26:1–2 Yahweh’s speech continues with an admonition to remain true to the heart of relationship with him. Israel’s covenant obligation at its most foundational is worship: “Let my son go so he may worship me” (Ex. 4:23 AT).301 Yahweh redeems Israel to create a worshiping people among whom he will dwell and sanctify by his presence and through whom make himself known to the nations (Ex. 4:23; 19:5–6). They are a people distinct among the nations because they are the Lord’s (Ex. 33:15–16).

Their eyes are now drawn to the commandments against idolatry and to keeping the Sabbath because those exemplify what it means to be a holy people.302 Bowing down before idols and giving allegiance to false gods breaks the covenant relationship. The importance of the Sabbath cannot be overstated. It is both a sanctuary in time, blessed for meeting with the Lord (Gen. 2:3), and a sign of the covenant (Ex. 31:13). This verse links the sanctuary (place) to the Sabbath (time), bringing together the intersection of human existence where the Lord makes his dwelling (Lev. 26:11). The treaty of the great King can be summed up as faithful worship.

26:3 The literary arrangement of this section reflects the theology that blessing is dependent on obedience to the covenant. It begins with the conditional clause “If you walk in my statutes” (v. 3) and ends with “I will walk among you” (v. 12). The frame around the covenant blessings is cast as Eden regained: the Lord who first walked in fellowship with Adam and Eve once again will walk with his people (Gen. 3:8). Since creation, blessing has been woven into God’s relationship with mankind for fruitfulness and flourishing to fill the earth. Blessing is his intention for his elect people so that through them blessing may once again be realized in a fallen world (Gen. 12:1–3). Wright insightfully clarifies: “Blessing is the prior reality of God’s grace. . . . Obedience, therefore, like faith, is the means of appropriating God’s grace and blessing, not the means of deserving it.”303

26:4–5 The gift of land is the all-important setting in which life is lived in relationship with the Lord (cf. ch. 25). If Israel obeys, the Lord will actively respond to her obedience by causing the land to respond in abundant fruitfulness that will amply satisfy all his people’s needs (cf. Hos. 2:21–22). Unlike Egypt, which is irrigated by the Nile, Canaan is dependent on the early and latter rains for agriculture.304 To this day prayers for rain are lifted up in Israel during the rainy season, and historic Jewish texts view God’s provision of rain as a tremendous blessing: “The day when rain falls is as great as the day on which heaven and earth were created” (Taʾanit 8b). Such will be the abundance that the barley harvest (March) will overtake the wheat harvest (May), which will overtake the grape harvest (July). Israel will eat and be satisfied, providing yet another conceptual link with Eden.

26:6 Peace will pervade the land so that Israel will lie down unafraid, pictured as the Lord’s flock protected from wild animals, who are their enemies. This promise is astonishing. Israel’s complex geopolitical setting made it improbable that it could know peace apart from Yahweh’s protection and care. Located between the powerful civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, the land of Israel is a bridge in the middle of the world and also of its conflict (cf. Ezek. 5:5).

26:7–8 Under the Lord’s blessing Israel’s history will take a decisive turn. The people who were chased out of Egypt will now chase their enemies, and, though the Israelites are not as numerous (Deut. 7:7), they will pursue and overtake those enemies (cf. Ex. 15:9). The expression is memorable, cast in poetic parallelism found also in Deuteronomy: “How could one have chased a thousand, and two have put ten thousand to flight?” (Deut. 32:30).

26:9–10 The favor of the Lord is embodied in his turning toward his people in relationship. Bound together with Yahweh in covenant, they will know a life overflowing with creative abundance in recovery of the human vocation (Gen. 1:28; 9:1) and in fulfillment of the promises laid in store for Abraham’s descendants (Gen. 17:1–6; 35:11–12). Yahweh will “maintain” the covenant by acting as the Suzerain who makes good on his promises.

26:11–12 The blessings crescendo with Yahweh’s promise to make his “dwelling” among his people, literally “place my tabernacle.” The height of the Lord’s nearness is found in the sanctuary, which he fills with his presence and wherein he receives his people’s worship and provides the means for atonement so that his soul will not “abhor” them. This rare word depicts a feeling of deep aversion and even disgust as a response to filth, a fitting way for Leviticus to express the sinful condition.305 This will be the reaction when Israel walks in disobedience (vv. 15, 30, 43, 44).

