Commentary - Leviticus 26:14-39

Bird's-eye view

This passage is the other side of the coin. Having laid out the glorious blessings for covenant faithfulness, the Lord now details, in terrifying and escalating fashion, the curses for covenant rebellion. This is not the arbitrary rage of a pagan deity; this is the judicial sentence of a holy God, the righteous King, enforcing the terms of His own covenant treaty. Israel was not an ignorant party; they entered into this covenant at Sinai with their eyes wide open. These curses, therefore, are the stipulated penalties for breaking the contract. The structure is one of intensifying judgment, a series of five waves of divine discipline, each more severe than the last, designed to bring the rebellious nation to its knees in repentance. From disease and defeat to ecological disaster, famine, exile, and psychological torment, God makes it clear that to abandon Him is to abandon all peace, security, and life itself. This section is a solemn testimony to the fact that sin has real-world consequences and that God will not be mocked.

Ultimately, these curses drive us to the Gospel. They demonstrate with stark clarity that no man can stand before a holy God on the basis of his own obedience. The weight of these judgments is unbearable. But what Israel could not bear, the true Israelite, Jesus Christ, bore for us. On the cross, He exhausted the full measure of these covenant curses. He was defeated by His enemies, His strength was spent uselessly, He was forsaken by the Father, and He was cast out of the city. He took the curse so that we, in turn, might receive the blessing. This passage is therefore a schoolmaster, driving us to the foot of the cross, the only place of safety from the righteous wrath of God.

Outline

Context In Leviticus

Leviticus 26, along with Deuteronomy 28, forms the great sanction section of the Mosaic Covenant. The book of Leviticus is the constitutional document for the nation of Israel, detailing the laws for worship, purity, and civil life. Having laid out the entire legal and ceremonial framework, God concludes with the consequences of adherence or rebellion. This is standard for ancient Near Eastern suzerainty treaties, where a great king would make a covenant with a vassal nation, outlining the blessings for loyalty and the curses for treachery. Here, Yahweh, the Great King, formally presents His terms to His vassal, Israel. This chapter is the legal foundation for all of God's subsequent dealings with the nation, from the judgments of the period of the Judges to the ultimate exiles under Assyria and Babylon. It is the prophetic template that the later prophets would draw upon repeatedly to explain Israel's historical calamities.

Key Issues

The Fine Print of the Covenant

We live in a sentimental age that prefers to imagine a God who is all blessing and no bite. We like the first half of the chapter, but we get squeamish when we come to the curses. But the God of the Bible is a holy God, a consuming fire. His covenant is a serious business, and He attaches to it the most serious consequences. These curses are not the result of God losing His temper. They are the pre-announced, legally stipulated consequences of high treason against the King of heaven and earth. The phrase seven times, which appears repeatedly, is not a simple mathematical calculation. It is a Hebrew idiom for perfection, completeness, and intensity. When God says He will discipline them "seven times more," He means He will bring a full and fitting judgment. It is a sign that His discipline is not haphazard but is measured and purposeful, designed to correspond perfectly to their sin.

Verse by Verse Commentary

14-15 ‘But if you do not obey Me and do not do all these commandments, if, instead, you reject My statutes, and if your soul loathes My judgments so as not to do all My commandments and so break My covenant,

The foundation of all the curses is laid right here. This is not about an occasional slip-up. The language is active and hostile. The problem begins with a failure to obey, but it quickly escalates. They reject His statutes. Their soul loathes His judgments. This is a visceral, deep-seated rebellion. It is a contempt for God's law and, therefore, for God Himself. This heart attitude of loathing leads to a comprehensive failure to obey, which in turn constitutes the breaking of the covenant. Sin is never just a behavioral problem; it is always a heart problem, a worship problem. They have ceased to love the Lawgiver, and so they have come to hate His law.

16-17 I, in turn, will do this to you: I will appoint over you a sudden terror, consumption and fever that will waste away the eyes and cause the soul to pine away; also, you will sow your seed uselessly, for your enemies will eat it up. And I will set My face against you so that you will be defeated before your enemies; and those who hate you will have dominion over you, and you will flee when no one is pursuing you.

Here is the first wave of judgment. Notice that God is the active agent: "I will do this to you." He appoints terror. This is not just bad luck. The curses are personal. They include internal affliction (sudden terror, disease), economic affliction (useless labor, stolen harvests), and military affliction (defeat, subjugation). When God sets His face against a people, their world begins to unravel from every direction. The final touch is psychological: they will flee when no one is pursuing. A guilty conscience and a sense of divine abandonment create a state of constant paranoia.

18-20 If also after these things you do not obey Me, then I will discipline you seven times more for your sins. I will also break down your pride of strength; I will also give your sky over to become like iron and your earth like bronze. And your power will be spent uselessly, for your land will not give forth its produce and the trees of the land will not give forth their fruit.

If the first round of discipline does not produce repentance, God turns up the heat. The discipline becomes "seven times more," meaning more intense and complete. The central target here is their pride of strength, the arrogant self-sufficiency that says, "We can manage on our own." God shatters this illusion by shutting down the entire system of natural providence. The sky becomes like iron, yielding no rain. The earth becomes like bronze, hard and unproductive. All their labor, all their strength, is spent for nothing. This is a picture of total economic and agricultural collapse, engineered by God to show them their utter dependence upon Him for every drop of rain and every stalk of grain.

