Leviticus 26:3

your God. 2 Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD. 3 If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; 4 Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5 And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. 6 And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. 7 And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 8 And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. 9 For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you. 10 And ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new. 11 And I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you. 12 And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people. 13 I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright. Here is, I.

26:1-13 This chapter contains a general enforcement of all the laws given by Moses; by promises of reward in case of obedience, on the one hand; and threatenings of punishment for disobedience, on the other. While Israel maintained a national regard to God's worship, sabbaths, and sanctuary, and did not turn aside to idolatry, the Lord engaged to continue to them temporal mercies and religious advantages. These great and precious promises, though they relate chiefly to the life which now is, were typical of the spiritual blessings made sure by the covenant of grace to all believers, through Christ. 1. Plenty and abundance of the fruits of the earth. Every good and perfect gift must be expected from above, from the Father of lights. 2. Peace under the Divine protection. Those dwell in safety, that dwell in God. 3. Victory and success in their wars. It is all one with the Lord to save by many or by few. 4. The increase of their people. The gospel church shall be fruitful. 5. The favour of God, which is the fountain of all Good. 6. Tokens of his presence in and by his ordinances. The way to have God's ordinances fixed among us, is to cleave closely to them. 7. The grace of the covenant. All covenant blessings are summed up in the covenant relation, I will be your God, and ye shall be my people; and they are all grounded upon their redemption. Having purchased them, God would own them, and never cast them off till they cast him off.

If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them. Both moral, ceremonial, and judicial, which had been delivered unto them, and now completely recorded in this and the preceding book; for what follow in the two next are chiefly repetitions of what are contained in these.

Leviticus 26:3-4 . If ye walk in my statutes, &c. — In reward of their obedience, God promises them temporal prosperity in every instance that could render a nation happy. And, first, he assures them they should have fruitful seasons, here expressed by giving them rain in due time — Because, in Canaan and Syria, they were wont to have hardly any rain but at two stated seasons; in the end of autumn, at seed-time; and in spring, before harvest; termed the former and latter rain, Jeremiah 5:24 ; without which, the year was quite barren. For God did not place his people in a land where there were such rivers as the Nile to water it, and render it fruitful; but in a land which depended wholly upon the rain of heaven, the key whereof God kept in his own hand, that so he might the more effectually oblige them to obedience, in which their happiness consisted.

As "the book of the covenant" Exodus 20:22-23:33 concludes with promises and warnings Exodus 23:20-33 , so does this collection of laws contained in the Book of Leviticus. But the former passage relates to the conquest of the land of promise, this one to the subsequent history of the nation. The longer similar passage in Deuteronomy Deut. 27-30 is marked by broader and deeper promises and denunciations having immediate reference not only to outward consequences, but to the spiritual death incurred by transgressing the divine will.

Le 26:3-13. A Blessing to the Obedient. 3. If ye walk in my statutes—In that covenant into which God graciously entered with the people of Israel, He promised to bestow upon them a variety of blessings, so long as they continued obedient to Him as their Almighty Ruler; and in their subsequent history that people found every promise amply fulfilled, in the enjoyment of plenty, peace, a populous country, and victory over all enemies.

(3) If ye walk in my statutes. —We have already remarked that this verse begins the section in the Hebrew and ought to have begun the chapter in English. Having set forth the ceremonial and moral injunctions which are necessary for the development and maintenance of holiness and purity in the commonwealth, the legislator now concludes by showing the happiness which will accrue to the Israelites from a faithful observance of these laws, and the punishments which await them if they transgress these Divine ordinances.

The Blessing of Fidelity to the Law. - Leviticus 26:3-5 . If the Israelites walked in the commandments of the Lord (for the expression see Leviticus 18:3 .), the Lord would give fruitfulness to their land, that they should have bread to the full. "I will give you rain-showers in season." The allusion here is to the showers which fall at the two rainy seasons, and upon which the fruitfulness of Palestine depends, viz., the early and latter rain ( Deuteronomy 11:14 ). The former of these occurs after the autumnal equinox, at the time of the winter-sowing of wheat and barley, in the latter half of October or beginning of November. It generally falls in heavy showers in November and December, and then after that only at long intervals, and not so heavily. The latter, or so-called latter rain, fall sin March before the beginning of the harvest of the winter crops, at the time of sowing the summer seed, and lasts only a few days, in some years only a few hours (see Robinson, Pal. ii. pp. 97ff.). - On Leviticus 26:5 , Leviticus 26:6 , see Leviticus 25:18-19 .