever being kept. Lev. 26:34-35 predicts what would happen if the Israelites did not let the land keep the sabbaths. It reads almost like a prophecy: the land should lie desolate "because it did not rest on your Sabbaths." In Jer. 25:11-12; Jer. 29:10; Dan. 9:2 the desolation lasts seventy years. The land was to rest one year in every seven, so the 70 years answer to 70 × 7 = 490 years... In this, as in everything else, it seems they failed to obey. But God will make the Jubilee good to them in grace when they own their Messiah.

Cities would be laid waste and their place of worship destroyed, the land becoming so desolate that even their enemies would be astonished. The people of Israel would be scattered among the nations. They would not lose their identity, but they would be persecuted without mercy wherever they went. All these things have taken place. For centuries the land lay desolate, though in 1948 the Jews regained part of it with a government of their own.

Under the heavy weight of these judgements they are suffering at this very hour. Scattered and stripped, wasted and outcast, they are the monuments of Jehovah's unbending truth and justice. They read aloud to all the nations of the earth a most striking lesson about the moral government of God. Those nations would profit by studying that lesson closely, and our own hearts would do well to ponder it too.

With verse 40 a ray of light begins to shine. A door of hope is opened, if two things come to pass. First, there must be the confession of their iniquities. Second, the acceptance of the punishment that their iniquities have brought upon them... A man may confess his sin. But if he still fights against the punishment it brings, his confession is only surface-deep, and lacks the depth of real sorrow for sin.

In chapter 26 God sets them in the land on the condition of their obedience, and warns them of the consequences. But notice what God remembers when they repent. It is not the covenant of Sinai, nor the covenant of Moses, but His own unchangeable covenant with Abraham. That covenant drew Him back — not to their righteousness, but to His own faithfulness for the sake of their fathers.

I now turn to one more instance of the power of the visible and its effect on Israel — the way it turned them aside from keeping the Sabbatical year. Here it is all the more striking and solemn, because Jehovah had made special provision to meet the case (see Lev. 25:20-21). The desire of His heart was that the land should keep a sabbath to the Lord. Nothing could be more clear, or more beautiful in what it pictures. Did Israel hold to the mind of Jehovah in this? Jehovah promised to command His blessing on them in the sixth year, so that it would bring forth fruit for three years. As far as they were concerned, that promise was in vain. The visible work of man's hands, their sowing and reaping, was greater and better to them than His blessing.

There is no record that Israel ever kept the Sabbatical year or the year of Jubilee. Lev. 26:34-35 predicts what would happen if the Israelites did not let the land keep the sabbaths. It reads almost like a prophecy: the land should lie desolate because it did not rest during your sabbaths. In Jer. 25:11-12; Jer. 29:10; Dan. 9:2 the actual desolation is said to be seventy years. And as the land was to have rested one year in every seven, it follows that the 70 answers to 70 × 7 = 490 years.

The sabbath year was the same truth written large, so that everyone could read and see it. It brought the land into prominence: "a year of rest for the land," of which Jehovah was landlord, and Israel His tenants — holding it only as long as He allowed.

The land was to enjoy its sabbaths, as a lasting sign that it belonged to the Lord. So it, as well as man, must share God's rest. Here, however, the poor and the beasts of the field are prominent. God had care for both. Whatever the distance between them, both alike are His creatures. This reminded the children of Israel that they were only tenants.

Their land too would not escape. They had despised His sabbaths — in days, in years, in jubilees. So there would be a judicial sabbath: the land would lie desolate while Israel was in the enemies' land. The land that flows with milk and honey would lie desolate and rest. It would take the rest it never had while the tribes lived there.

Leviticus 26 holds threats for the people if they should fail in their conduct. "But if you will not listen to me" (v. 14) — He threatens them with the heaviest judgments, and at last with driving them out of their land (v. 31-39). This is exactly what happened when they were carried captive to Babylon (compare 2 Chron. 36:21 with Lev. 26:34), and the land enjoyed its sabbaths while Jerusalem lay desolate. Once every seven years there was to be a year of rest. But the people had no faith in God to keep it. Because they did not believe God, He found this means of enforcing obedience to His law.

A promise follows this threat: "If they confess their iniquity… then I will remember my covenant with Jacob" (v. 40-42). That is, they would be brought back.

Their land would not escape either. They had despised His sabbaths — in days and years and jubilee years — so there would be a judicial sabbath: the land would lie desolate while Israel was in the enemies' land. The land flowing with milk and honey would lie desolate and have rest, in place of the rest it did not get when the tribes lived there.

The land was the Lord's, as all land is, but here the Lord asserts His claim to it. By giving up his right of ownership every seventh year, the Israelite admitted who he held it from. For that year he was not the owner: the harvest belonged to anyone as much as to him, and it was appointed as a Sabbath to Jehovah. That year Jehovah fed everyone freely with what grew up under His hand without human farming. Israel's whole hold on the land depended on this recognition of the divine lordship. Because they broke this command, the land was to enjoy the Sabbaths that had been taken from it, lying empty while the people were driven out.

