1. Passive indifference to Divine teachings and appeals: “Not hearken.”
2. Non-compliance with Divine calls and claims: “Not do.”
3. Contemptuous rejection of God’s statutes: “Despise” (Mal_3:14-15).
4. Spiritual revolt from all sacred demands: “Your soul abhor My judgments” (Joh_3:20; Job_24:13). A fearful departure from God.
5. Violation of all covenant relationship: “Ye break My covenant.”
II. An apostate nation’s, calamities.
1. Sin brings disease and physical suffering in its train (Lev_26:16): “Terror, consumption, and the burning ague, thatshall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart.” Impiety inevitably drifts into impurity.
2. Failure and penury follow quickly upon habits of indulgence and impurity: “Sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it” (Lev_26:16). Nothing succeeds in the hands of a dissipated and dissolute man, and he becomes a prey to his hated scorners and rivals.
3. A godless life invites the ravages of the enemy (Lev_26:17). God withdrew His protection, and adversaries swept down upon Israel. They who repudiate Divine government are “taken captive by the devil at his will,” and serve their enemies. Sin is very cruel. It “slays” its victims; slaughters their virtue, peace, happiness, hopes; destroys precious souls.
4. Sin also fills the life of wrongdoers with terrors; they “flee when none pursueth.” Even in nations there is “strong confidence” and “a sound mind” only when conscious of rectitude and the enjoyment of God’s approval. It paralyses a people’s heart to feel that Heaven is alienated and Divine favour lost. Armies, too, have gone with assurance into battles when convinced that God is with them--as Cromwell’s “Ironsides”--while enemies have fled with panic, as did the Spanish Armada, when possessed with alarm that God was against them.
5. There are the yet darker calamities of abject overthrow and Divine desertion: “I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass” (Lev_26:19)--a picture of prostration and helplessness which finds verification in
(2) the desolation of Jerusalem--now a waste scene, and her children the “tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast”;
(3) the buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum--interred beneath volcanic ashes, a monument of sudden wrath on a voluptuous people. Such historic admonitions warn against national impiety, and call mankind to seriousness and prayer; for even in the solemn threatenings of God there lies an overt assurance of mercy, that “if a nation or individual will cease from apostasy and hearken unto Him” (Lev_26:18), He will turn aside the “seven times more” punishment for sins, and show the forgiveness in which He delights, and the salvation which the glorious gospel of His grace proclaims. (W. H. Jellie.)
God’s warning against rebellion
I. How their sin is described, which would bring all this misery upon them. Not sins of ignorance and infirmity--God had provided sacrifices for these; not the sins they repented of and forsook, but sins presumptuously committed and obstinately persisted in.
1. A contempt of God’s commandments.
(1) Despising His statutes; both the duties enjoined, and the authority enjoining them. Those are hastening apace to their own ruin who begin to think it below them to be religious.
(2) Abhorring His judgments. They that begin by despising religion will soon come to loathe it; mean thoughts of it will ripen into ill thoughts of it. They that turn from it will turn against it, and their hearts rise at it.
(3) Breaking His covenant. They that reject the precept will come at last to renounce the covenant. Observe, it is God’s covenant they break--He made it, but they break it. Note--If a covenant be made and kept between God and man, God must have all the honour; but if ever it be broken, man must bear all the blame; on him shall this breach be.
2. A contempt of God’s corrections. Their contempt of God’s Word would not have brought them to ruin if they had not added to that a contempt of His rod, which should have brought them to repentance. Three ways this is expressed.
(1) “If you will not for all this hearken to Me” (Lev_26:18; Lev_26:21; Lev_26:27). If ye will not learn obedience by the things which you suffer, but be as deaf to the loud alarms of God’s judgments as you have been to the close reasonings of His Word, and the secret whispers of your own consciences, you are obstinate indeed.
(2) “If ye will walk contrary to Me” (Lev_26:21; Lev_26:23; Lev_26:27). All sinners walk contrary to God, to His truths, laws, and counsels, but those especially that are incorrigible under His judgments. The design of the rod is to humble them, and soften them, and bring them to repentance; but instead of this, their hearts are more hardened and exasperated against God, and in their distress they trespass yet more against Him (2Ch_28:22). This is walking contrary to God.
