Blessings for obedience
26
📚“You shall not make for yourselves idols or set up an image or a sacred pillar, or set up any stone image in your land to bow down to it; for I am the LORD your God.2 📚“You shall keep my Sabbaths, and revere my sanctuary; I am the LORD.
3 📚“If you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments and do them,
26:3 Now follows wonderful promises of blessing, but it is all based on the obedience of God’s people to His laws (see also Deut 7:12-26; 11:13-15; 28:1-14. Notice the word “if”. See notes on blessing or blessed at Gen 12:1-3; Num 6:22-27; Ps 1:1-3).🪶
4 📚then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield its crops and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.
26:4Deut 11:14; 28:12. God the Creator is the One Who controls the rain. Withholding rain would be one penalty for disobedience (v 19).🪶
5 📚And your threshing will last until the grape harvest, and the grape harvest will last until sowing time; and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.
6 📚“And I will give peace in the land, and when you lie down no one will make you afraid. And I will eliminate savage beasts from the land, and the sword will not go through your land. 7 And you will chase your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword. 8 📚And five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will put ten thousand to flight, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword.
9 📚“For I will turn to you and make you fruitful, and increase your numbers, and confirm my covenant with you. 10 📚And you will eat old supplies, and clear out the old for the new.
26:10 They would always have enough and more than enough – if they would obey God.🪶
11 📚And I will set my tabernacle among you, and my soul will not abhor you.
26:11 Note at Ex 25:8.🪶
12 📚And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you will be my people.
Curses for disobedience
13 📚I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, so that you would not be their slaves; and I broke the bands of your yoke, and caused you to go upright.
14 📚“But if you will not listen to me, and will not obey all these commandments,
26:14 See Deut 28:15-68; Josh 23:15. The penalties for disobedience recorded here are terrible indeed. And although God warned them in advance exactly what would happen, the people of Israel did not listen, and all these punishments actually came upon them. See also the note at Deut 28:65.🪶
15 📚and if you despise my statutes, or if your soul abhors my judgments, so that you do not obey all my commandments, but break my covenant, 16 📚then I will do this to you: I will appoint terror, consumption, and fever over you, that will consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart. And you will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it 📖. 17 📚And I will set my face against you, and you shall be killed in the presence of your enemies. Those who hate you will reign over you, and you shall run away when no one is pursuing you.
18 📚“And if you will not listen to me in spite of all these things, then I will punish you seven times more 📖 for your sins. 19 📚And I will break the pride of your power, and will make your heavens like iron and your earth like brass, 20 📚and your strength will be spent in vain, because your land will not yield its crops, and the trees of the land will not yield their fruits.
21 📚“And if you proceed in opposition to me, and will not listen to me, I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins. 22 📚I will also send wild beasts 📖 among you which will rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your highways will be deserted 📖.
23 📚“And if you are not corrected by me through these things, but proceed in opposition to me, 24 📚then I will proceed in opposition to you, and will punish you still seven times more for your sins. 25 📚And I will bring a sword on you that will execute vengeance for the covenant. And when you are gathered together in your cities, I will send the plague among you, and you will be given into the hand of the enemy. 26 📚And when I have cut off the supply of your bread, ten women will bake your bread in one oven, and they will give you your bread by weight; and you will eat and not be satisfied.
27 📚“And if in spite of all this you do not listen to me, but proceed in opposition to me, 28 📚then I will also proceed in opposition to you in anger, and I, even I, will punish you seven times for your sins. 29 📚And you will eat the flesh of your sons, and eat the flesh of your daughters. 30 📚And I will destroy your high places 📖, and cut down your images, and hurl your carcasses on the carcasses of your idols 📖, and my soul will abhor you 📖. 31 📚And I will lay your cities waste 📖, and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell the odor of your soothing aromas. 32 📚And I will make the land desolate, and your enemies who live in it will be astonished at it. 33 📚And I will scatter you among the nations, and will draw out a sword after you, and your land will be desolate and your cities laid waste. 34 📚Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths, as long as it lies desolate, and you are in the land of your enemies. Then the land will rest and enjoy her Sabbaths. 35 📚As long as it lies desolate it will rest, because it did not rest during your Sabbaths, when you lived in it.
36 📚“And I will send weakness into the hearts of those of you who are left alive in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf will chase them, and they will run away as if fleeing from a sword, and they will fall when no one is pursuing. 37 📚And when no one is pursuing they will fall on one another, as if before a sword, and you will have no power to stand before your enemies. 38 📚And you will perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies will consume you. 39 📚And those of you who are left will waste away because of their sin in the lands of your enemies, and will also with them waste away because of the sins of their fathers.
40 📚“But if they confess their wickedness and the wickedness of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and also that they have proceeded in opposition to me, 41 📚and that I have also proceeded in opposition to them and have brought them into the land of their enemies, if their uncircumcised hearts 📖 are humbled, and they pay for their wickedness, 42 📚then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac; and I will remember also my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43 📚The land also will be deserted by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. And they will pay for their wickedness because, yes, because they despised my judgments and because their soul abhorred my statutes. 44 📚And yet in spite of all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to completely destroy them and break my covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God.
26:40-44 If only Israel would humble themselves and confess their sins God would be merciful (Isa 1:18; 55:7; Micah 7:18; Luke 24:46-47; 1 John 1:9).🪶
45 📚But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, so that I might be their God. I am the LORD”.
26:45Gen 28:13-15; 35:11-12; 26:2-5; 22:15-18; Ex 6:6-8. God will be faithful to His word even if people are unfaithful (Rom 3:4; 2 Tim 2:13; Titus 1:2).🪶
46 📚These are the statutes and judgments and laws which the LORD established between himself and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.