21-22 ‘If then, you walk in hostility against Me and are unwilling to obey Me, I will increase the plague on you seven times according to your sins. And I will send out among you the beasts of the field, which will bereave you of your children and cut down your cattle and reduce your number so that your roads lie desolate.

The rebellion continues, and so the judgment escalates again. Now their sin is described as walking in hostility against God. So God responds in kind. The created order, which was given to man for his dominion, now turns on him. The beasts of the field, once subservient, become instruments of God's wrath. They attack the most precious things: children and livelihood (cattle). The result is depopulation and the breakdown of society. When the roads lie desolate, it means commerce, travel, and community life have ceased. The nation is being de-created, returned to a state of chaos.

23-26 ‘And if by these things you do not accept My discipline, but walk in hostility against Me, then I will walk in hostility against you; and I, even I, will strike you seven times for your sins. I will also bring upon you a sword which will execute vengeance for the covenant; and when you gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you so that you shall be given over into enemy hands. When I break your staff of bread, ten women will bake your bread in one oven, and they will bring back your bread by rationed weight so that you will eat and not become full.

This fourth stage is a terrifying turning point. God declares, "then I will walk in hostility against you." He becomes their direct, personal enemy. He emphasizes His own involvement: "I, even I, will strike you." The sword He brings is not just any sword; it is a sword that executes vengeance for the covenant. This is covenantal justice. The cities, which should be places of refuge, become traps where pestilence spreads. And the famine becomes so severe that their entire food supply is managed with meticulous scarcity. The image of ten women sharing one oven signifies an extreme shortage of both fuel and flour. They will eat, but it will be just enough to keep them alive in their misery, never enough to satisfy.

27-33 ‘Yet, if in spite of this you do not obey Me, but walk in hostility against Me, then I will walk in wrathful hostility against you, and I, even I, will discipline you seven times for your sins. Further, you will eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters you will eat. I then will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and give your corpses to lie on the corpses of your idols, for My soul shall loathe you. And I will give your cities over as a waste and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your soothing aromas. And I will make the land desolate... You, however, I will scatter among the nations...

This is the final, climactic stage of judgment. God's hostility is now described as wrathful hostility. The discipline reaches its most horrific expression. The bonds of nature and family affection are dissolved in the horror of cannibalism, a curse that was literally fulfilled during the sieges of Samaria and Jerusalem. God then turns His wrath against their idolatry, destroying their high places and altars. Their dead bodies will be thrown onto the broken pieces of their dead gods, a graphic depiction of the utter impotence of their idols. God's own sanctuary will be made desolate, and He will refuse their worship. The final stroke is the dissolution of the nation itself: desolation of the land and exile for the people. They will be scattered among the nations, their national existence erased.

34-35 ‘Then the land will make up for its sabbaths all the days of the desolation, and you will be in your enemies’ land; then the land will rest and make up for its sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it will observe the rest which it did not observe on your sabbaths, while you were living on it.

This is a remarkable theological statement. One of Israel's great sins was their failure to observe the Sabbath laws, including the Sabbath for the land every seventh year. They exploited the land without giving it the rest God had commanded. So God's solution is simple: He will remove the people so the land can finally have its due. The Babylonian exile lasted seventy years, which corresponds to the number of Sabbaths the land had been denied over the previous 490 years. This shows that God's creation ordinances are not negotiable. The Sabbath principle is woven into the fabric of the universe, and if man will not honor it willingly, God will enforce it through judgment.

36-39 As for those of you who may remain, I will also bring weakness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. And the sound of a driven leaf will pursue them... you will have no strength to stand up before your enemies. But you will perish among the nations... So those of you who may remain will rot away in their iniquity in the lands of their enemies; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they will rot away with them.

The curse follows the remnant into exile. The judgment is not just external but internal. God will put a debilitating fear and weakness into their hearts. They will be so filled with anxiety that the sound of a rustling leaf will send them into a panic. They will have no courage, no strength to resist. The passage concludes by emphasizing the corporate and generational nature of their sin. They will "rot away" not only in their own iniquity but also in the iniquities of their fathers. Sin accumulates. Generations of rebellion had filled up the measure of God's wrath, and now the bill has come due. This is the tragic inheritance of covenant-breaking.

Application

It is a grave mistake to read this chapter as a relic of an angry Old Testament God from whom we have been delivered. The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New. The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the one speaking these words. The principles of covenant and consequence, of sowing and reaping, are eternal. While the specific national sanctions of the Mosaic covenant do not apply to the church in the same way, we must not think we can sin with impunity.

When a nation, a culture, a church, or a family decides to reject God's statutes and loathe His judgments, the unraveling begins. We see the early stages of these curses all around us in the West: a sudden terror in our hearts, a wasting away of our strength, our labors becoming useless, and a flight from reality when no one is pursuing. We are sowing the wind and are beginning to reap the whirlwind. This passage should serve as a wake-up call. God disciplines those He loves, and His discipline can be severe.

For the individual believer, the message is clear. Flee from sin. Do not trifle with it. But above all, flee to Christ. The terror, the desolation, the abandonment, the wrath, the curse, all of it was poured out upon Him on the cross. He became the embodiment of these curses for us. He was scattered so we could be gathered. He was made weak so we could be made strong. He rotted in the grave so we could receive eternal life. Our only safety from the righteous judgments of God is to be found in the one who bore those judgments for us. Therefore, let us walk in grateful obedience, not out of fear of the curse, but out of love for the one who became a curse in our place.