In His parable of the tenant farmers, the Lord directly links their rejection of Himself with their rejection of Jehovah's rights over the vineyard He had rented out to them. Here the idea carried by the Sabbatical year is extended and developed (Matt. 21:33-41). The prophets had been His servants, sent to collect His fruit: "Finally He sent His Son to them, saying, 'They will respect My Son.' But when the tenants saw the Son, they said to themselves, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill Him and have His inheritance.'" So comes the righteous sentence on them.

So God's word through Jeremiah came true: the land of Israel would be left desolate, to enjoy the sabbaths it had not enjoyed for years. The people were greedy. They wanted crops in the seventh year as well as in the six years God had given them.

Once every seven years there was to be a year of rest. But the people did not have faith in God to keep it. Because they did not believe God and would not allow the sabbath years, God found this way of enforcing obedience to His law.

There is no record of the Sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee ever being kept. Leviticus 26:34-35 predicts what would happen if the Israelites did not let the land keep its sabbaths. It reads almost like a prophecy. In Jer. 25:11-12; Jer. 29:10; Dan. 9:2 the actual desolation is said to be seventy years. And as the land was to have rested one year in every seven, it follows that the 70 years answer to 70 × 7 = 490 years. Now the kingdom began in 1095 B.C., and Jerusalem was taken in 606 B.C., which is just 490 years. It seems that in this, as in everything else, they failed to obey. But the Jubilee will be made good to them in grace when they acknowledge their Messiah.

Verses 34 and 35 expect that they would ignore the commands about the sabbath, especially about the land. So God would give the land a long sabbatical rest, when they were driven out and it lay desolate. We all know how long a rest that land has had until quite recent years.

God does not close this searching word of His without remembering His covenant — as it says, with Jacob, and His covenant with Isaac, and His covenant with Abraham. He speaks here with unusual emphasis of His covenant with each one of them. So even from His own mouth, the One they had sinned against so long and so deeply, there would be a threefold witness for His mercy in that day. "And I will," says He, "remember the land."

Leviticus 26, which we have now reached, has a very solemn character. Verses 1-13 give a glowing picture of the earthly blessing and prosperity that would follow their obedience. Verses 14-39 give a terrible forecast of the evils that would follow, if disobedience marked them... But it was all strictly conditional. It runs, "If you walk … then I will give." Everything depended on their obedience, and that "If" proved fatal.

Fear of their enemies would be so great that the sound of a shaken leaf would make them run. They would expect injury or death when no one was pursuing them (v. 36). They would be no help to one another in their selfish anxiety to deliver themselves alone. In the lands in which they had sought shelter they would in effect be "eaten up" (v. 38).

Instead of the courage He once gave them against all odds, they would fall into abject terror... Those left of them in their enemies' lands would pine away in their own iniquities, and in the iniquities of their fathers with them (38, 39).

The presence of God should always have been their shield and defence. No weapon formed against them could prosper. But only an obedient people could enjoy that presence. Jehovah could not sanction disobedience or wickedness by His presence. The uncircumcised nations around them might depend on their skill and their military resources. Israel had only the arm of Jehovah to depend on. He would never stretch out that arm to shield unholiness or disobedience. Their strength was to walk with God in a spirit of dependence and obedience. As long as they walked that way, a wall of fire surrounded them, protecting them from every enemy and every evil.

To fear an enemy much mightier than yourself is not blameworthy. But to fear without cause — when you are unbeatable — is cowardice indeed, and Scripture marks such a spirit as shameful. It is solemn to learn that Scripture places the "cowardly" with the "unbelieving" among those condemned to the lake of fire (Revelation 21:8). An evil conscience makes a coward. "The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion" (Proverbs 28:1).

But Israel failed altogether. Despite the solemn and appalling picture set before their eyes in verses 14-33 of this chapter, they forsook the Lord and served other gods. So they brought on themselves the severe judgments threatened in this section... Scattered and stripped, wasted and outcast, they are the monuments of Jehovah'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. These nations would gain much by studying that lesson closely. And it would be healthy for our own hearts to ponder it too.

A promise follows this threat: "But if they confess their iniquity… then I will remember my covenant with Jacob," and so on (vv. 40-42). That is, God would bring them back.

Instead of the courage He once gave them against all odds, they would fall into abject terror.

The presence of God should always have been their shield and protection. No weapon formed against them could prosper. But only an obedient people could enjoy that presence. The Lord could not use His presence to approve disobedience or wickedness. The uncircumcised nations around them might depend on their own skill and weapons. Israel had only the arm of the Lord to depend on. That arm could never be stretched out to shield unholiness or disobedience. Their strength was to walk with God in a spirit of dependence and obedience.

To fear an enemy much stronger than yourself is not blameworthy. But to fear when there is no reason to — when you cannot be beaten — is cowardice indeed, and scripture brands such a spirit. It is solemn to learn that scripture lists the "fearful" (cowardly) with the "unbelieving" among those condemned to the lake of fire (Revelation 21:8). An evil conscience makes a coward. "The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion" (Proverbs 28:1).

