Leviticus 26:19-20. The pride of your power That is, your strength, of which you are proud, your numerous and united forces, your kingdom, yea, your ark and sanctuary. I will make your heaven as iron The heavens shall yield you no rain, nor the earth, fruits. Your strength shall be spent in vain In ploughing, and sowing, and tilling the ground. read more
Promises and warnings (26:1-46)God reminded the people to put into practice all they had been taught concerning him, his sabbaths and his sanctuary (26:1-2). Obedience would bring agricultural prosperity, social contentment, victory over enemies, and a comforting sense of God’s presence (3-13). Disobedience would bring widespread disease, defeat by enemies, drought and destruction, till they awoke to their sin and turned again to God (14-20).If the people failed to respond, God would increase... read more
of. Genitive of cause, the power being the cause of the pride = your great pride. Compare Ezekiel 30:6 . So Ezekiel 24:21 , where the sense is lost in Authorized Version by the rendering "the excellency of your strength". read more
of the land. Some codices, with Samaritan Pentateuch and Septuagint, read "of the field". read more
19. I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass—No figures could have been employed to convey a better idea of severe and long-continued famine. read more
G. PROMISES AND WARNINGS ch. 26"In the ancient Near East it was customary for legal treaties to conclude with passages containing blessings upon those who observed the enactments, and curses upon those who did not. The international treaties of the second millennium BC regularly included such sections as part of the text, with the list of curses greatly outnumbering the promises of blessing. In the Old Testament this general pattern occurs in Exodus 23:25-33, Deuteronomy 28:1-68, and Joshua... read more
3. The warning for contempt of the law 26:14-33These punishments would come on the Israelites not for individual errors and sins but for a settled contempt for the whole covenant. They manifested such contempt in presumptuous and obstinate rebellion against the law (Leviticus 26:14-15)."In the curses the converse of the blessings is spelled out. It was usual in legal texts for the curses to be much fuller and longer than the blessings section (cf. Deuteronomy 28 . . .). But this disproportion... read more
The second stage of barren land might follow (one curse; cf. 1 Kings 17:1). read more
Concluding ExhortationsSimilar exhortations are found at the conelusion of other codes of laws, as in Exodus 23:20,; and frequently in Deuteronomy, e.g. in Leviticus 28. The leading ideas and phraseology are the same in all. There is the same insistence on the holy character of Jehovah, the same demand for holiness on the part of His people, the same promises on condition of obedience, and the same warnings against being led astray by the evil example of the idolatrous nations among whom they... read more
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Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible - Leviticus 26:3-45
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... read more