The Unbreakable Covenant Text: Leviticus 26:40-45
Introduction: The Bedrock of Reality
We come now to the end of this great chapter of blessings and curses. Modern man, and particularly the modern Christian, is often uncomfortable with such chapters. We like the blessings, of course. We are quite happy to hear about rain in its season and peace in the land. But the curses make us shift in our seats. The talk of pestilence, famine, and exile seems harsh, severe, almost un-Christian to our sentimental ears. We want a God who is all blessing and no cursing, all grace and no law, all New Testament and no Leviticus.
But this is to want a fantasy god, a god of our own making, and not the God of the Bible. The God who is revealed in Scripture is the God of the covenant. And a covenant, by its very nature, has two sides. It has stipulations, it has promises of blessing for faithfulness, and it has sanctions, or curses, for unfaithfulness. To remove the curses is to gut the covenant of its seriousness. It is to turn the solemn oath of God into a mere suggestion, a friendly piece of advice. It is to make God into a doting grandfather who would never dream of disciplining his grandchildren, no matter how outrageously they behave.
But our God is a Father, not a grandfather. And because He is a good Father, He disciplines His sons. The entire litany of curses in this chapter, escalating in their severity, is not the action of a vindictive tyrant. It is the severe mercy of a covenant-keeping God, designed to drive His rebellious people to the end of themselves, to break their pride, and to bring them to a place of repentance. The curses are not the end of the story. They are the terrible, necessary prelude to the glorious promise of restoration we find in our text today.
What we have in these verses is the bedrock of all reality. It is the final word that stands after all our rebellion has been spent, after all our pride has been shattered, and after all our self-reliance has proven to be a ruinous failure. That final word is this: God keeps His covenant. Our sin, however grievous, is not ultimate. God’s covenant faithfulness is. This is the hope not only for ancient Israel, scattered in the land of their enemies, but for every one of us who has walked in hostility against God.
The Text
‘If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, in their unfaithfulness which they committed against Me, and also how they walked in hostility against Me, I also was walking in hostility against them, to bring them into the land of their enemies, or if their uncircumcised heart becomes humbled so that they then make up for their iniquity, then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and I will remember also My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land. For the land will be forsaken by them and will make up for its sabbaths while it is made desolate without them. They, meanwhile, will be making up for their iniquity because they rejected My judgments and their soul loathed My statutes. Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so loathe them as to bring an end to them, breaking My covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their God. But I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am Yahweh.’
(Leviticus 26:40-45 LSB)
The Great "If": The Nature of True Repentance (vv. 40-41)
The path to restoration begins with a great conditional, a great "if." God sets forth the terms of return. And it is not a matter of simply saying sorry and moving on. It is a profound, soul-deep turning.
"‘If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, in their unfaithfulness which they committed against Me, and also how they walked in hostility against Me, I also was walking in hostility against them, to bring them into the land of their enemies, or if their uncircumcised heart becomes humbled so that they then make up for their iniquity...’" (Leviticus 26:40-41)
Notice the components of this confession. First, it is specific. They must confess their "iniquity" and their "unfaithfulness." This is not a vague, "Mistakes were made." This is an ownership of high-handed rebellion. They walked in hostility against God. True repentance calls sin what God calls it. It does not use therapeutic language to soften the blow. It does not call adultery "an affair" or theft "a misappropriation of funds." It calls it sin.
Second, it is generational. They must confess their iniquity "and the iniquity of their fathers." This is an alien concept to our radically individualistic age. But the Bible understands that sin is corporate. We are born into a web of covenantal relationships and obligations. We inherit blessings, and we inherit sins. We see this pattern in the great prayers of repentance in Scripture. Daniel, Nehemiah, and Ezra all confess the sins of their fathers as their own. This is not to absolve themselves of personal responsibility, but to acknowledge the deep root of the rebellion they are a part of. It is to say, "The apple does not fall far from the tree, and this is our family tree of rebellion."
Third, it requires agreeing with God’s justice. They must confess not only how they walked in hostility against God, but also that God, in turn, walked in hostility against them. This is the hardest part. It is one thing to admit you were wrong. It is another thing entirely to admit that God was right to punish you. True repentance does not complain about the consequences of sin. It does not say, "Lord, I know I messed up, but did you have to be so harsh?" No, it says, with the psalmist, "Against You, You only, have I sinned... so that You may be justified in Your words and blameless in Your judgment" (Psalm 51:4). It accepts the rod of discipline as righteous and good.
Finally, this repentance must be internal. It must be a humbling of the "uncircumcised heart." The heart, in Scripture, is the seat of the will, the intellect, the affections. An "uncircumcised heart" is a heart that is hard, calloused, and insensitive to God. It is covered by the flesh. Physical circumcision was the outward sign of the covenant, but God was always after the inward reality. He doesn't just want external conformity; He wants a new heart. This humbling is the Spirit's work of cutting away the proud flesh of our self-will, making us tender and responsive to God once more. This is the heart surgery that only God can perform.
The Great "Then": The Covenant Remembered (v. 42)
When this true, heartfelt repentance occurs, the covenant pivot happens. The "if" of their confession is met with the "then" of God's remembrance.
"...then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and I will remember also My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land." (Leviticus 26:42)
When the Bible says that God "remembers," it does not mean that He had previously forgotten. God is omniscient; nothing slips His mind. To "remember," in covenantal language, means to act upon a prior commitment. It means to look upon the promise and to move faithfully on the basis of that promise. It is the opposite of forgetting, which means to neglect or abandon.
