Leviticus 26:31–35

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."