Leviticus — Chapter 26

Chapter 26 opens with the prohibition of idols and the command to observe the Sabbath, before the great blessing-and-curse passage. Lapide: the connection is deliberate — idolatry and Sabbath-breaking are the two root causes of national ruin. All the subsequent blessings and curses flow from fidelity or infidelity to God's law. He notes that God promises 28 (or 29 or 30, according to various counts) specific blessings for obedience, and an equal number of curses for disobedience.

The twenty-eight blessings of obedience (Lev. 26:3-13) include rain in due season, abundant harvests so great that threshing extends to vintage and vintage to sowing, peace, victory over enemies, fruitfulness of population, and above all the divine presence: \"I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people\" (v. 12). Lapide: this final blessing is the greatest of all — the personal indwelling of God in His people, which under the Old Law was mediated through the tabernacle, and under the New is given through the Incarnation and the Eucharist.

I will give peace in your lands: you shall sleep, and there shall be none to make you afraid (Lev. 26:6). Lapide: peace is placed first among the temporal blessings because without it no other good can be enjoyed. The peace promised is first external — freedom from enemies and wars — but also internal: the peace of conscience. Tropologically (Radulphus): \"when ye die\" — for death for the saints is only sleep, by reason of the hope of the resurrection — neither the demon nor a guilty conscience shall terrify you.

I will have respect for you, and make you increase, and multiply you, and will establish my covenant with you (Lev. 26:9). Lapide: the divine regard (respiciam) is the foundational blessing — God's attention and favour toward a people is the source of all other goods. When God \"looks away\" (avertet faciem suam, Lev. 20:5), ruin follows; when He looks upon a people with favour, all things prosper. The New Covenant, established in Christ's blood, is the definitive and irrevocable form of this divine regard.

I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people (Lev. 26:12). Lapide: this verse is cited by St. Paul (2 Cor. 6:16) as fulfilled in Christians, who are the temple of the living God. The tropological sense: God walks among us when He is present to us in the tabernacle of a good conscience, when He directs our steps by His grace, when we live in His friendship. The promise to Israel becomes the promise to the Church.

The maledictions of disobedience (Lev. 26:14-43) are catalogued in terrifying escalation: disease consuming the eyes and the soul, drought and infertility, defeat by enemies, wild beasts consuming the land, sword, pestilence, famine so severe that ten women bake bread in one oven (v. 26), cannibalism (v. 29), and finally dispersion among the nations. Lapide: this prophecy was literally fulfilled in the Babylonian captivity and above all in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, which he documents in detail from Josephus and Eusebius.

The sevenfold multiplication of punishments for continued disobedience (Lev. 26:18, 21, 24, 28) shows the progressive character of divine chastisement. Lapide cites Cicero (lib. 5 de Natura deorum): \"just as neither a household nor a republic governed by a certain rule and discipline would seem to be, if in it no rewards existed for good deeds and no punishments for sins; so if there is no distinction of good and evil men in the governance of God, there is no divine governance of the world at all.\" The punishments of God are pedagogical in intent before they are purely punitive.

The ultimate promise of restoration (Lev. 26:40-45): if Israel confesses its iniquities and those of its fathers, God will remember His covenant with Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham, and restore them to the land. Lapide: this is the perpetual covenant of mercy that underlies even the curse. God's punishments are ordered to repentance, not destruction. He connects this with Ezekiel 36:24-28 and the prophecy of the New Covenant (Jer. 31:31-34), in which God writes His law not on stone but on the hearts of men through the Holy Ghost.

The memorial of the covenant with the three Patriarchs — Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham — as the ultimate ground of God's mercy to His people (Lev. 26:42-45) is the most consoling passage in the entire chapter. Lapide: even in the midst of the severest chastisements, God never utterly abandons His people because of the perpetual covenant made with the Patriarchs. He draws the Christological fulfilment: the New Covenant in Christ's blood is the permanent memorial of God's fidelity, which can never be revoked (Rom. 11:29).

And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the Lord their God (Lev. 26:44). Lapide: this is the pinnacle of the theology of Providence in the entire chapter — God's final word is mercy, not destruction. Even the most severe punishments are ordered to repentance and restoration, not annihilation. He connects this with Paul's great meditation (Rom. 11:26-29): all Israel shall be saved, for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.