Letivicus 26

The Divine Contract: Leviticus 26

The story of the bible is about the relationship between God and God's people, the Israelites.

One way of measuring the relationship is through dialectical tensions - the tensions between what God wants the Israelites to do, and what they do in reality. Another way of measuring the relationship with God is through covenants. So far God has made covenants with Noah, Abraham, and Jacob/Israel. The purpose of the divine covenant established with Abraham and updated with Jacob/Israel is essentially to keep the dialectical tensions to a minimum. In other words, God's covenant is an attempt to ensure the Israelites do as God wishes. The terms are given quite simply: if the Israelites do what God requires, they will thrive. If the Israelites do no do what God requires, they will suffer. In today's selection God makes a contract with the Israelites. It is not quite a covenant, but it spells out punishments and rewards for disobeying and honoring the covenant.

The terms of this contract with Israel are quite explicit in the following passage. The contract consists of a statement of rewards for obedience, a statement of penalties for disobedience, and a message of redemption. The terms are quite eloquent, the language beautiful, so I have quoted liberally. I really do recommend reading this one on your own by clicking the "Leviticus 26" link above.

And now...the divine contract.

Rewards for Obedience: Leviticus 26.1-13
If God's statutes and commandments are observed faithfully, God will:

• Give rain so the land will yield produce
• ...Make that a lot of produce, as well as food and personal security: "Your threshing shall overtake the vintage, and the vintage shall overtake the sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and live securely in your land." (Lev. 26.5)
• There will be peace for you in the land - no enemies or dangerous animals
• You will kill your enemies, even outnumbered 5 to 100 or 100 to 10,000
• You will be fruitful and multiply
• The harvest will be so good that you will have to clear out old grain to make room for the new harvest
• God will place God's dwelling in the midst of the people, and not abhor them

The rewards end with a reminder that forms the tail end of the envelope with Leviticus 25.55 (see above):

"I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be their slaves no more; I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect."
(Lev. 26.13)

Penalties for Disobedience: Leviticus 26.14-46
God lists five stages of disobedience - and in so doing provides six opportunities for the Israelites to repent if they desire. The final stage of disobedience results in near-obliteration for the Israelites.

1. If the commandments and ordinances and statutes are not observed and the covenant is broken:

• God will bring terror upon you: consumption and fever that waste the eyes, causing life to pine away
• Your enemies will eat what you sow
• Your enemies will rule over you
• And you will "flee though no one pursues you"

2. If you continue to disobey:

• God will continue to punish your sins sevenfold
• "I will break your proud glory, and I will make your sky like iron and your earth like copper"
• Your strength will be spent without purpose
• Your land will not yield produce

3. If you continue to disobey:

• God will continue to plague you sevenfold
• Let loose wild animals that will kill your children and livestock and people ("they shall make you few in number, and your roads shall be deserted")

4. If you even then continue to disobey in spite of the punishments, God will continue to be hostile to you:

• Continue to strike you sevenfold for your sins
• "Bring the sword against you, executing vengeance for the covenant" [note that God is serving retribution on behalf of the broken covenant]
• You will withdraw to your cities (due to war), only to be struck with pestilence and delivered into your enemy's hands
• Bread, and ovens to bake it in, will become scarce, "and though you eat, you shall not be satisfied"

5. If you continue to disobey:

• God will punish you himself ("myself") sevenfold for your sins:
• "You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters" (due to lack of food)
• God will cut down the places of worship (presumably even those dedicated to YHWH! In his fury, God would destroy the very altars devoted to him
• "I will heap your carcasses on the carcasses of your idols"
• I will abhor you
• God will destroy your cities and sanctuaries and ignore sacrifices
• The land will be devastated, so that the enemies that come to settle it are appalled

From this final disobedience, the land will finally recovery from the vile people that lived on it, and enjoy a sabbath in desolation (the ones the Israelites did not properly give it) while the Israelites are in exile. The survivors will be so faint of heart in the land of their enemies that "the sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall fall though no one pursues them. They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though no one pursues" (Lev. 26.36-37). The Israelites will die out, conquered by their enemies. The survivors will languish because of their own iniquities and those of their ancestors. [This last piece emphasizes the importance of following commands so that future generations will live well.]

Redemption
If the people confess to their iniquities and those of their ancestors - and admit that they acted hostile toward God so that God acted hostile toward them - then God will remember his covenants with Abraham and Jacob, and the land.

The land is purified in its sabbath when the Israelites are in exile, making amends for their iniquities:

"Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, or abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God; but I will remember in their favor the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, to be their God: I am the Lord.
(Lev. 26.44-45)

The chapter ends:

"These are the statutes and ordinances and laws that the Lord established between himself and the people of Israel on Mount Sinai through Moses."
(Lev. 26.46)