Ver. 1. Ye shall make you no idols.] [See Trapp on “Ex 20:4”] [See Trapp on “Ex 20:5”] God knew the people’s proneness to idolatry.
Ver. 2. Ye shall keep.] [See Trapp on “Le 19:30”]
Ver. 3. If ye walk in my statutes.] God’s promises are with a condition, which is as an oar in a boat, or stern of a ship, and turns the promise another way.
Ver. 4. Rain in due season.] The best almanac we should rely upon for seasonable weather is our obedience to God, love to our neighbour, care of ourselves.
Ver. 5. Dwell in your land safely.] Confidently, fiducially, as boldly relying upon God’s protection.
Ver. 6. Neither shall the sword.] To devour and desolate it, to eat flesh and drink blood, without measure or safety. A fire it is that feeds upon the people, (Isaiah 9:19) a hungry wolf that snatcheth on both hands. (Isaiah 9:20)
Ver. 7. And ye shall chase your enemies.] If foreigners invade you, you shall be able to quell and quiet them quickly.
Ver. 8. And five of you.] God strengthens or weakens the arm of either party, (Ezekiel 30:24) strikes a panic terror oft, as into those Aramites that heard a hurry noise in the air, made by the angels likely, and fled.
Ver. 9. And establish my covenant with you.] This is more than all the rest. So Genesis 17:20,21, “I have blessed Ishmael; twelve princes shall he beget, but my covenant will I establish with Isaac.”
Ver. 10. Because of the new.] Which shall sufficiently secure you from want, though the old were spent.
Ver. 11. I will set my tabernacle.] The philosopher could comfort himself, that though he had little else to trust to, yet ενθα και οι Θεοι ιεσιν, Here are the gods with me, meaning his household gods. And he in Plutarch said of the Scythians, That though they had no music, nor vines amongst them, yet they had gods. How much more may the saints glory in God’s presence! Habent omnia qui habent habentem omnia. August.
Ver. 12. And I will walk.] [See Trapp on “2Co 6:16”]
Ver. 13. Which brought you forth.] This they often hear of, not by way of exprobration, (James 1:5) but to incite them to thankful obedience. (Deuteronomy 8:11 Joshua 24) Servati sumus, ut serviamus.
Ver. 14. But if ye will not hearken.] Here we may observe twice so many threatenings as promises; which serves to set forth the baseness of our natures, that will do more for fear than love.
Ver. 15. Or if your soul abhor my judgments.] As, so it may prove; such is the vile canker of your corrupt natures.
Ver. 16. I will even appoint.] Put them in commission; send them with such authority as shall be irresistible. Terror, consumption, and the burning ague,] i.e., Terrible sicknesses of all sorts, such as was the sweating sickness, called Sudor Anglicus, quia Anglis perpetuum malum. It reigned here some forty years together, and slew so many, that strangers wondered how this island could be so populous to bear and bury such incredible multitudes. No stranger in England was touched with this disease, and yet the English were chased therewith, not only in England, but in other countries abroad: which made them like tyrants, both feared and avoided, wherever they came. Sennert., De Febrib., lib. iv. cap. 15. Coepit anno 1486. Life of King Edward VI, by Sir John Heywood.
Ver. 17. They that hate you.] A heavy curse to any people, to have mischievous, malicious princes set over them: odious to God, malignant to the people.
Ver. 18. Seven times more.] God will have the better of us, and good reason: for is it fit that he should cast down the bucklers first? Illud quidem sic habeto, said the orator, nisi sanatus animus sit, quod sine philosophia fieri non potest, finem miseriarum nullum fore, Be sure of this; if thy mind mend not, there will be no end of thy misery. Tusc. Quae., Cic. iii.
Ver. 19. Your heaven as iron.] Hard hearts make hard times. “ En quia iam nobis sint ferrea pectora, reddit Coelum etiam nobis durius aere Deus. Et quia iam nummos gignant pro faenore nummi: Ante ferax tellus desinit esse ferax.” Bill. Anthol., lib. ii.
Ver. 20. Your land shall not yield.] See this fulfilled. (Jeremiah 14:1,2, &c., and Joel 1:12 Jeremiah 8:13) And yet their country was called Sumen totius orbis. Cornelius Tacitus yields it to be a fruitful country. So did Rabshakeh long before. (2 Kings 18:32)
Ver. 21. Contrary unto me.] Or, Carelessly before me; as our ungirt Christians, profligate professors do. Seven times more Plagues.] God cannot be exhausted, neither need we fear, as he did of his Jupiter. “ Si quoties peccent homines, sua fulmina mittat Iupiter, exiguo tempore inermis erit.”
