Leviticus 26 | Wayfarer

“‘If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze.’”
Leviticus 26:18-19 (NIV)

Last week I wrote about our granddaughter Sylvie and her two-year-old willfulness. I will never forget the words of our son-in-law as he and our daughter addressed the subject of their daughter’s stubborn self-will.

“We’re going to break this wild pony!” her father proclaimed with all of the love and resolve of a parent who ultimately wants what is best for his daughter. He knows instinctively that allowing her self-centered tenacity to continue will not be healthy for her or those around her in the future.

Exactly.

We are down to the final two chapters of God’s ancient priestly manual for His ancient Hebrew people in the toddler stages of humanity. Today’s chapter reads like a father addressing his toddler in simple and direct terms.

“Trust me on this, kiddo. If you obey and do as daddy says, then things are going to be good between us. Life is going to be better and more enjoyable all around for you. If, however, you refuse to obey and continue in your stubborn, willful disobedience, then I’m afraid life is going to get extremely difficult and not at all enjoyable for you. You can learn this the easy way or the hard way. It’s your choice, but I love you and I am not going to let you get away with being a self-centered little shit-hill.”

[By the way, “shit-hills” is what my grandma Vander Well called me and my siblings after spending a week with us while our parents were on vacation in the UK. I was five. I’m sure we earned the four-letter-laden moniker. It seemed apt in this context.]

What really blew me away as I read through God’s warning to His brood of toddlers is that it is a prophetic foreshadowing of exactly what is going to happen 750 years in the future:

“I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.”

Eventually, about 500 years after God warns His children about this in today’s chapter the Hebrew family splinters into two with the siblings factions at war with one another. That’s what happens when stubborn toddlers grow up to be pig-headed adolescents. About 200 years later, one set of siblings is conquered by the Assyrian Empire. About 150 years after that, the other set of siblings falls to the Babylonian Empire.

“When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.”
Leviticus 26:25-26

When they were conquered, the city of Jerusalem was surrounded in a siege by the Babylon. The Hebrew people stuck inside the walls slowly used up all of their provisions until starvation set in. Jeremiah describes it in his poem of Lamentations:

All her people groan
    as they search for bread;
they barter their treasures for food
    to keep themselves alive.
“Look, Lord, and consider,
    for I am despised.”
Lamentations 1:11

God goes on in Leviticus:

“You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters.” (vs 29)

Jeremiah goes on to describe this eventuality:

“Look, Lord, and consider:
Whom have you ever treated like this?
Should women eat their offspring,
the children they have cared for?”
Lamentations 2:20

God continues in today’s chapter:

“I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins.” (vs. 33)

Jerusalem was utterly destroyed along with Solomon’s famous temple, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Both the Hebrew children of the northern kingdom and southern kingdom were taken into exile by the Assyrians and Babylonians, just as God foreshadowed.

But the bitter consequences of a child’s stubborn will and rebellion do not change the love of a parent. The hope is that those harsh life lessons will eventually lead to a change of heart. God even foreshadows this in today’s chapter.

“‘But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors—their unfaithfulness and their hostility toward me… I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them.’” (vss. 40, 42, 44)

It was while in exile in Babylon that the stories of Daniel, Esther, and Ezekiel take place. Just as promised, God does not abandon them in exile, but uses them to encourage His people and bear witness to their enemies. In the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, God brings His humbled and repentant children back home to Jerusalem like the Prodigal Son in Jesus’ parable. They rebuild Jerusalem and their lives.

There are even more direct prophetic connections and spiritual truths in today’s chapter than I have time and space to unpack. I hope you get the picture. In the quiet this morning I am amazed at the layers of meaning and spiritual truth contained in one chapter. God and humanity, parents and children, prophecy and fulfillment, historical events and metaphorical spiritual lessons that are applicable for me today are all crammed into 46 verses.

As I enter my day, I am reminded that no matter how old I get in physical human terms I never stop being a child of God. Each day my heart, my mind, my actions, and my choices can search out and follow my Father’s will. I can also choose to follow my own stubborn will, self-centered desires, and indulge my base human appetites. It is the same every day. It is my choice. My choices have natural consequences of both flesh and Spirit.

What choices will I make today?

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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“…but I will remember in their favor the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, to be their God: I am the Lord.”
Leviticus 26:45 (NRSV)

When our girls were young I could have said of them that when they were a bit older they would bristle against their father’s authority and would test what I had always said about right and wrong. Our relationship would be strained and stretched thin. They would, in one way or another, choose to do that which was unpleasing to me. They might even rebel against me and say things against me that were untrue. They would likely spurn my advice and choose their own path and experience the consequences of their actions. But, my love for them would not change nor would it change my caring for them in need or my desire to have harmonious relationship with them. In time, their hearts would turn back toward me and we would have a good relationship once again.

As I write that previous paragraph I am recalling specific moments with both of my daughters over the past 15 years. How could I have predicted all of this when they were young? Because it is the natural order of things. Children grow to be their own persons. They bristle against authority and roll their eyes at parents. They test that which they’ve been authoritatively told. They stake their independence and choose their own way. Once they strike out on their own path, their perspective changes. The father who seemed so stupid a few years earlier suddenly seems to have worthwhile wisdom.

God is winding down His ancient law given to Moses. In today’s chapter God delivers an amazingly prescient foreshadowing of what’s to come in His relationship with His children:

“If you will not obey me…” (they wouldn’t)
“If you continue to be hostile to me…” (they would)
“But if, despite [correction] you continue to be hostile…” (they would)
“I will scatter you among the nations…” (He did)
“Those who survive I will send faintness into the heart of the land of your enemies…” (Like Daniel, Esther, Ezekiel, and etc.)
“But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their ancestors…” (they did)
“Then I will remember my covenant…” (He did)

As I read this foreshadowing this morning I am reminded that God is parenting His fledgling children. I could have predicted when our girls were small what was likely to happen, and I’m nowhere near as omniscient as God. Yet there’s an order to God’s creation. There is a natural way of things and God knew how they were going to go. He wove it into telling of the Great Story.

This morning I’m thinking about the natural order of things. This morning our daughter will arrive at the lake after making a 14 hour road trip to join us for a few days. We can’t wait to see her and to be with her. There was a day, not so long ago, when I’m not sure she would have considered a 14 hour road trip just to spend a day or two with dad and Wendy worth her time. But today it is, and we’re overjoyed. It’s the natural order of things. I can fight against it, or I can learn to be at peace with it. I think I will continue to fight my natural inclination toward the former and continue to seek to embrace the latter.