And what does He remember? "My covenant." Not their obedience, which was spotty at best. Not their merit, which was non-existent. He remembers His own oath. He remembers the unilateral, gracious covenant He made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is crucial. Our salvation, our restoration, does not rest on the flimsy foundation of our repentance, but on the granite foundation of God’s covenant promise. Our repentance is the necessary condition, but His covenant is the ultimate cause.
He remembers the covenant in reverse order: Jacob, Isaac, Abraham. This is likely to emphasize that the promises given to the patriarchs flow down to their descendants, the very people now in exile. And with the covenant, He remembers "the land." The land was a central piece of the Abrahamic promise. It was not just a piece of real estate; it was the stage upon which God’s redemptive drama would unfold. To remember the land is to promise to bring them home.
The Land's Sabbath and The People's Punishment (v. 43)
But before the return, the justice of God must be satisfied. The land itself has a claim.
"For the land will be forsaken by them and will make up for its sabbaths while it is made desolate without them. They, meanwhile, will be making up for their iniquity because they rejected My judgments and their soul loathed My statutes." (Leviticus 26:43)
This is a remarkable statement. The law required Israel to let the land lie fallow every seventh year, a Sabbath for the land (Leviticus 25). It was an act of faith, trusting God to provide. But Israel, in their greed and unbelief, ignored this command. So God says, "Fine. You will not give the land its rest? Then I will." The 70-year exile in Babylon was the direct fulfillment of this. The land lay desolate and enjoyed the Sabbaths it had been denied for 490 years (2 Chronicles 36:21).
This teaches us a profound principle: God will not be mocked. His creation rhythms will be honored, one way or another. You can either rest in faith, or you can be removed in judgment so that rest can occur without you. The land itself is a covenant participant, and it will get its due. While the land is "making up for its sabbaths," the people are "making up for their iniquity." The punishment fits the crime. They loathed His statutes, so they must bear the consequences of that loathing. This is not penance in the Roman Catholic sense, as if they could earn their way back. It is about accepting the verdict, acknowledging the justice of the sentence. It is the humbling process that leads to true repentance.
The Unbreakable Promise (vv. 44-45)
Now we come to the absolute heart of the passage, the immovable anchor of our hope. Even in the midst of judgment, God sets a limit. His discipline is restorative, not annihilative.
"Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so loathe them as to bring an end to them, breaking My covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their God. But I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am Yahweh.’" (Leviticus 26:44-45)
"Yet in spite of this..." These are some of the most beautiful words in all of Scripture. In spite of their generational sin, their hostile rebellion, their loathing of His law, God makes a promise. He will not reject them utterly. He will not break His covenant. Why? Not because of anything in them, but because of who He is. "For I am Yahweh their God." His faithfulness is grounded in His own character. He cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13).
This is a stake driven through the heart of all replacement theology that would say God is finished with ethnic Israel. He says plainly that even in the land of their enemies, He will not bring an end to them or break His covenant with them. His promises to Abraham are everlasting. The Apostle Paul argues this very point in Romans 11, asking, "I ask then, has God rejected His people? May it never be!" (Romans 11:1). There is a future for Israel because God keeps His promises.
He concludes by remembering another covenant, the one made at the Exodus. He brought them out of Egypt "in the sight of the nations." This was a public act. God’s reputation is on the line. He bound His name to this people. To annihilate them would be to dishonor His own name before the pagan world. So, for His own name's sake, and on the basis of His own sworn oath, He will preserve them and restore them. The final declaration, "I am Yahweh," is His signature on the unbreakable contract. It is the final, authoritative word.
The Gospel According to Leviticus
This entire passage is a glorious portrait of the gospel. We, like Israel, have walked in hostility against God. We have loathed His statutes and rejected His judgments. Our hearts are naturally uncircumcised, hard, and rebellious. And God has, in justice, walked in hostility toward us, allowing us to live in the land of our enemy, under the dominion of sin and death.
But God, in His infinite mercy, did not leave us there. He did not break His covenant. Instead, He fulfilled it in the most astonishing way. He sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, to be the true Israel. Jesus lived the perfectly faithful life that Israel failed to live. He was the one whose heart was always humble, always circumcised, always delighting in the Father's law.
And on the cross, He embodied this text. He confessed our iniquity as His own. He was brought into the land of the enemy, death itself. He made up for our iniquity, bearing the full hostility of God against our sin. He paid the debt for every Sabbath we have broken, every law we have loathed. God did not reject Him, but He did forsake Him for a time, so that we would never be forsaken.
And because of what Christ has done, God now "remembers" His covenant for us. When we, by the grace of the Spirit, confess our sin and our uncircumcised hearts are humbled, God does not look at our pathetic repentance. He looks at the perfect work of His Son. He remembers His covenant, and He brings us out of the land of our enemies. He brings us out of the Egypt of our sin and transfers us into the kingdom of His beloved Son.
The promise here is the promise to every believer. "Yet in spite of this", in spite of your recurring sin, your weak faith, your foolishness, "I will not reject you, nor will I so loathe you as to bring an end to you, breaking My covenant with you." Our security does not rest in our grip on Him, but in His unbreakable grip on us. For He is Yahweh our God. And He has spoken.