Leading and Loving When It Hurts

Finishing out my reading of Leviticus, I wanted to share a deep impression that God gave me.  You may refer to an earlier post with a silly title (The Levitical Anchor), if you would like more background to this post.

Tracking through Leviticus, God graciously gives sacrifices that his people can give to draw near and be forgiven.  He sets up rules for how they are to live.  These rules are for his glory and their good.  He gives them priests; he sets up holidays.  He finally gives them the Year of Jubilee, which shows something of his character and joy in his people.  And in all of these things, he reinforces and reminds throughout that "I am the Lord your God."  This is his basis for some of his impositions and the grounds for their trust and obedience.

Finally in chapter 26, nearing the end of the book, God gives out blessings and punishments based on their obedience.  Read through the punishments (I will warn you that it is quite long):

Punishment for Disobedience

¹⁴ "But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, ¹⁵if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, ¹⁶then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, withwasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. ¹⁷I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, andyou shall flee when none pursues you. ¹⁸And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins, ¹⁹and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. ²⁰And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.
²¹ "Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you, sevenfold for your sins. ²²And I will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that your roads shall be deserted.
 ²³"And if by this discipline you are not turned to me but walk contrary to me, ²⁴ then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins.²⁵And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the covenant. And if you gather within your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. ²⁶ When I break your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven and shall dole out your bread again by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied.

²⁷"But if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, ²⁸then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. ²⁹You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.³⁰And I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you. ³¹And I will lay your cities waste and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing aromas. ³²And I myself will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled at it. ³³And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.

³⁴ "Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. ³⁵As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it. ³⁶And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues. ³⁷They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though none pursues. And you shall have no power to stand before your enemies.³⁸And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. ³⁹And those of you who are left shall rot away in your enemies’ lands because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquities of their fathers they shall rot away like them.

What strikes you as you read through that?  The fear of God's punishment, of course, but also this phrase: "But if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me..." or something similar is repeated throughout.  See something here?  God is loving them with punishments.  He is drawing them back.  But read through the end.  It broke my heart. 


⁴⁰"But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, ⁴¹so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, ⁴²then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. ⁴³But the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes. ⁴⁴Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them, for I am the LORD their God. ⁴⁵But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the LORD."

⁴⁶ These are the statutes and rules and laws that the LORD made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai.

This last part is quite different from the rest, isn't it?  God has told over and again about his punishments, but even after all of that, even in the midst of all of that not-turning back, he still adds this part to the chapter.  The people have been unfaithful.  God gave them rewards to teach them and even punishments to guide them, but they continued on.  Yet still, God is seeking for their good.  He is making a way even for a broken and rebellious people.  Read verse 44 again.  Yet for all that... I am the Lord their God.  God is still claiming his lordship over this people.  He is faithful and true.  I pray this encourages you today.  God is faithful.  He will remain.  All of Leviticus is about how to be holy, but notice that God is still with us because of his faithfulness.  Let us thank him and adore him above all things.


(bonus points for anyone who can translate the Hebrew)