It is not the wrongdoer alone, but Israel. The greater God's blessing to His people, the greater their responsibility. God's grace is rich: it deals with all our evil and puts it away. Yet whatever dishonours Him, after He has blessed us like this, makes us nothing before the enemy. The worst evil disappears before the power of redemption. But take an evil a man would count very small. If he holds on to it or overlooks it, it later becomes a source of weakness beyond measure in the presence of Satan. Is this a reason for distrust? Not in the least. It is the greatest possible reason for watchfulness and care.

Fear of their enemies would be so great that the sound of a shaken leaf would make them flee. They would expect injury or death when no one was chasing them (v. 36). They would be no help to one another in their selfish anxiety to save themselves alone.

Under the heavy weight of these judgements 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 on the moral government of God. Those nations would gain much by studying that lesson deeply. Our own hearts would do well to think it over too.

Brought down in this way to the lowest misery and degradation, the goodness of God leads them to repentance. What a lesson to all the nations!

How ready the Lord was to bless His people! How full was the blessing He could give them, delighting as He would have done to walk among them. But they would not. So God had to deal with them in judgment. Yet how slow He was to anger! He sent each new blow only after the one before it had failed to bring them to repentance. At last exile had to be their lot.

Fear of their enemies would be so great that the sound of a shaken leaf would make them flee. They would expect injury or death when no one was pursuing them (v. 36). They would be no help to one another in their selfish anxiety to deliver themselves alone. In the lands where they had sought shelter they would be, in effect, "eaten up" (v. 38). Their iniquity would bring more and more suffering in their enemies' lands.

This is so exactly true that we can describe the history of that nation, from the days of Moses until now, in one way. It is simply this chapter translated from the language of prediction into the language of history.

Scattered and stripped, wasted and outcast, they stand as monuments of Jehovah's truth and justice, which never bend. They read aloud, to all the nations of the earth, a striking lesson about the moral government of God. Those nations would gain much by studying that lesson closely. It would do our own hearts good to think about it too.

Yet the whole nation was not to perish. God would not cast them away, nor would He abhor them to destroy them utterly and break His covenant with them. For He was Jehovah their God.

This chapter predicts that the people would pass through judgment, devastated by sword, famine and disease. Yet they would go on existing in their enemies' land. Israel's preservation throughout the long period of these executed judgments is a miracle. It cannot be explained in any other way.

Leviticus 26 shows the results of Israel's disobedience. It brings out all their sad history until they "perish among the nations" (v. 38). But it adds something more. If they confess their sins while scattered — "if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity, then I will remember" — what? My covenant at Mount Sinai? No, but "My covenant with Jacob, and also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham I will remember, and I will remember the land" (vv. 41, 42). Restoration, then, will be on the ground of the still unfulfilled covenant with the fathers.

The value of a covenant made with those who have died comes out here. The wrongdoing of later generations cannot set aside a covenant made with people who have already passed away, a covenant that was not cancelled before their death.

We are very prone to confuse two things that Scripture clearly distinguishes: God's government and God's grace. This confusion causes many evils. It is sure to weaken our sense of the dignity and seriousness of government. It also weakens our sense of the purity, fullness and height of grace.

Then comes the effect of the broken covenant, described at length: judgments in stages, growing greater as they keep refusing to repent, ending in total scattering, and in their being consumed in their enemies' land.

But why should they experience the bitterness and degradation of exile? Why waste away in the land of their enemies? Jehovah was their God. Exile could never come from His being unable to shield them from the invader. But it could come from His being unwilling to do it.

The destruction that began was so sweeping that nothing would remain for them but wasting away in their iniquities and groaning to one another. Jehovah Himself was treating the sanctuary as common by His judgment, just as they had by their transgressions and their detestable practices. What a picture of despair! The sorrow lies too deep for tears, and an overwhelming sense of guilt forces people to abandon hope.

He has Himself assured us that He "visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation." But He then adds a most necessary guard against what would otherwise be misread: "of those who hate Me." And elsewhere the Lord condemns in the strongest terms the proverb Israel had taken up from just such a misreading: "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." (Ezekiel 18) He not only says, but swears, that they will have no reason to use such a proverb. The son will not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father will not bear the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous will be on him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be on him. And the repentance of anyone will turn away his doom.

They also confessed the iniquities of their fathers, and they did so because the Lord's hand had been on them for this very reason. It was because of the sins of their fathers that they had suffered captivity in Babylon... So they went down to the root of all the evil, and told out before God their fathers' sins as well as their own. Their humbling on that day, therefore, was no mere surface work.

God calls this nation to blessing, yet He threatens it with the most awful judgments and disasters. And all of these have become historical facts. Jewish history, over many weary centuries, records how these solemn words kept coming true. So this chapter gives us very valuable and powerful evidence of inspiration: it foretold the curses, and history fulfilled them to the letter.

When they are brought down like this to the lowest misery and shame, the goodness of God leads them to repentance. What a lesson to all the nations!