Leviticus 26:14-43
IN THE first part of this chapter we have God’s promised blessings to Israel if they walked in obedience to His Word, but the next verses pronounce the solemn consequences if they refused to obey. God would punish them for their disobedience even as they deserved it, and the more rebellious they would become as time went on the more severe His judgments.
He would appoint over them terror, the dread of a guilty conscience, and disease so that they would waste away; their enemies would eat up their harvests and put their armies to flight; they would flee when no one pursued after them. If this did not humble them before Him their punishment would be seven times more severe, to break their pride and arrogance. Heaven would become as iron and the earth as brass so that the land would not yield its increase.
Then if these measures failed to bring them to their senses sevenfold more plagues would overtake them. Wild beasts would rob them of their children and their cattle, and reduce their numbers. If this failed to recall them to Himself, then the pestilence would ravage them, and their enemies would slay them in their cities.
Israel were more guilty than the nations that knew not God and God would deal with them accordingly.
The strokes of judgment thus far were indeed heavy, but worse were yet to come as Israel hardened their necks in their stubbornness and rebellion against the Lord. Scarcity of bread and terrible famine would come upon guilty Israel. The flesh of their own children would be their food, so reduced and degraded would they become; their dead bodies would be heaped upon their idols, and so great would be the devastation that even their enemies would be astonished at it. They would be carried away into their enemies’ land, and their own land, which flowed with milk and honey, should be desolate and have rest.
We know that all this happened to Israel, just as God so faithfully foretold. Today they are scattered over the face of the earth, and though a few have returned to Palestine, yet they have gone back in unbelief, and they will not enter into the promised blessings until they own their guilt and turn to the Lord. This will be when He returns as their gracious Deliverer.
Israel’s fall ought to be a lesson to all the nations, but they will not learn this until Israel restored and forgiven, shows them the way.
It is well for us to ponder this sketch of Israel’s history, for it is but the lesson of the human heart wherever man is found. God is a God of grace, yet is He “of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity.” Hab. 1:13. We read in Hebrews 10:30,31: “The Lord shall judge His people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
The law could not show grace; it could only condemn Israel’s every sin and failure. But “grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” John 1:17. In seeking to gain the promised blessing through their own obedience, Israel lost all, and their future blessing will only come to them through Christ, their Kinsman-Redeemer. So now the blessing of God comes to ruined sinners only through Christ crucified and lifted up upon the cross, through Him once dead but risen and now in the glory of God.
ML-12/24/1972