(3) “If ye will not be reformed by these things.” God’s design in punishing is to reform, by giving men sensible convictions of the evil of sin, and obliging them to seek unto Him for relief. This is the primary intention, but those that will not be reformed by the judgments of God must expect to be ruined by them.
II. How the misery is described which their sin would bring upon them.
1. God Himself would be against them; and this is the root and cause of all their misery.
(1) “I will set My face against you” (Lev_26:17); i.e., “I will set Myself against you, setMyself to ruin you.” These proud sinners God will resist, and face those down thatconfront His authority; or the faceis put for the anger--“I will show Myself highly displeased at you.”
(2) “I will walk contrary to you” (Lev_26:24; Lev_26:28). “With the froward He will wrestle” (Psa_18:26). When God in His providence thwarts the designs of a people, which they thought well laid, crosseth their purposes, breaks their measures, blasts their endeavours, and disappoints their expectations-then He walks contrary to them. Note--There is nothing got by striving with God Almighty; for He will either break the heart or break the neck of those that contend with Him, will bring them either to repentance or ruin. “I will walk at all adventures with you”; so some read it, “All covenant lovingkindness shall be forgotten, and I will leave you to common providence.” Note, those that cast God off, it is just with Him to cast them off.
(3) As they continued obstinate, the: judgments should increase yet more upon them. If the first sensible tokens of God’s displeasure do not attain their end to humble and reform them, then (Lev_26:18), “I will punish you seven times more”; and again (Lev_26:21), “I will bring seven times more plagues”; and (Lev_26:24), “I will punish you yet seven times”; and (Lev_26:28), “I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.” Note--If lesser judgments do not do their work, God will send greater; for when He judgeth He will overcome. If true repentance do not stay process, it will go on till execution be taken out. Those that are obstinate and incorrigible, when they have weathered one storm, must expect another more violent; and how severely soever they are punished till they are in hell, still they must say there is worse behind, unless they repent. If the founder have hitherto melted in vain (Jer_6:29), the furnace will be heated “seven times hotter” (a proverbial expression used Dan_3:19), and again and again “seven times hotter.” And who among us can dwell with such devouring fire? God doth not begin with the sorest judgments, to show that He is patient, and delights not in the death of sinners; but if they repent not, He will proceed to the sorest, to show that He is righteous, and that He will not be mocked or set at defiance.
(4) Their misery is completed in that threatening (Lev_26:30), “My soul shall abhor you.” That man is as miserable as he can be whom God abhors, for His resentments are just and effective. Thus, “if any man draw back,” as these here are supposed to do, “God’s soul shall have no pleasure in them” (Heb_10:38); and He will spue them out of His mouth (Rev_3:16). It is spoken of as strange, and yet too true, “Hath thy soul loathed Sion?” (Jer_14:19.)
2. The whole creation would be at war with them; all God’s sore judgments would be sent against them, for He hath many arrows in His quiver. The threatenings here arevery particular, because really they were prophecies; and He that foresaw all their rebellions knew they would prove so (see Deu_31:16; Deu_31:29). This long roll of threatenings shows that evil pursues sinners. Here is
(1) temporal judgments threatened.
(a) Diseases of body, which should be epidemical (Lev_26:16). All diseases are God’s servants, and do what He appoints them, and are often used as scourges wherewith He chastiseth a provoking people. The pestilence is threatened (Lev_26:25) to meet them when they are gathered together in their cities for fear of the sword. And the greater the concourse of people is, the greater desolation doth the pestilence make; and when it gets among the soldiers that should defend a place, it is of most fatal consequences.
(b) Famine and scarcity of bread, which should be brought upon them several ways, as:
(i.) By plunder (Lev_26:16): “Your enemies shall eat it up, and carry it off, as the Madianites did” (Jdg_6:5-6).
