# Leviticus 26 📖: Blessings and Curses [[📚 Explore the Bible Books]] [[-Leviticus Overview]] | [[Leviticus 25]] | [[Leviticus 27]] > [!info] Table of Contents > [[#📜 Scripture Text (NET)]] > [[#📖 Verse-by-Verse Commentary]] > [[#🤔 Interesting Facts / Historical and Cultural Insights]] > [[#🧠 Chapter Summary]] > [[#✝️ Christ in This Chapter]] > [[#🔎 Key Observations / 🛟 Life Application]] > [[#💬 Discussion Questions]] > [[#✍️ Key Verses to Remember]] > [[#🔗 Related Passages]] > [[#🙏 Devotional Reflection]] > [[#📂 Internal Notes]] ## 📜 Scripture Text (NET) #### Exhortation to Obedience [[#Verse 01.]] “‘You must not make for yourselves idols, so you must not set up for yourselves a carved image or a pillar, and you must not place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down before it, for I am the Lord your God.  [[#Verse 02.]] You must keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord. #### The Benefits of Obedience [[#Verse 03.]] “‘If you walk in my statutes and are sure to obey my commandments,  [[#Verse 04.]] I will give you your rains in their time so that the land will give its yield and the trees of the field will produce their fruit.  [[#Verse 05.]] Threshing season will extend for you until the season for harvesting grapes, and the season for harvesting grapes will extend until sowing season, so you will eat your bread until you are satisfied, and you will live securely in your land.  [[#Verse 06.]] I will grant peace in the land so that you will lie down to sleep without anyone terrifying you. I will remove harmful animals from the land, and no sword of war will pass through your land.  [[#Verse 07.]] You will pursue your enemies and they will fall before you by the sword. [[#Verse 08.]] Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword. [[#Verse 09.]] I will turn to you, make you fruitful, multiply you, and maintain my covenant with you.  [[#Verse 10.]] You will still be eating stored produce from the previous year and will have to clean out what is stored from the previous year to make room for new. [[#Verse 11.]] [^1] “‘I will put my tabernacle in your midst and I will not abhor you.  [[#Verse 12.]] I will walk among you, and I will be your God and you will be my people.  [[#Verse 13.]] I am the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from being their slaves, and I broke the bars of your yoke and caused you to walk upright. #### The Consequences of Disobedience [[#Verse 14.]] “‘If, however, you do not obey me and keep all these commandments—  [[#Verse 15.]] if you reject my statutes and abhor my regulations so that you do not keep all my commandments and you break my covenant—  [[#Verse 16.]] I for my part will do this to you: I will inflict horror on you, consumption and fever, which diminish eyesight and drain away the vitality of life. You will sow your seed in vain because your enemies will eat it.  [[#Verse 17.]] I will set my face against you. You will be struck down before your enemies, those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when there is no one pursuing you. [[#Verse 18.]] “‘If, in spite of all these things, you do not obey me, I will discipline you seven times more on account of your sins. [[#Verse 19.]] I will break your strong pride and make your sky like iron and your land like bronze.  [[#Verse 20.]] Your strength will be used up in vain, your land will not give its yield, and the trees of the land will not produce their fruit. [[#Verse 21.]] “‘If you walk in hostility against me and are not willing to obey me, I will increase your affliction seven times according to your sins.  [[#Verse 22.]] I will send the wild animals against you and they will bereave you of your children, annihilate your cattle, and diminish your population so that your roads will become deserted. [[#Verse 23.]] “‘If in spite of these things you do not allow yourselves to be disciplined and you walk in hostility against me,  [[#Verse 24.]] then I myself will also walk in hostility against you and strike you seven times on account of your sins.  [[#Verse 25.]] I will bring on you an avenging sword, a covenant vengeance. Although you will gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you and you will be given into enemy hands.  [[#Verse 26.]] When I break off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in one oven; they will ration your bread by weight, and you will eat and not be satisfied. [[#Verse 27.]] “‘If in spite of this you do not obey me but walk in hostility against me,  [[#Verse 28.]] I will walk in hostile rage against you and I myself will also discipline you seven times on account of your sins.  [[#Verse 29.]] You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters.  [[#Verse 30.]] I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars, and I will stack your dead bodies on top of the lifeless bodies of your idols. I will abhor you.  [[#Verse 31.]] I will lay your cities waste and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will refuse to smell your soothing aromas.  [[#Verse 32.]] I myself will make the land desolate and your enemies who live in it will be appalled.  [[#Verse 33.]] I will scatter you among the nations and unsheathe the sword after you, so your land will become desolate and your cities will become a waste. [[#Verse 34.]] “‘Then the land will make up for its Sabbaths all the days it lies desolate while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land will rest and make up its Sabbaths.  [[#Verse 35.]] All the days of the desolation it will have the rest it did not have on your Sabbaths when you lived on it. [[#Verse 36.]] “‘As for the ones who remain among you, I will bring despair into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a blowing leaf will pursue them, and they will flee as one who flees the sword and will fall down even though there is no pursuer.  [[#Verse 37.]] They will stumble over each other as those who flee before a sword, though there is no pursuer, and there will be no one to take a stand for you before your enemies.  [[#Verse 38.]] You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will consume you. #### Restoration through Confession and Repentance [[#Verse 39.]] “‘As for the ones who remain among you, they will rot away because of their iniquity in the lands of your enemies, and they will also rot away because of their ancestors’ iniquities which are with them.  [[#Verse 40.]] However, when they confess their iniquity and their ancestors’ iniquities which they committed by trespassing against me, by which they also walked in hostility against me  [[#Verse 41.]] (and I myself will walk in hostility against them and bring them into the land of their enemies), and then their uncircumcised hearts become humbled and they make up for their iniquities,  [[#Verse 42.]] 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.  [[#Verse 43.]] The land will be abandoned by them in order that it may make up for its Sabbaths while it is made desolate without them, and they will make up for their iniquity because they have rejected my regulations and have abhorred my statutes.  [[#Verse 44.]] In spite of this, however, when they are in the land of their enemies I will not reject them and abhor them to make a complete end of them, to break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God.  [[#Verse 45.]] I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out from the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord.’” #### Summary Colophon [[#Verse 46.]] These are the statutes, regulations, and instructions which the Lord established between himself and the Israelites at Mount Sinai through Moses. ## 📖 Verse-by-Verse Commentary ###### Overall. ###### Verse 01. ##### Verse 02. ##### Verse 03. ##### Verse 04. ##### Verse 05. ##### Verse 06. ##### Verse 07. ##### Verse 08. ##### Verse 09. ##### Verse 10. ##### Verse 11. ##### Verse 12. ##### Verse 13. ##### Verse 14. ##### Verse 15. ##### Verse 16. ##### Verse 17. ##### Verse 18. ##### Verse 19. ##### Verse 20. ##### Verse 21. ##### Verse 22. ##### Verse 23. ##### Verse 24. ##### Verse 25. ##### Verse 26. ##### Verse 27. ##### Verse 28. ##### Verse 29. ##### Verse 30. ##### Verse 31. ##### Verse 32. ##### Verse 33. ##### Verse 34. ##### Verse 35. ##### Verse 36. ##### Verse 37. ##### Verse 38. ##### Verse 39. ##### Verse 40. ##### Verse 41. ##### Verse 42. ##### Verse 43. ##### Verse 44. ##### Verse 45. ###### Verse 46. ## 🤔 Interesting Facts / Historical and Cultural Insights 1. Ancient Near Eastern treaties often ended with blessings and curses, and Leviticus 26 follows that pattern. 2. Deuteronomy 28 contains a parallel list of covenant blessings and curses. 3. The section of curses is much longer than the section of blessings. 4. The phrase "seven times" repeats as the warnings increase (26:18, 21, 24, 28). 5. The picture of broken yoke bars (26:13) shows God freeing Israel from slavery so they could stand upright. 6. The land would enjoy its Sabbaths while Israel was in exile (26:34-35), which 2 Chronicles 36:21 connects to the Babylonian exile. 7. The warning about eating one's children in famine (26:29) was tragically fulfilled during sieges of Samaria and Jerusalem (2 Kings 6:28-29; Lamentations 4:10). 8. God names the patriarchs in reverse order, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham (26:42). 9. God promises He will not reject His people so completely as to destroy them (26:44). 10. Verse 46 closes the main body of the laws given at Sinai, and chapter 27 serves as an appendix. ## 🧠 Chapter Summary > [!note] 🌱 Still growing. This section is on its way. ## ✝️ Christ in This Chapter Christ is the One through whom God lives among His people. God promised, "I will walk among you and be your God" (26:12), and Paul applies this promise to the church as the temple of the living God (2 Corinthians 6:16). ## 🔎 Key Observations / 🛟 Life Application > [!note] 🌱 Still growing. This section is on its way. ## 💬 Discussion Questions 1. God's blessings include His presence: "I will walk among you" (26:11-12). Why is God's presence the greatest blessing of all? 2. The discipline increases in stages, "seven times" more (26:18, 21, 24, 28). What does that teach about God's patience and purpose in discipline (Hebrews 12:10-11)? 3. Even in exile, God promises to remember His covenant if His people confess (26:40-42). How does this give hope to someone who has wandered? ## ✍️ Key Verses to Remember - 📖 verse 12: The Lord will walk among His people and be their God. - 📖 verse 13: God broke the bars of Israel's yoke and let them walk upright. - 📖 verse 42: God will remember His covenant with Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham. ## 🔗 Related Passages - 🔗 [[2 Corinthians 06#Verse 16.|2 Corinthians 6:16]] - We are the temple of the living God. - 🔗 [[Deuteronomy 28#Verse 01.|Deuteronomy 28:1-14]] - Blessings for obedience. - 🔗 [[Hebrews 12#Verse 05.|Hebrews 12:5-11]] - The Lord disciplines those He loves. - 🔗 [[Revelation 21#Verse 03.|Revelation 21:3]] - God's dwelling is with His people. - 🔗 [[Ezekiel 37#Verse 26.|Ezekiel 37:26-27]] - My dwelling place will be with them. ## 🙏 Devotional Reflection > [!note] 🌱 Still growing. This section is on its way. ## 📂 Internal Notes [^1]: [[Series_BAssurance_2_1Peter1.13-25]] aux