Commentaria in Leviticum
Chapter the Twenty-sixth
God promises the Jews twenty-eight blessings, if they keep his laws. Secondly, ver. 14, he threatens them with as many and more curses, if they do not keep them.
1. I am the Lord your God: You shall not make to yourselves any idol, or graven thing, neither shall you erect pillars, nor set up a remarkable stone in your land, to adore it: for I am the Lord your God. 2. Keep you my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord. 3. If you walk in my precepts, and keep my commandments, and do them, I will give you rain in due seasons. 4. And the ground shall bring forth its increase, and the trees shall be filled with fruit. 5. The threshing of your harvest shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and you shall eat your bread to the full, and shall dwell in your land without fear. 6. I will give peace in your coasts: you shall sleep, and there shall be none to make you afraid. I will take away evil beasts: and the sword shall not pass through your quarters. 7. You shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall before you. 8. Five of yours shall pursue a hundred others, and a hundred of you ten thousand: your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. 9. I will look upon you, and make you increase: you shall be multiplied, and I will establish my covenant with you. 10. You shall eat the oldest of the old store, and shall cast away the old when the new shall come. 11. I will set my tabernacle in the midst of you, and my soul shall not cast you off. 12. I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people. 13. I am the Lord your God, who have brought you out of the land of the Egyptians, that you should not serve them, and who have broken the chains of your necks, that you might go upright. 14. But if you will not hear me, nor do all my commandments, 15. If you will despise my laws, and contemn my judgments, so as not to do those things which are appointed by me, and to make void my covenant: 16. I also will do these things to you: I will quickly come upon you in poverty and burning heat, which shall waste your eyes, and consume your lives. You shall sow your seed in vain, which shall be devoured by your enemies. 17. I will set my face against you, and you shall fall down before your enemies, and shall be made subject to them that hate you: you shall flee when none pursueth you. 18. But if even so you will not obey me, I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. 19. And I will break the pride of your stubbornness, and I will make to you the heaven above as iron, and the earth as brass. 20. Your labour shall be spent in vain, the ground shall not bring forth a sprout, nor the trees yield fruit. 21. If you walk contrary to me, and will not hearken to me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you for your sins. 22. And I will send in upon you the beasts of the field, which shall destroy you and your cattle, and make you few in number, and your highways shall be desert. 23. And if even so you will not receive correction, but will walk contrary to me: 24. I also will walk contrary to you, and will strike you seven times for your sins. 25. And I will bring upon you the sword that shall avenge my covenant. And when you shall flee into the cities, I will send the pestilence in the midst of you, and you shall be delivered into the hands of your enemies, 26. After I shall have broken the staff of your bread, so that ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and render it by weight: and you shall eat, and shall not be filled. 27. But if you will not for all this hearken to me, but will walk contrary to me: 28. I will also walk against you in opposite fury, and will chastise you seven times for your sins, 29. So that you shall eat the flesh of your sons and of your daughters. 30. I will destroy your high places, and break your idols. You shall fall among the ruins of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you, 31. Insomuch that I will bring your cities to be a wilderness, and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will receive no more your sweet-smelling odour. 32. And I will destroy your land, and your enemies shall be astonished at it, when they shall be the inhabitants thereof. 33. And I will scatter you among the Gentiles, and I will draw out a sword after you, and your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed. 34. Then shall the land keep her sabbaths all the days of her desolation: 35. When you shall be in the enemy’s land, she shall keep sabbath, and rest in the sabbaths of her desolation, because she did not rest in your sabbaths when you dwelt therein. 36. And as to them that shall remain of you, I will send fear in their hearts in the countries of their enemies: the sound of a flying leaf shall terrify them, and they shall flee as it were from the sword: they shall fall when none pursueth them, 37. And shall fall every one upon his brother as fleeing from wars: none of you shall dare to resist your enemies. 38. You shall perish among the Gentiles, and an enemy’s land shall consume you. 39. And if some of these also shall remain, they shall pine away in their iniquities in the land of their enemies, and shall be afflicted for the sins of their fathers and their own: 40. Until they confess their iniquities, and those of their forefathers, by which they have transgressed against me, and walked contrary to me. 41. I therefore will walk against them, and will bring them into the land of their enemies, until their uncircumcised mind be ashamed: then shall they pray for their impieties. 42. And I will remember my covenant that I made with Jacob and Isaac and Abraham. I will remember also the land: 43. Which when it shall be left by them, shall enjoy its sabbaths, being desolate for them: but they shall pray for their sins, because they rejected my judgments, and despised my laws. 44. And yet for all that, when they were in the land of their enemies, I did not cast them off altogether: neither did I so despise them that they should be quite consumed: and I should make void my covenant with them. For I am the Lord their God. 45. And I will remember my former covenant, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the Gentiles, that I might be their God. I am the Lord. These are the judgments, and precepts, and laws, which the Lord gave between him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai, by the hand of Moses.
is elilim, that is, little nothings, of which I spoke chap. 19, ver. 4; so also by graven thing understand a graven thing not of an image but of an idol.
NOR PILLARS,—In Hebrew, nor a statue, understand of some idol, or that you may adore that statue. So Radulphus.
NOR A REMARKABLE STONE.—In Hebrew, nor a stone of picture or carving, that is, a stone painted or carved, namely with the insignia of some idol. The Septuagint, and from them Tertullian, render, nor a stone to look at, that is, nor an eminent stone which you may continually gaze at and observe like a mark, to worship an idol in it. The Chaldee renders, nor a stone of adoration; for this will be the end and use of this stone: perhaps also the Chaldee, for maskit with caph, that is, of picture, read maskit with chet, that is, of adoration, from the root meaning to bow oneself, and by bowing to adore: whence also follows: “To adore it;” the Hebrew is, to adore towards it, or before it, or that you bow yourselves to it. So also the Septuagint; Vatablus however and the Chaldee render, that you may adore upon it, as if to say: That, leaning or lying upon this stone, you may adore the idol placed on it.
2. AND REVERENCE MY SANCTUARY.—In Hebrew, fear and reverence my sanctuary, that is, hold and honour my tabernacle and temple with reverence.
3. IF YOU WALK IN MY PRECEPTS, etc., I WILL GIVE YOU RAIN.—Note: From this ver. 3 to ver. 13, God promises and assigns twenty-nine (Hesychius numbers, or rather 30) blessings and goods to come to those who keep the laws of God; for so many you will find in the version of the Septuagint here, if you distinguish one from another by the conjunction, and number all the copulas, although in the Hebrew and in the Latin version there are only 28. The first blessing, then, is: “I will give you rain in due seasons;” the second: “The ground shall bring forth its increase;” the third: “The trees shall be filled with fruit,” and so on.
Plutarch relates in the Banquet of the Seven Sages that they asked among themselves: “What house would be best, what family happiest? First Solon answered: That in which the property is neither unjustly acquired, nor is there place in keeping it for distrust, or in spending it for repentance. The second, Bias, said: That in which the master of his own accord behaves such as he is abroad on account of the laws. The third, Thales: That in which, he said, the most leisure is allowed to the master. The fourth, Cleobulus: That in which there are more who love than who fear the master. The sixth, Pittacus: That in which neither superfluities are required nor necessaries wanting. The seventh, Chilon: That which is like a city in which a wise king rules.” These things truly, but more truly Moses here: “That is the happiest family which hearkens to God, and therefore is blessed by him on every side.”