(ii.) By unseasonable weather, especially the want of rain (Lev_26:19); “I will make your heaven as iron,” letting fall no rain, but reflecting heat; and then the earth would of course be as hard and dry as brass, and their labour in ploughing and sowing would be in vain (Lev_26:26); for the increase of the earth depends upon God’s good providence more than upon man’s good husbandry.
(iii.) By the besieging of their cities; for sure that must be supposed to reduce them to such extremity, as that they should “eat the flesh of their sons and daughters” (Lev_26:29).
(c) War, and the prevalency of their enemies over them: “Ye shall be slain before your enemies” (Lev_26:17).
(d) Wild beasts--lions, and bears, and wolves--which should increase upon them, and tear in pieces all that came in their way (Lev_26:22), as we read of two bears that in an instant killed forty and two children (2Ki_2:24). This one of the four sore judgments threatened (Eze_14:21), which plainly refers to this chapter. Man was made to have dominion over the creatures, and though many of them are stronger than he, yet none of them could have hurt him, nay, all of them should have served him, if he had not first shaken off God’s dominion, and so lost his own; and now the creatures are in rebellion against him that isin rebellion against his Maker, and when the Lord of those hosts pleaseth, are theexecutioners of His wrath and ministers of His justice.
(e) Captivity, or dispersion: “I will scatteryou among the heathen” (Lev_26:33) “in your enemies’ land” (Lev_26:34). Never weremore people so incorporated and united among themselves as they were; but for their sin God would scatter them, so that they should be lost among the heathen, from whom God had so graciously distinguished them, but with whom they had wickedly mingled themselves. Yet when they were scattered Divine justice had not done with them, but would draw out a sword after them, which should find them out, and follow them, wherever they were. God’s judgments, as they cannot be outfaced, so they cannot be outrun.
(f) The utter ruin and desolation of their land, which should be so remarkable that their very enemies themselves, who had helped it forward, should in the review be astonished at it (Lev_26:32).
(i.) Their cities should be waste, forsaken, uninhabited, and all the buildings destroyed; those that escaped the desolations of war should fall to decay of themselves.
(ii.) Their sanctuaries should be a desolation, i.e., their synagogues, where they met for religious worship every Sabbath, as well as their Tabernacle, where they met thrice year.
(iii.) The country itself should be desolate, not tilled or husbanded (Lev_26:34-35); then the land should enjoy its sabbaths, because they bad not religiously observed the sabbatical years which God appointed them. They tilled their ground when God would have them let it rest, justly therefore were they driven out of it; and the expression intimates that the ground itself was pleased and easy when it was rid of the burthen of such sinners, under which it had groaned (Rom_8:20. &c.). The captivity in Babylon lasted seventy years, and so long the land enjoyed her sabbaths, as is said (2Ch_36:21) with reference to this here.
(g) The destruction of their idols, though rather a mercy than a judgment, yet being a necessary piece of justice, is here mentioned, to show what would be the sin that would bring all these miseries upon them (Lev_26:30).
(2) Spiritual judgments are here threatened which should seize the mind, for He that made that can, when He pleaseth, make His sword approach unto it. It is here threatened--
(a) that they should find no acceptance with God (Lev_26:31).
(b) That they should have no courage in their wars, but should be quite dispirited and disheartened (Lev_26:17; Lev_26:36). Those that cast off the fear of God expose themselves to the fear of everything else (Pro_28:1).
(c) That they should have no hope of the forgiveness of their sins (Lev_26:39; Eze_33:10). Note--It is a righteous thing with God, to leave those to despair of pardon that have presumed to sin; and it is owing to free grace, if we are not abandoned to pine away in the iniquity we are born in and have lived in. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)
Imprecations among the ancients
Imprecations like those set forth in our section were not unusual among the ancients; one brief parallel may here be inserted. When the people of Cirrba and others had polluted the temple of Delhi and profaned its holy treasures, the Amphictyons, after having devastated their territories, and sold the inhabitants as slaves, protested and swore that no one should ever cultivate the devoted land, and they publicly pronounced this curse: “If any persons transgress this edict, whether private individuals, or a tribe, or a people, their land shall, bear no fruit, and the women shall bring forth no children who resemble their fathers, but shall give birth to monsters; nor shall the beasts produce young of a normal shape; misfortune shall befall them in their wars, their tribunals, and their public assemblies; they themselves, with their houses and their whole race, shall be destroyed; and they shall never again present to the gods an acceptable offering.” (M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D.)
