seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Leviticus 26:1 “‘Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the Lord your God.
2 “‘Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord.
3 “‘If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, 4 I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit. 5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.
6 “‘I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove wild beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country. 7 You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. 8 Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.
9 “‘I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you. 10 You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new. 11 I will put my dwelling place[a] among you, and I will not abhor you. 12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. 13 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.
2 “‘Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord.
3 “‘If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, 4 I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit. 5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.
6 “‘I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove wild beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country. 7 You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. 8 Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.
9 “‘I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you. 10 You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new. 11 I will put my dwelling place[a] among you, and I will not abhor you. 12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. 13 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.
Bounty and safety.... it's a promise.
Here's what the easy English site has to say.
An idol is an image that people worship. People made stones with special shapes that they worshipped. Verse 1 repeats Leviticus 19:4 and the second (2nd) of the 10 commands in Exodus 20:4-6. The 4 words for idols in this verse include every type of false god. Verse 2 repeats the fourth (4th) of the 10 commands, Exodus 20:8-11 and Leviticus 19:30. All this emphasises that the LORD God is the greatest God. He is the only real God. His people must worship him and only him.
People beat corn in order to clean it, so that it stores well. They would start to beat the corn in April. And they started to gather the grapes in October. So here, the Israelites would beat their corn from April until October. This was a very long time to carry out that work. It did not usually take them so long to do it. But here, the reason for all this work was good news! It was because the harvest was so plentiful.
People use grapes to make wine. Wine was important. Water often contained something that gave people diseases. But wine was safer to drink. So the promise was for plenty of bread and wine. They would even throw some of it away at the end of a year! But they had to obey God first. They would also be able to protect themselves against enemies. A sword is a long knife that soldiers used. The wild animals were probably dangerous animals, for example lions and bears.
God also promises that he will live among them. His house was later the building called the temple, which Solomon built in Jerusalem. This temple was the building where the Israelites worshipped God.
People used to put wooden bars on animals when they had heavy work to do. And people sometimes did this to prisoners and slaves too. But here the word seems to be a word picture. In Egypt, the Israelites had to work hard like slaves. But God made them free! The wooden bars did not still push them down. They did not still have to do heavy work for other people. ‘Stand up straight’ means that they could walk easily.
People beat corn in order to clean it, so that it stores well. They would start to beat the corn in April. And they started to gather the grapes in October. So here, the Israelites would beat their corn from April until October. This was a very long time to carry out that work. It did not usually take them so long to do it. But here, the reason for all this work was good news! It was because the harvest was so plentiful.
People use grapes to make wine. Wine was important. Water often contained something that gave people diseases. But wine was safer to drink. So the promise was for plenty of bread and wine. They would even throw some of it away at the end of a year! But they had to obey God first. They would also be able to protect themselves against enemies. A sword is a long knife that soldiers used. The wild animals were probably dangerous animals, for example lions and bears.
God reminds them about these things.
· Who he is.
· What he has done for them.
· Who he is.
· What he has done for them.
God also promises that he will live among them. His house was later the building called the temple, which Solomon built in Jerusalem. This temple was the building where the Israelites worshipped God.
People used to put wooden bars on animals when they had heavy work to do. And people sometimes did this to prisoners and slaves too. But here the word seems to be a word picture. In Egypt, the Israelites had to work hard like slaves. But God made them free! The wooden bars did not still push them down. They did not still have to do heavy work for other people. ‘Stand up straight’ means that they could walk easily.
They had to have faith. Check out the commentary from GodVine this morning.
Therefore God placed them not in a land where there were such rivers as the Nile, to water it and make it fruitful, but in a land which depended wholly upon the rain of heaven, the key whereof God kept in his own hand, that so he might the more effectually oblige them to obedience, in which their happiness consisted.
According to Pliny, Hist. Nat., l. xviii., c. 18, the Egyptians reaped their barley six months, and their oats seven months, after seed time; for they sowed all their grain about the end of summer, when the overflowings of the Nile had ceased. It was nearly the same in Judaea: they sowed their corn and barley towards the end of autumn, and about the month of October; and they began their barley-harvest after the passover, about the middle of March; and in one month or six weeks after, about pentecost, they began that of their wheat. After their wheat-harvest their vintage commenced. Moses here leads the Hebrews to hope, if they continued faithful to God, that between their harvest and vintage, and between their vintage and seed-time, there should be no interval, so great should the abundance be; and these promises would appear to them the more impressive, as they had just now come out of a country where the inhabitants were obliged to remain for nearly three months shut up within their cities, because the Nile had then inundated the whole country. "This is a nervous and beautiful promise of such entire plenty of corn and wine, that before they could have reaped and threshed out their corn the vintage should be ready, and before they could have pressed out their wine it would be time to sow again. The Prophet Amos, Amos 9:13 expresses the same blessing in the same manner: The ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him who soweth seed."
According to Pliny, Hist. Nat., l. xviii., c. 18, the Egyptians reaped their barley six months, and their oats seven months, after seed time; for they sowed all their grain about the end of summer, when the overflowings of the Nile had ceased. It was nearly the same in Judaea: they sowed their corn and barley towards the end of autumn, and about the month of October; and they began their barley-harvest after the passover, about the middle of March; and in one month or six weeks after, about pentecost, they began that of their wheat. After their wheat-harvest their vintage commenced. Moses here leads the Hebrews to hope, if they continued faithful to God, that between their harvest and vintage, and between their vintage and seed-time, there should be no interval, so great should the abundance be; and these promises would appear to them the more impressive, as they had just now come out of a country where the inhabitants were obliged to remain for nearly three months shut up within their cities, because the Nile had then inundated the whole country. "This is a nervous and beautiful promise of such entire plenty of corn and wine, that before they could have reaped and threshed out their corn the vintage should be ready, and before they could have pressed out their wine it would be time to sow again. The Prophet Amos, Amos 9:13 expresses the same blessing in the same manner: The ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him who soweth seed."
Can you imagine? All they had to do was stay close to God and life would be so harmonious!