Ver. 22. I will also send wild beasts.] As he did. (Numbers 21:6,2 Kings 17:25,2:24 Isaiah 13:21 Jeremiah 5:6)
Ver. 23. Ye. will not be reformed.] Or chastised. God will master us; but the wicked refuse to receive corrections: like naughty boys they prove more stubborn or more stupid: they stout it out, and will not stoop. When God’s “hand is lifted up they will not see; but they shall see and be ashamed.” (Isaiah 26:11)
Ver. 24. Then will I also walk contrary.] God will be as froward as they for the hearts of them. (Psalms 18:20) He will wry with them; neither may they look to get anything of him by wriggling and wrestling.
Ver. 25. I will bring a sword.] God “makes peace and creates evil,” i.e., war. called evil per antonomasiam. Whencesoever the sword comes, it is “bathed in heaven.” (Isaiah 34:5) The quarrel of my covenant.] For breach whereof Jerusalem is long since laid waste, those seven golden candlesticks are broken in pieces. Bohemia lies still a bleeding, which was the seat of the first open and authorised Reformation. And what may we think will become of us all, who, “like men have transgressed the covenant,” (Hosea 6:7) or as Junius reads it, not tanquam homines, but tanquam hominis, &c. We have made no more of breaking covenant, than if therein we had had to do with dust and ashes like ourselves, and not with the great God; who is therefore whetting his sword, and furbishing it for slaughter. Quod Deus avertat!
Ver. 26. And not be satisfied.] As sick of a bulimy, or dog-like appetite, common in times of famine, such as was that of Samaria, Saguntum, Jerusalem, Sancerra, &c.
Ver. 27. But walk contrary unto me.] Or, At all adventures with me.
Ver. 28. Seven times for your sins.] God will not cease pursuing till Sheba’s head be thrown over the wall. Three times in this chapter God raiseth his note of threatening, and he raiseth it by sevens, and those are discords in music. Such sayings will be heavy songs, and their execution heavy pangs to the wicked. In musical notes there are but eight degrees; and then the same returns again. Philosophers, when they distinguish degrees in qualities, do usually make the eighth degree to be the highest. But in the wrath of God against impenitents here in this chapter, Leviticus 26:18,21,24,28, there are no fewer than twenty-eight degrees threatened, as is well observed. Dr Rain.
Ver. 29. And ye shall eat.] As they did. (2 Kings 6:29 Lamentations 4:19) Pone pretium humanae corni, was once heard openly proclaimed at Rome in the reign of Honorius the Emperor. A hard case indeed. Here in England, in Edward II’s time, anno 1316, there was so terrible a famine, that horses, dogs, yea, men and children, were stolen for food, and the thieves newly brought into the jail were torn in pieces, and eaten presently half alive, by such as had been longer there. Alsted, Chron. Speed’s Hist.
Ver. 30. Upon the carcasses.] Or, Stumps and shivers of your idols overturned. (Jeremiah 16:18 Ezekiel 4:3-7) Thus in Ket’s conspiracy, those rebels of Norfolk, that brought with them into the field the pyx under his canopy in a cart, not without masses, crosses, banners, candlesticks, &c., all which trumpery, together with their breaden god, was tumbled in the dirt, amidst the carcasses of their late idolatrous worshippers. Act. and Mon., fol. 1190.
Ver. 31. I will not smell.] I will show myself implacable, inexorable.
Ver. 32. Which dwell therein.] After that you shall be driven out of it.
Ver. 33. And I will scatter you.] As chaff. Compare Psalms 44:11 Zec 7:14. Therefore “fan you, fan you, O nation, not to be desired before the day pass as the chaff,” &c. (Zephaniah 2:1,2) [See Trapp on “Zep 2:1”] [See Trapp on “Zep 2:2”]
Ver. 34. Then shall the land rest, and enjoy her Sabbaths.] Rest from your disquietments, whilst ye sinned upon it; and gat out the heart of it to spend it on your lusts. Compare 2 Chronicles 36:21. Where there is not a resting from sin, the Sabbaths are not truly kept.
Ver. 35. [See Trapp on “Le 26:34”]
Ver. 36. I will send a faintness.] See this explained in Job 15:21,22.
Ver. 37. And they shallfall.] Through feebleness or prefestination.
Ver. 39. Shall pine away in their iniquity,] i.e., saith Diodate, Forsake their hardness of heart, and humble themselves with tears and repentance. But I rather adhere to those who take the words for a dreadful threatening worse than all the rest, viz., that after all their losses, captivities, &c., they that were left should swelter and pine away in their iniquities, as if nothing could awake them.
Ver. 40. A special text touching the rejection and conversion of the Jews.
Ver. 41. Accept of the punishment of their iniquity.] Taking all in good part, as less than their deserts; yea, taking God’s part against themselves, humbly submitting to his justice, and imploring his mercy.
Ver. 43. They shall accept,] q.d., I will give them to do what I require of them. See Leviticus 26:41.