Leviticus 26:18

. Leviticus 26:17 Ver. 17. And I will set my face against you,.... Exert his power, and stir up his wrath and indignation against them, as enemies of his, to cut them off; see Psalms 34:16; which is the reverse of having respect to them, Leviticus 26:9; and ye shall be slain before your enemies; as they were sometimes by the Philistines and others: and they that hate you shall reign over you; as did the Chaldeans and Babylonians; see Psalms 106:41; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you; of such pusillanimous spirits should they be, and filled with such dread and terror of their enemies, so contrary from what is promised them on their obedience, Leviticus 26:8. Leviticus 26:18 Ver. 18. And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me,.... If such corrections by diseases of body, and by giving them up into the hands of their enemies, should be ineffectual to reform them, and bring them to obedience to the statutes and commandments of God, but should continue in their disobedience to him, and rebellion against him: then I will punish you seven times more for your sins; that is, abundantly more, with sorer punishments, and these more frequently repeated. Leviticus 26:19 Ver. 19. And I will break the pride of your power,....

26:14-39 After God has set the blessing before them which would make them a happy people if they would be obedient, he here sets the curse before them, the evils which would make them miserable, if they were disobedient. Two things would bring ruin. 1. A contempt of God's commandments. They that reject the precept, will come at last to renounce the covenant. 2. A contempt of his corrections. If they will not learn obedience by the things they suffer, God himself would be against them; and this is the root and cause of all their misery. And also, The whole creation would be at war with them. All God's sore judgments would be sent against them. The threatenings here are very particular, they were prophecies, and He that foresaw all their rebellions, knew they would prove so. TEMPORAL judgments are threatened. Those who will not be parted from their sins by the commands of God, shall be parted from them by judgments. Those wedded to their lusts, will have enough of them. SPIRITUAL judgments are threatened, which should seize the mind. They should find no acceptance with God. A guilty conscience would be their continual terror. It is righteous with God to leave those to despair of pardon, who presume to sin; and it is owing to free grace, if we are not left to pine away in the iniquity we were born in, and have lived in.

And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me,.... If such corrections by diseases of body, and by giving them up into the hands of their enemies, should be ineffectual to reform them, and bring them to obedience to the statutes and commandments of God, but should continue in their disobedience to him, and rebellion against him: then I will punish you seven times more for your sins; that is, abundantly more, with sorer punishments, and these more frequently repeated.

Verses 18-20. - Punishment in its second degree. I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass; the result of no rain in a land scorched by the fiery Eastern sun. Your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the tress of the land yield their fruits. Cf. 1 Kings 8:35 ; Haggai 1:10, 11 . Leviticus 26:18

(18) And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me. —Better, and if up to these ye will not hearken unto me, that is, if they should persist in their disobedience to the very end of those punishments mentioned in Leviticus 26:16-17 . This verse, therefore, introduces the second degree of punishments, which ends with Leviticus 26:20 . I will punish you seven times more.—That is, indefinitely or unceasingly; many more times. Seven being a complete number is often used to denote thoroughness (see Note on Leviticus 4:6), a large or indefinite number. Hence the declaration “He shall deliver thee in six troubles; yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee” (Job 5:19), and “if he trespass against thee seven times in a day” (Luke 17:4), that is, an indefinite number of times. (Comp. also Psalm 119:164; Proverbs 24:16, &c.)

First stage of the aggravated judgments. - If they did not hearken אלּה עד, "up to these" (the punishments named in Leviticus 26:16 , Leviticus 26:17 ), that is to say, if they persisted in their disobedience even when the judgments reached to this height, God would add a sevenfold chastisement on account of their sins, would punish them seven times more severely, and break down their strong pride by fearful drought. Seven, as the number of perfection in the works of God, denotes the strengthening of the chastisement, even to the height of its full measure (cf. Proverbs 24:16 ). עז גּאון, lit., the eminence or pride of strength, includes everything upon which a nation rests its might; then the pride and haughtiness which rely upon earthly might and its auxiliaries ( Ezekiel 30:6 , Ezekiel 30:18 ; Ezekiel 33:28 ); here it signifies the pride of a nation, puffed up by the fruitfulness and rich produce of its land. God would make their heaven (the sky of their land) like iron and their earth like brass, i.e., as hard and dry as metal, so that not a drop of rain and dew would fall from heaven to moisten the earth, and not a plant could grow out of the earth (cf. Deuteronomy 28:23 ); and when the land was cultivated, the people would exhaust their strength for nought. תּמם, consumi.

[Reformed Biblical] r over you, that you shall not be able to avoid or resist them. Shall consume the eyes, by the decay of spirits, and affluence of ill humours. Leviticus 26:17 Leviticus 26:18 Leviticus 26:19 ## The pride of your pow er, i.e. your s trength, of which you are proud, your numerous and united forces, your kingdom, yea, your ark and sanctuary. ## Your earth as brass; the heavens shall yield you no rain, nor the earth fruits. Leviticus 26:20 ## Your strength shall be spent in vain; ploughing, and sowing, and tilling the ground. Leviticus 26:21 ## Contrary unto me, or, carelessly or h eedlessly with me, or ## before me, i.e. so as to be careless and unconcerned whether you please me or offend me. This is opposed to exact and circumspect walking with God, as Abraham did, Gen_17:1, and all are to do, Eph_5:15. Leviticus 26:22 By reason of the fewness of travellers and people, and the terror of wild beasts growing more numerous thereby. Leviticus 26:23 Leviticus 26:24 ## Contrary unto you, or, carelessly with you or towards you, i.e. I will put you out of my care and p rotection. Levi ticus 26:25 ## The quarrel of my covenant, i.e. my quarrel with you for your breach of your faith and covenant made with me. ## Into the hand of the enemy; because those few that sha

24 . The 70 years foretold by Jeremiah are to be understood as 70 weeks of years (i.e. 490 years); at the end of that period sin will be done away with, and the redemption of Israel will be complete. Jeremiah’s promises, which, while the city and nation are being made the prey of Antiochus, seem a dead letter, will, with this new explanation of their meaning, receive their fulfilment; and (as Daniel 9:26-27 shew) the time when this will take place is not now far distant. Perhaps, as Prof. Bevan observes, this explanation may have been suggested to the writer by the terms of Leviticus 26:18 ; Leviticus 26:21 ; Leviticus 26:24 ; Leviticus 26:28 , where it is emphatically declared that the Israelites are to be punished seven times for their sins: “the 70 years of Jeremiah were to be repeated seven times, and at the end of the 490th year the long-promised deliverance might be confidently expected.” The Chronicler had already brought the idea of the 70 years of Judah’s desolation into connexion with heptads, or ‘weeks,’ of years, by his remark ( 2 Chronicles 36:20 f.) that they were the penalty exacted by God for the ‘sabbatical’ years, which Israel had neglected to observe whilst in possession of its land (cf. Leviticus 26:34 f.). weeks ] i.e. (as the sequel shews) weeks of years , a sense not occurring elsewhere in Biblical Hebrew, but found in the Mishna. determined ] decreed (R.V.).