Leviticus 26 · WEB
Blessings and Curses: The Covenant Consequences
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"'You shall make no idols to yourselves; neither shall you raise up a carved image or a pillar, and you shall not place any figured stone in your land to bow down to it; for I am Yahweh your God.
2"'You shall keep my Sabbaths, and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am Yahweh.
3"'If you walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments and do them;
4then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.
5Your threshing shall reach to the vintage, and the vintage shall reach to the sowing time. You shall eat your bread to the full, and live in your land safely.
6I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one will make you afraid. I will remove evil animals from the land. The sword shall not go through your land.
7You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.
8Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand; and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.
9I will have respect for you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and will establish my covenant with you.
10You shall eat old store long kept, and you shall move out the old because of the new.
11I will set my tabernacle among you; and my soul shall not abhor you.
12I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people.
13I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. I have broken the bars of your yoke, and made you walk upright.
14"'But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments;
15and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant;
16I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it.
17I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you; and you shall flee when no one pursues you.
18"'If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins.
19I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your earth like bronze.
20Your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield its increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruit.
21"'If you walk contrary to me, and won't listen to me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins.
22I will send the wild animals among you, which shall rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number. Your roads will become desolate.
23"'If by these things you won't be reformed by me, but will walk contrary to me;
24then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins.
25I will bring a sword on you that shall execute the vengeance of the covenant. You shall be gathered together within your cities; and I will send the pestilence among you. You shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
26When I break your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight. You shall eat, and not be satisfied.
27"'If you in spite of this won't listen to me, but walk contrary to me;
28then I will walk contrary to you in wrath; and I also will chastise you seven times for your sins.
29You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.
30I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies on the bodies of your idols; and my soul shall abhor you.
31I will make your cities a waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not take delight in the aroma of your sweet fragrances.
32I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it.
33I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.
34Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies' land. Even then, the land shall rest and enjoy its Sabbaths.
35As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it didn't have in your Sabbaths, when you lived on it.
36"'As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight; and they shall flee as if fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when no one pursues.
37They 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.
38You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.
39Those of you who are left shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.
40"'If they confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me, and also that, because they walked contrary to me,
41I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity;
42then I will remember my covenant with Jacob; and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land.
43The land also shall be left by them, and shall enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they shall accept the punishment of their iniquity; because, even because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes.
44Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their God;
45but I will for their sake 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 Yahweh.'"
46These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws which Yahweh made between himself and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by Moses.
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Summary
Chapter 26 is the covenant sanctions chapter — a classic ancient Near Eastern treaty pattern of blessings for obedience and escalating curses for disobedience. Obedience brings abundant harvests, peace, security, victory over enemies, and God's personal presence among them. Disobedience triggers four escalating levels of judgment (each more severe, each introduced by "seven times more"), culminating in exile, desolation of the land, and scattering among the nations. Yet the chapter ends with extraordinary grace: even in exile, if Israel confesses and humbles itself, God will remember his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — and will not utterly destroy them.
Themes
- Covenant faithfulness brings life; covenant unfaithfulness brings judgment
- God's discipline is restorative, not merely punitive — each level calls for repentance
- Even in the worst judgment (exile), God's covenant love does not ultimately fail
- The Exodus is the unchangeable foundation of God's commitment to Israel
Key verses
- Lev 26:11-12 — “I will set my tabernacle among you... I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people.”
- Lev 26:44 — “Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their God.”
- Lev 26:45 — “But I will for their sake 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 Yahweh.”
Context & background
This chapter was given at Mount Sinai (modern Sinai Peninsula, Egypt), as confirmed by verse 46. Leviticus 26 follows the pattern of ancient Hittite suzerainty treaties, which included blessings and curses as covenant consequences. The curses of Leviticus 26 were historically fulfilled: Israel was exiled by Assyria (721 BC) and Judah by Babylon (586 BC), precisely fulfilling verse 33. The land's Sabbath rest during the 70-year Babylonian exile (v. 34-35) is specifically referenced in 2 Chronicles 36:21. Yet God's promise not to break his covenant (v. 44) undergirds the entire prophetic tradition of restoration — culminating in the new covenant announced by Jeremiah and fulfilled in Christ.
Cross-references
- 2 Chr 36:21 — Identifies the 70-year Babylonian exile as fulfilling the land's Sabbath rest from Lev 26:34-35
- Deut 28 — The parallel and expanded covenant blessings and curses passage
- Ezek 36:22-32 — God restores Israel for his name's sake, not their merit — the ultimate fulfillment of Lev 26:44-45
- Jer 31:31-34 — God promises a new covenant because the Mosaic covenant was broken
- Rev 21:3 — "God's dwelling place is with humans" — the ultimate fulfillment of Lev 26:11-12