Yahweh’s promise to walk among his people recalls nothing less than the fellowship the first man and woman shared with the Lord when “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen. 3:8).306 Restoration of relationship is the ultimate goal of the covenant. The covenant relationship is deeply personal and expressed here in what resembles the solemn vow of marriage or adoption in the ancient world: “I will be your God, and you shall be my people.” This promise reverberates throughout the Scriptures (cf. Gen. 17:7–8; Ex. 6:7; Deut. 29:13; 2 Sam. 7:24; Jer. 24:7; 31:1; Ezek. 11:20; 34:30, 37:23, 27; Hos. 2:23; Zech. 8:8; Rev. 21:3, 7).

26:13 The epilogue to the blessings echoes the introduction of the covenant Suzerain in Leviticus 25:55: “It is to me that the people of Israel are servants. They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” Yahweh identifies himself as the one who is able to fulfill his stated rewards for obedience because of his actions in the past. Belonging to Yahweh brings freedom, a point that is not abstract for Israel but historically grounded in her deliverance from Egypt and from Pharaoh’s oppression. Not only does the Lord redeem his people in a one-time historical event, but he continues to do so throughout their history together (cf. John 8:36).

26:14–15 The subject now turns to curses that will unfold with increasing severity should Israel break its treaty with the great King. Israel’s idolatry shows abhorrence for the Lord (Lev. 26:15, 43), which he will answer with abhorrence of Israel (v. 30). Careful attention to the language makes it clear that this is deserved punishment and heavenly discipline for a wayward nation. The consequences for disobedience are stated conditionally: “If . . . then I will do this to you” (vv. 14, 16). Punishment is ascribed directly to the Lord. It is critical that Israel understands how these are not natural misfortunes but the chastisement of the Lord. At the same time the conditional language also entertains the possibility that the nation may turn away from its unfaithfulness and return to the Lord.

The curses spell out disasters familiar to the ancient world that aptly foreshadow the devastation Israel will come to face in its own history, so much so that certain scholars want to read this portion of Scripture as having been authored at the time of exile, after Israel’s experience of it. The Lord’s speech, however, is historically anchored at Sinai, as recorded no fewer than three times in this section (25:1; 26:46; 27:34). Yahweh makes known “the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done” (Isa. 46:10), also sending his prophets so that his people can interpret the times and know he is the sovereign Lord of history.

26:16–17 The curses of the covenant are expressed as a reversal of the Lord’s blessing.307 Instead of turning his face favorably toward Israel as the recipient of his attention and blessing, the Lord turns his personal presence away from the broken relationship. Instead of the great King’s ruling over Israel, she will be dominated by her enemies. Instead of enjoying the fruit of one’s labor as under Yahweh’s rule (Lev. 26:5), God’s people will see their crops consumed by their conquerors. In fear they will retreat instead of putting their enemies to flight (vv. 7–8). An emotional state of alienation from the Lord will prevail. Israel will be broken and hopeless, led to despair, depression, and anxiety.

26:18 If still Israel will not heed the Lord, she will merit a “sevenfold” measure of his discipline, a figurative expression indicating increasing severity (cf. Gen. 4:24).308 This verse makes clear that curses are divine “discipline” visited upon Israel for the purpose of turning her away from disobedience.

26:19–20 In particular the Lord will wage war against the pride that comes from Israel’s sense of self-sufficiency. The verse unfolds to suggest the people’s misplaced source of strength is their own land. Therefore, instead of yielding its crops, the land will now resist stubborn Israel to become as unyielding as iron and bronze (a reversal of vv. 4–5). The language of “heavens of iron and . . . earth of bronze” is common to ancient Near Eastern treaties and implies injurious drought. This curse traces its roots all the way back to Eden: the land will not cooperate with the efforts of man to cultivate it (Gen. 3:17–19).

