Leviticus 26:25. To avenge the quarrel of my covenant That is, my quarrel with you for your breach of your covenant made with me. When you are gathered Hebrews And ye shall be gathered into your cities, &c.; that is, you shall not dare to abide in the country, but shall be forced to flee from the sword of your enemies into your fortified towns, and leave your villages a prey to them. 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
And I = I also. gathered together = withdrawn or escaped to (compare Jeremiah 21:6-9 . Ezekiel 5:12 ; Ezekiel 7:15 ). 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 fourth stage would be war, plagues, and famine (three curses). 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
(25) That shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant.—Better, that shall avenge my covenant, that is, the sword, which shall avenge the breach of the Divine covenant; a war, which will devastate them because of their rebellion against the covenant God. Hence the Chaldee Versions render it, “that shall avenge on you the vengeance for that ye have transgressed against the words of the law.”And when ye are gathered together within your cities.—When, completely defeated in the battlefield, the... read more
THE PROMISES AND THREATS OF THE COVENANTLeviticus 26:1-46ONE would have expected that this chapter would have been the last in the book of Leviticus, for it forms a natural and fitting close to the whole law as hitherto recorded. But whatever may have been the reason of its present literary form, the fact remains that while this chapter is, in outward form, the conclusion of the Levitical law, another chapter follows it in the manner of an appendix.Chapter 26 opens with these words (Leviticus... 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