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Leviticus 26-27
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The blessings of obeying God (Leviticus 26:1-13)
1 ¶ “You shall not make idols for yourselves;
neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves;
nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land, to bow down to it;
for I am the LORD your God.
2 You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary:
I am the LORD.
3 “If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them,
4 then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.
5 Your threshing shall last till the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last till the time of sowing;
you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.
6 I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none will make you afraid;
I will rid the land of evil beasts,
and the sword will not go through your land.
7 You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you.
8 Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight;
your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.
9 “For I will look on you favorably and make you fruitful, multiply you and confirm My covenant with you.
10 You shall eat the old harvest, and clear out the old because of the new.
11 I will set My tabernacle among you, and My soul shall not abhor you.
12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.
13 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves;
I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you walk upright.
As we come to the conclusion of Leviticus, God very clearly establishes the blessings of obedience and curses of disobedience. It's a pretty simple proposition. In these first 13 verses, Israel is told what they can expect if they obey God.
Israel must do the following:
Then God will do the following:
You will notice, however, that eternal life is not one of the provisions in the list above. Why not? It is vital to understand the Law of Moses in its proper context; it provided the standard principles of obedience necessary for Israel to receive national blessings from God. It was never intended to be a means of providing the conditions for individual spiritual fitness before God. That fitness before God was clearly established all the way back to Abraham in Genesis 15:6 (see notes), "And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness." Individual salvation has always been an issue of faith - then and now. The Law of Moses governed the conduct of the Nation of Israel, much like the Constitution of the United States does for its citizens today. The use of the Law of Moses to establish individual righteousness is an extra-scriptural use of the Law that demonstrates man's attempt to forsake faith in lieu of works.
But what if Israel does not obey God (Leviticus 26:14-39)
14 “But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments,
15 and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant,
16 I also will do this to you:
I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart.
And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
17 I will set My face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies.
Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you.
18 “And after all this, if you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.
19 I will break the pride of your power;
I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze.
20 And your strength shall be spent in vain;
for your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit.
21 “Then, if you walk contrary to Me, and are not willing to obey Me, I will bring on you seven times more plagues, according to your sins.
22 I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number;
and your highways shall be desolate.
23 “And if by these things you are not reformed by Me, but walk contrary to Me,
24 then I also will walk contrary to you, and I will punish you yet seven times for your sins.
25 And I will bring a sword against you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant;
when you are gathered together within your cities I will send pestilence among you;
and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
26 When I have cut off your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall bring back your bread by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied.
27 “And after all this, if you do not obey Me, but walk contrary to Me,
28 then I also will walk contrary to you in fury;
and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.
29 You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.
30 I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your idols;
and My soul shall abhor you.
31 I will lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet aromas.
32 I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it.
33 I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you;
your land shall be desolate and your cities waste.
34 Then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land;
then the land shall rest and enjoy its sabbaths.
35 As long as it lies desolate it shall rest—
for the time it did not rest on your sabbaths when you dwelt in it.
36 “And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies;
the sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee;
they shall flee as though fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues.
37 They shall stumble over one another, as it were before a sword, when no one pursues;
and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies.
38 You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.
39 And those of you who are left shall waste away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands;
also in their fathers’ iniquities, which are with them, they shall waste away.
With all of the blessings in verses 1-13, why wouldn't Israel obey God? What a life! It's particularly puzzling when we see the following verses - the curses for disobedience. What will happen to Israel if they disobey God?
If Israel rebels and does the following:
Then God will do the following:
And if that doesn't bring Israel back, God will do the following:
And if that still doesn't do it, God will do the following:
And if by some stretch of the imagination Israel is still hostile toward God, He will do the following:
And if Israel's hostility toward God continues, God will do the following:
And for the people who are left in the land, God will do the following:
It is impossible to legitimately say that God did not warn Israel. You can't be any clearer than the itemized warnings of Leviticus 26. Israel, the Northern Kingdom after the split following Solomon's reign, fell to the Assyrians in 721 B.C. (II Kings 17, see notes). When Jerusalem (the Southern Kingdom) finally fell completely to the Babylonians in 586 B.C. (II Kings 24-25, see notes), these negatives had come to pass. Now the whole nation, having been warned by God right here in Leviticus 26, had met its demise because they violated these very components of their covenant with God.
Will God just forget Israel at that point? (Leviticus 26:40-46)
40 “But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, and that they also have walked contrary to Me,
41 and that I also have walked contrary to them and have brought them into the land of their enemies;
if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they accept their guilt—
42 then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham I will remember;
I will remember the land.
43 The land also shall be left empty by them, and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them;
they will accept their guilt, because they despised My judgments and because their soul abhorred My statutes.
44 Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them;
for I am the LORD their God.
45 But for their sake I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God:
I am the LORD.’ ”
46 ¶ These are the statutes and judgments and laws which the LORD made between Himself and the children of Israel on Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.
We see from verse 35 that, along with everything else, they will neglect to observe the sabbath years mandated in Leviticus 25 (see notes). It's hard to believe, but Israel chose to disobey God rather than to obey. Unbelievable! Notice in the remaining verses of the chapter that God tells them that through all of their disobedience and consequences, God will still remember them after they repent. These verses characterize what, in fact, would happen to Israel in their disobedience and fall to the Assyrians (721 B.C., Northern Kingdom) and Babylonians (586 B.C., Southern Kingdom) and their subsequent return to their land from their exile after 70 years as Jeremiah had prophesied in Jeremiah 25:1-14 (see notes) and confirmed in Jeremiah 29:10 (see notes).
Don't underestimate the value of a vow (Leviticus 27)
1 Now the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
2 “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When a man consecrates by a vow certain persons to the LORD, according to your valuation,
3 if your valuation is of a male from twenty years old up to sixty years old, then your valuation shall be fifty shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary.