26:21–22 Israel’s continued hostility will be met with a greater escalation of the Lord’s hostility. Wild beasts will prey upon the vulnerable and unprotected children and livestock in a reversal of the covenant blessing: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth” (Gen. 9:1–2). Cities will be depopulated, and well-traveled thoroughfares will lie deserted. Such is the fate of the northern kingdom when it is exiled by the Assyrians and wild beasts invade the land (2 Kings 17:25–27; cf. Lam. 5:18). As with a suzerain king, when Yahweh removes his personal protection, Israel is left unprotected, its dominion diminished.

26:23–26 The litany of Yahweh’s opposition continues in direct proportion to the people’s sin: “Walk contrary to me, then I also will walk contrary to you” (Lev. 26:23–24). The Lord will bring war as punishment from which there is no retreat; it will follow after them in their cities with pestilence and famine. In an image of the pitiable lack of food and struggle for survival ten women crowd around one oven.309 War is the sword that will “execute vengeance for the covenant,” an experience Israel comes to know well in its history, more so than the blessed promise of peace (v. 6).

26:27–29 Ever-escalating apostasy brings punishment to a shrill intensity. As the result of siege, famine, and military defeat, the people will be brought to the point of eating the flesh of their own children. Tragically, Jerusalem does suffer the horror of such desperation (Lam. 2:20; 4:10). The dissolution of the covenant whose dominant note is progeny and land (Gen. 12:1–3) is illustrated in heart-wrenching detail.

26:30–35 The reason for the Lord’s judgment is given in the following verses, coming full circle to the heart of covenant relationship that opens this chapter: “You shall not make idols for yourselves. . . . You shall keep my Sabbaths” (Lev. 26:1–2). Yahweh will avenge himself by tearing down idolatrous sanctuaries and incense offered to other gods. He will dispossess Israel of its land and scatter the people among the nations. Their decaying corpses will be heaped upon the idols of the land in measure-for-measure judgment. Because they worshiped lifeless idols, they will become lifeless. Because the people did not observe the Sabbath, sabbatical rest will be enforced. The God of covenant who made a way not to abhor but to grant his people his personal presence (v. 11) will now abhor them.

26:36–39 The surviving remnant will fare no better but be overcome by fear with no power to stand, though these people could have held their heads high (vv. 6, 13). They will waste away in exile in a reversal of the flourishing that could have been theirs. The words are strong, meant to intimidate and strike fear in the heart of the hearer. Yet the Lord interprets fear for his people as beneficial to deterring sin (Ex. 20:20).

26:40–43 “But if” marks a turning point in Israel’s relentless dissolution. Confession, humility, and deeds flowing out of repentance are what the Lord requires to restore the wayward nation. This should come as no surprise, given the message of Leviticus. The purpose of the sacrificial system is to provide the means to reconciliation, and, as the Day of Atonement has shown, that comes only by humility and repentance (cf. Leviticus 16).

26:44–45 In one of the most hope-filled phrases of Scripture (“Yet for all that”) the tide of the Lord’s opposition turns. There is hope even in exile, for Yahweh will remain steadfast to his purposes to make Israel a blessing to the world despite her not remaining steadfast to him (cf. Deut. 30:3–4).310 The section ends with the declaration “I am the Lord,” appearing here for the forty-ninth and final time in Leviticus.311 The number is significant, sounding a note that picks up on the themes of restoration and forgiveness. At the conclusion of forty-nine years the Year of Jubilee is inaugurated (Lev. 25:8), and after forty-nine sprinklings of blood on the Day of Atonement the sanctuary is purified (16:14–19). Despite the sevenfold discipline of God (26:18, 21, 24, 28) the final word is that Yahweh’s commitment to his own purposes stands.

26:46 The final verse of the chapter looks back to all the instruction the Lord has given to his people through Moses at Sinai. The inclusive phrase “statutes and rules and laws” encompasses all the covenant stipulations found in chapters 1–25 and thus concludes the chapter with an admonition cast in the language of blessings and curses, as would be expected in treaties of the ancient world. The familiar language signals to Israel that she is a covenanted people whose treaty with the great King is based on exclusive allegiance and worship of him.