"1 Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the LORD 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." — Leviticus 26:1-13 KJV.
This chapter is the fitting close of this book of the law, the twenty-seventh chapter being manifestly supplementary. In this chapter will be found outbeamings of Jehovah’s nature more majestic than anywhere else in the Pentateuch, except at the giving of the decalogue on the Mount Sinai. There, his terror was displayed; but here, his “vengeance and compassion join in their divinest forms.” The appeal is to the two greatest motives of the human heart — hope and fear. The union of these two great elements, the Law and the Gospel, constitutes the basis of genuine piety. The remarkable character of the revelation made in this chapter, which must have deeply affected Moses, will explain to the Hebraist the peculiarities observable in the style, especially in the threatenings — the strain and struggle in the diction, the cumulation of unusual words and modes of expression, several of which never occur again in the Old Testament, while others are only used by the prophets as quotations from this portion of the Pentateuch.
“There is a marvellous and grand display of the greatness of God in the fact that he holds out before the people whom he has just delivered from the hands of the heathen and gathered round himself, the prospect of being scattered again among the heathen, and that, even before the land is taken by the Israelites, he predicts its return to desolation. These words could only be spoken by One who has the future really before his mind; who sees through the whole depth of sin, and who can destroy his own work and yet attain his end. But so much the more adorable and marvellous is the grace which, nevertheless, begins its work among such sinners and is certain of victory, notwithstanding all retarding and opposing difficulties.” — Auberlin.
After a brief reiteration of the law respecting idolatry and sabbath-keeping, (verses 1 and 2,) the sublime sanctions of the law are unfolded in promises and threatenings. Verses 3-46.
IDOLATRY, THE SABBATH, AND THE SANCTUARY, 1, 2.
1. Standing image — The מַצֵּבָה֙ (matstsebah) was a pillar or statue of stone or wood. It was used in the worship of Baal. The tendency of the Hebrews toward idolatry may be inferred from the vast variety of terms used in their literature to signify idols. There are twenty-one Hebrew words rendered in English by idol or image. Four of these are found in this verse. I am the Lord — The word “I” is emphatic in the Hebrew. Jehovah could tolerate no rival, for he alone is self-existent, eternal, supreme. The pagan god of one nation could allow the existence of another cultus in another nation: Jesus Christ was not complimented when the Roman senate decreed him a statue in the Pantheon. He must dethrone all rivals, because he is “God over all, blessed forever.”
2. Sabbaths… sanctuary — The intimate connexion between the sanctuary and the sabbath is here very beautifully expressed. It rebukes all indolent use of the sabbath at home, and the modern, fashionable, professed worship of God in roving the fields and forests, vainly attempting to look through nature up to nature’s God. The God which a sinful Jew imperatively needed was best worshipped through the bleeding bird, the bleeding beast, and sprinkling priest; and the God most needed by the sinning Gentile is seen in the Lamb of God, whose Gospel is preached in our modern sanctuaries on the Lord’s day. There is no sin, except idolatry, against which the Hebrews were so frequently and earnestly warned as against sabbath breaking. The sabbath was intended to be an ever-recurring symbol of the heavenly rest. To despise it is to contemn heaven itself.
BLESSINGS PROMISED TO OBEDIENCE, 3-13.
3. Walk in my statutes — Mosaism was not mere ritualism, but a power which directed the conduct, shaped the character, and sanctified the heart. It aimed at inward as well as outward holiness. This is the end of all God’s statutes. The original statute signifies that which is absolutely fixed, a decree. Commandments signify acts definitely pointed out. The former is used to designate codes of law, the latter, specific precepts.
4. Rain in due season — When the moral character of men influences the course of nature, the personality of God and his interest in human affairs are indubitably demonstrated. See verse 19, note. A God who sways his scepter over the physical world in the interest of his moral government is especially offensive to the depraved heart.