God’s warning a blessing
In the summer of 1884, when the cholera was raging in Spain, our newspapers constantly warned the people that dirt bred disease, and opened up a highway for the cholera to spread rapidly, if once it reached our shores. This theme was not dwelt on for the sake of frightening people, for the sake of the alarm, but to frighten them into doing a good thing which otherwise they would have left undone. The result, at least in New York City, was most beneficial. Alarm bred action and action cleansed the city as it never had been cleansed before. And not only did we have no cholera, but in the fall of 1885 the death-rate of the city had been unusually low. In this case forewarned was forearmed, and the warning was a blessing, and not a curse. The same is true of the patient and his wise physician. The latter sees, perhaps, that the manner of his patient’s living is injurious. It will end fatally, so he warns him. He does not do it merely to frighten him, but to frighten him away from the folly of his present manner of life. (A. F. Schauffler.)
God’s presence a source of blessing to a nation
When the king removes, the court and all the carriages follow after, and when they are gone the hangings are taken down; nothing is left behind but bare walls, dust, and rubbish. So if God removes from a man or a nation where He kept His court, His graces will not stay behind; and if they be gone, farewell peace, farewell comfort; down go the hangings of all prosperity, nothing is left behind but confusion and disorder. (J. Spencer.)
God unchangeable
The sun hath but one simple act of shining; yet do we not see that it doth unite clay and straw, dissolve ice and water? It hardens clay, and melteth wax; it makes the flowers to smell sweetly, and a dead corpse to scent loathsomely; the hot fire to be cold, and the cold water hotter; cures one man with its heat, yet therewith kills another. What is the reason? The cause is in the several objects, and their divers dispositions and constitutions, and not in the sun’s act of shining, which is one and the same thing. Or let a looking-glass be set in the window. Will it not represent to the eye diversity of objects? If thou go to it in decent and seemly apparel, shalt thou not see the like figure? If dejected, and in coarse raiment, will it not offer to thy view the same equal proportion? Do but stretch thyself, bend thy brow, and run against it, will it not resemble the like person and actions? Where now is the change--shall we conclude in the glass? No; for it is neither altered from the place nor in the nature. Thus the change of love and affection is not in God, but in respect of the object about which it is exercised. If one day God seem to love us, another to hate us, there is alteration within us first, not any in the Lord. We shall be sure to find a change, but it must be when we do change our ways; but God never changeth. Such as we are to ourselves, such will He be to us; if we run stubbornly against Him, He will walk stubbornly against us; with the froward He will be froward, but with the meek He will show Himself meek; yet one and the same God still, in whom there is not the least shadow of change imaginable. (J. Spencer.)
God proceeds from milder to sharper courses
The physician, when he findeth that the potion which he hath given his patient will not work, he seconds it with one more violent; but if he perceive the disease to be settled, then he puts him into a course of physic, so that, medice misere, he shall have at present but small comfort of his life. And thus doth the surgeon too: if a gentle plaster will not serve, then he applies that which is more corroding; and to prevent a gangrene, he makes use of his cauterising knife, and takes off the joint or member that is so ill affected. Even so God, when men profit not by such crosses as He hath formerly exercised them with, when they are not bettered by lighter afflictions, then He sends heavier, and proceeds from milder to sharper courses. If the dross of their sin will not come off, He will throw them into the melting-pot again and again, crush them harder in the press, and lay on such irons as shall enter more deep into their souls. If He strikes and they grieve not or they be so foolish that they will not know the judgment of their God, He will bring seven times more plagues upon them, cross upon cross, loss upon loss, trouble upon trouble, one sorrow upon the neck of another, till they are in a manner wasted and consumed. (J. Spencer.)
