Unfortunately, God’s Covenant children have never been faithful. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23. There is none that are righteous, no not one. Psalm 14:3. And like our first parents, Adam and Eve, we have all gone astray and turned, everyone to his own way. Isaiah 53:6
In this section God warns the people of the consequences that they will face if they disobey his commands.
Leviticus 26:14 “‘But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments, 15 and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, 16 I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it. 17 I will set my face against you, and you will be struck before your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you; and you will flee when no one pursues you.
18 “‘If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. 19 I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like bronze. 20 Your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won’t yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit.
21 “‘If you walk contrary to me, and won’t listen to me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins. 22 I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number. Your roads will become desolate.
23 “‘If by these things you won’t be turned back to me, but will walk contrary to me, 24 then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins. 25 I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy. 26 When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight. You shall eat, and not be satisfied.
27 “‘If you in spite of this won’t listen to me, but walk contrary to me, 28 then I will walk contrary to you in wrath. I will also chastise you seven times for your sins. 29 You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters. 30 I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you. 31 I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation. I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings. 32 I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it will be astonished at it. 33 I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. 34 Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. 35 As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it didn’t have in your Sabbaths when you lived on it.
36 “‘As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword. They will fall when no one pursues. 37 They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues. You will have no power to stand before your enemies. 38 You will perish among the nations. The land of your enemies will eat you up. 39 Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they shall pine away with them.
God warns his children that when they refuse to listen to him, when they live their lives by their own standards, ignoring his commands, when they place their desires over God’s Law, and when they break their Covenant agreement with him, they can expect escalating discipline from God. Why? Because God loves his children, he will never abandon them.
Do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son. Hebrews 12:5-6
As human parents we love our children enough to discipline them. We do not want them to grow up feral. Guiding them toward lives of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control, Galatians 5:22-23, sometimes requires loving discipline.
Notice how God’s discipline escalates.
First, God warns that he will afflict his unfaithful children with illnesses. He will also withdraw his protection from them, allowing their enemies to torment them. They will become so fearful and paranoid that they will flee even when no one pursues them.
Second, God warns: If you, in spite of these things, will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sin. I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like bronze.
Knowing that God promised to chastise them seven times over why did they continue to disobey him? God explains; they had become proud believing that they were powerful enough to do whatever they wanted. They loved themselves and enjoyed their sinful behavior more than they loved God and more than they respected his design for their thriving. They even believed that they had no need of God.
Pride is the exact same sin that led to Lucifer’s rebellion:
[His] heart was proud because of [his] beauty; [he] corrupted [his] wisdom for the sake of [his] splendor…Ezekiel 28:17 [He] said in [his] heart, I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit on the mount of assembly on the heights of Zaphon; I will ascend to the tops of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High. Isaiah 14:12-14
Despite the fact that God warns his children, Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall, Proverbs 16:18, God’s children continued to follow the desires of their hearts doing things that it is shameful even to speak of… Ephesians 5:12. Of course, today we even have “pride parades” in which abominations against God are brazenly celebrated even using God’s covenant rainbow sign. As a result God said that he would make their sky like iron and their soil like bronze. In other words they would experience a drought in the land, causing their crops to fail. They would face economic and societal ruin.
To be made in the image of God is to be made a creature with an essence, a nature that transcends individual desires, conformity to which is the key to being truly human. It means we are born not as autonomous, self-defined beings but rather as creatures who are first of all dependent—always on God as our creator… (Carl R. Trueman, De-creation? World Magazine, 6-10-23)
Because the people, in their pride, continued to stubbornly ignore the chastisement of their Creator, God continues to apply his discipline with three more escalating cycles of punishment, including, wild animals roaming throughout the land, dying livestock, population decline, roads in disrepair, pestilence, starvation leading to cannibalism, desolation, invasion by foreign powers, and slavery.
Because our Heavenly Father loves us he promises to discipline us. When we think that our churches or that our nations are immune to such pronouncements of discipline God asks us a pointed question:
When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it? Amos 3:6
And notice, the discipline fits the disobedience. Among other sins, because Israel had neglected to observe the sabbatical years, they were to be in exile one year for each sabbatical year that they failed to honor — The land will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land.