5. Threshing — The cereals of constant mention are wheat and barley, and more rarely rye and millet. Wheat was ripe at the pentecost, called also “the feast of harvest, the first fruits of thy labors.” The fifty days included the period of grain harvest, commencing with the offering of the first sheaf of the barley harvest in the passover, in April, and ending with that of the two first loaves made from the wheat harvest. So abundant would be the harvest that six months, from mid Nisan to mid Tisri, would be occupied in gathering the produce of the soil; first the harvesting and threshing of the grain and then the vintage, which would be prolonged till sowing time, about the autumnal equinox. See Amos 9:13, note.
“The threshing comes between the reaping and the treading of grapes. Reaping is done in April, May, and June, and the vintage is in September and October. Hence the harvest, according to the promise, is to be so abundant that it will take several months to tread out the grain. And here, again, actual experience suggested the language of the prophecy. In very abundant seasons I have seen the threshing actually prolonged until October. Take the three promises together, and they spread over the entire year of the husbandman.” — Dr. W.M. Thomson.6. I will give peace in the land — If obedient to Jehovah, the Hebrews were never to suffer the horrors of a hostile invasion or of a civil war. Exemption from the latter would be a natural consequence of submission to Jehovah, the theocratic head of Israel. By his overruling providence he would dispose all surrounding nations to maintain peaceful relations with his people. Indeed, their very unity would make them too formidable to be attacked. Only nations weakened by internal strifes invite invasion. Perpetual peace and security of life and property are inestimable blessings, which no tribe of men has yet enjoyed. Evil beasts were to be exterminated, not by miracle, but by the agency of the people, as the Canaanites were driven out “little by little” by God, lest the balance of natural forces should be disturbed. See Exodus xxiii, 30.
8. Five… shall chase a hundred — So great would be the prestige of the Hebrew name that a panic would seize the myriads of their foes on the battle field when confronted by a household of Israelites. This was true of the Canaanites when the spies visited Jericho, (see Joshua 2:9-11, note,) and of the hosts of Midian who decamped in confusion before Gideon and his select band of three hundred men. See also 2 Samuel 23:8, 18; 1 Chronicles 11. 18. Many are the parallel instances in Christian history in which hosts of foes to Christ have been overcome by simple faith in him exercised by a few believers. A hundred… ten thousand — The ratio of efficiency increases with the number. Of five, each one routs twenty; of a hundred, each puts to flight a hundred. At this rate an aggressive Christianity would soon conquer the whole world. By the sword — They would not be delivered from foreign wars, but they would conquer the enemy in his own country, since the sword should not go through their land.
9. I will have respect — I will favourably regard you. Multiply — Rapid increase in population, especially with Oriental nations, is a manifest proof of the divine favour. Virtue promotes health and wealth. These conduce to a multiplication of the people, so long as luxury and its attendant vices are avoided. It is a sign of national decay when marriages and births relatively diminish. Establish my covenant — Confirm the covenant already made with Abraham.
10. Eat old store — Literally, the old grown old. Each crop shall be so abundant that it will last till the new is fully ripened; and so great will be the overplus in the garner that they should bring forth the old to make room for the new harvest. What a glowing picture of material prosperity is this! But still greater blessings of a spiritual nature are to follow.
12. I will walk among you — Here is implied the intimacy of delighted companionship, as Enoch walked with God. Thus Jehovah desired to walk with Israel, and thus he would have walked if the nation had cleaved unto the Lord. “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” And be your God — Guidance, protection, sustenance, illumination, sanctification, present and eternal gladness and glory lie in these four short words. Ye shall be my people — Dignity, honour, sonship, and heirship are wrapped up in this promise. “All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”
13. Made you go upright — The crushing yoke bowed the wearer to the earth, and assimilated him to the beast of burden often his yoke-fellow. Emancipation gave to him the erect form, and repeated the miracle of creation,
Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus. — Ovid.
And bade him scan the heavenly space,
And view, with countenance erect,
The firmament with stars bedecked.
“God will have no slavery of a social kind. He is against all bonds and restrictions that keep down the true aspirations of the human soul. God has always proceeded upon the principle of enlargement and the inheritance of liberty.” — Joseph Parker.
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