4 If it is a female, then your valuation shall be thirty shekels;
5 and if from five years old up to twenty years old, then your valuation for a male shall be twenty shekels, and for a female ten shekels;
6 and if from a month old up to five years old, then your valuation for a male shall be five shekels of silver, and for a female your valuation shall be three shekels of silver;
7 and if from sixty years old and above, if it is a male, then your valuation shall be fifteen shekels, and for a female ten shekels.
8 ¶ “But if he is too poor to pay your valuation, then he shall present himself before the priest, and the priest shall set a value for him; according to the ability of him who vowed, the priest shall value him.
9 ¶ “If it is an animal that men may bring as an offering to the LORD, all that anyone gives to the LORD shall be holy.
10 He shall not substitute it or exchange it, good for bad or bad for good; and if he at all exchanges animal for animal, then both it and the one exchanged for it shall be holy.
11 If it is an unclean animal which they do not offer as a sacrifice to the LORD, then he shall present the animal before the priest;
12 and the priest shall set a value for it, whether it is good or bad; as you, the priest, value it, so it shall be.
13 But if he wants at all to redeem it, then he must add one-fifth to your valuation.
14 ¶ “And when a man dedicates his house to be holy to the LORD, then the priest shall set a value for it, whether it is good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall stand.
15 If he who dedicated it wants to redeem his house, then he must add one-fifth of the money of your valuation to it, and it shall be his.
16 ¶ “If a man dedicates to the LORD part of a field of his possession, then your valuation shall be according to the seed for it. A homer of barley seed shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver.
17 If he dedicates his field from the Year of Jubilee, according to your valuation it shall stand.
18 But if he dedicates his field after the Jubilee, then the priest shall reckon to him the money due according to the years that remain till the Year of Jubilee, and it shall be deducted from your valuation.
19 And if he who dedicates the field ever wishes to redeem it, then he must add one-fifth of the money of your valuation to it, and it shall belong to him.
20 But if he does not want to redeem the field, or if he has sold the field to another man, it shall not be redeemed anymore;
21 but the field, when it is released in the Jubilee, shall be holy to the LORD, as a devoted field; it shall be the possession of the priest.
22 ¶ “And if a man dedicates to the LORD a field which he has bought, which is not the field of his possession,
23 then the priest shall reckon to him the worth of your valuation, up to the Year of Jubilee, and he shall give your valuation on that day as a holy offering to the LORD.
24 In the Year of Jubilee the field shall return to him from whom it was bought, to the one who owned the land as a possession.
25 And all your valuations shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary: twenty gerahs to the shekel.
26 ¶ “But the firstborn of the animals, which should be the LORD’S firstborn, no man shall dedicate; whether it is an ox or sheep, it is the LORD’S.
27 And if it is an unclean animal, then he shall redeem it according to your valuation, and shall add one-fifth to it; or if it is not redeemed, then it shall be sold according to your valuation.
28 ¶ “Nevertheless no devoted offering that a man may devote to the LORD of all that he has, both man and beast, or the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed; every devoted offering is most holy to the LORD.
29 No person under the ban, who may become doomed to destruction among men, shall be redeemed, but shall surely be put to death.
30 And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the LORD’S. It is holy to the LORD.
31 If a man wants at all to redeem any of his tithes, he shall add one-fifth to it.
32 And concerning the tithe of the herd or the flock, of whatever passes under the rod, the tenth one shall be holy to the LORD.
33 He shall not inquire whether it is good or bad, nor shall he exchange it; and if he exchanges it at all, then both it and the one exchanged for it shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed.’ ”
34 ¶ These are the commandments which the LORD commanded Moses for the children of Israel on Mount Sinai.
This chapter is all about making voluntary vows to God. These vows were taken very seriously. When someone petitioned God by making such a vow, it was considered a permanent transaction - no turning back. Chapter 27 does, however, place monetary values upon such vows. Once made, these vows were redeemable by the values given here. Some were made with the intention of monetary redemption at the time of their commitment.
These vows fall into four categories:
Verses 26-34 provide some addendum to the valuations for vows. You will notice that some things cannot be given as a vow because they belong to God anyway. We find a warning regarding vows in Deuteronomy 23:21-23 (see notes), "When you make a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay to pay it; for the LORD your God will surely require it of you, and it would be sin to you. But if you abstain from vowing, it shall not be sin to you. That which has gone from your lips you shall keep and perform, for you voluntarily vowed to the LORD your God what you have promised with your mouth." Notice what Solomon said about these voluntary vows in Ecclesiastes 5:4-5 (see notes), "When you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it; For He has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you have vowed— Better not to vow than to vow and not pay." Samuel was Hannah's vow to God in I Samuel 1 (see notes) prior to her conception. She subsequently presented him to the High Priest for service to God. And who can forget Jephthah's foolish, unscriptural vow in Judges 11 (see notes)? You will notice that offering a human as a burnt offering WAS NOT part of the regulations of Leviticus 27; it was clearly a violation of the Law of Moses. While completely contrary to God's law, it does show us how seriously the Hebrews took their vows. Numbers 30 (see notes) also deals with the subject of vows.
There is an exception made regarding the use of land for a vow as the Year of Jubilee approaches in verses 16-25. According to Leviticus 25:13-34 (see notes), land that year reverted back to its original tribal owner upon entry into Canaan. If that land had been purchased by another and used as a vow, it still reverted back to the original tribal owner according to verses 22-24. However, if it had been the tribal owner of the land who dedicated it to the Lord as a vow, it did not revert back in the Year of Jubilee. It became the permanent possession of the priest.