The Eschatological Judgment of God upon Israel

The Curse for Breaking the Covenant of God

Leviticus 26:14-46 (LITV)

14 And if you will not listen to Me, and do not do all these commands; 15 and if you reject My statutes, and if your soul hates My judgments, so as not to do all My commands, to the breaking of My covenant; 16 I will also do this to you, and I shall appoint terror over you, the wasting, and the burning fever, destroying the eyes, and consuming the soul; and you shall sow your seed in vain, and your enemies will eat it. 17 And I shall set My face against you, and you shall be smitten before your enemies; and those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee, and there will be no one pursuing you.

18 And if after these things you will not listen to Me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sin; 19 and I will break the pride of your strength, and will make your heavens as iron, and your earth as bronze; 20 and your strength shall be consumed in vain, and your land shall not give her produce, and the tree of the land shall not give its fruit.

21 And if you walk contrary to Me, and are not willing to listen to Me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins, 22 and send against you the beast of the field, and it shall bereave you. And I shall cut off your livestock and shall make you few, so that your ways are desolate.

23 And if you are not chastised by Me by these things, and shall walk contrary to Me, 24 then I, I also, shall walk contrary to you, and shall smite you, even I, seven times more for your sins; 25 and I will bring a sword on you, executing the vengeance of the covenant, and you shall be gathered to your cities, and I shall send pestilence into your midst; and you shall be given into the hand of an enemy. 26 When I break to you the staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and shall give back your bread by weight; and you shall eat, and shall not be satisfied.

27 If you will not listen to Me for this, and shall walk contrary to Me, 28 then I also will walk contrary to you in fury. I also will chastise you, I also, seven times for your sins. 29 And you shall eat of the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat of the flesh of your daughters. 30 And I shall destroy your high places and cut down your altars, and shall put your dead bodies on the carcasses of your idols. And My soul shall loathe you. 31 And I shall make your cities a waste, and shall make your sanctuaries desolate; and I shall not smell your sweet fragrances. :32 And I shall make the land desolate, and your enemies who are living in it shall be astonished at it. 33 And I will scatter you among nations, and shall draw out the sword after you, and your land shall become a waste, and your cities shall be a desolation.

34 Then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths, all the days of the desolation. And you shall be in the land of your enemies; then the land shall enjoy rest, and shall enjoy its sabbaths. 35 It shall rest all the days of the desolation, that which it has not rested in your sabbaths while you lived on it.

36 And those who are left of you, I shall also bring a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a driven leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword; and they shall fall when no one pursues. 37 And they shall stumble upon one another, as if it were before the sword, when no one pursues. And you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. 38 And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall devour you. 39 And of those who are left of you, they shall putrefy in their iniquity, in the lands of your enemies; and also in the iniquities of their fathers, they shall putrefy with them.

40 And if they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass with which they have trespassed against Me; and, also, that they have walked contrary to Me, 41 that I also have walked contrary to them, and I have brought them into the land of their enemies; if their uncircumcised hearts are then humbled, and they then have accepted punishment for their iniquity; 42 then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and also My covenant with Isaac, and I shall also remember My covenant with Abraham, and I shall remember the land.

43 For the land shall be forsaken by them, and shall satisfy for its sabbaths, in the desolation without them. And they shall satisfy for their iniquity, because, even because, they have kicked against My judgments, and their soul has loathed My statutes. 44 And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I hate them, to consume them, to break My covenant with them; for I am Jehovah their God. 45 Then I shall remember for them the covenant of the first fathers, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God; I am Jehovah.

46 These are the statutes and the judgments and the laws which Jehovah has given between Him and the sons of Israel, in Mount Sinai, by the hand of Moses.

In Lev. 26 we find the blessings and curses regarding the keeping of the Law of God. If Israel keeps the covenant law of God, then they are blessed in all that they put their hand to. But if they break the covenant with God, but not keeping his law, then God will bring judgment upon them.

What is different in this record of the blessing and curses from that recorded in Deuteronomy 28 is that it is written as a progression. As I set up the paragraphs according to the narrative there are seven progressive steps to the judgment of God upon Israel in rebellion. Within these seven sections are four sevens mentioned, vs, 18, 21, 24, 28. There is a direct corollary with the Revelation of Jesus, where we find seven seals, seven thunders, seven plagues and seven angels with seven bowls filled with God's wrath.

This eschatological judgment of God was first carried out in the Babylonian Exile. Where many of Israel were held captive for seventy years. In the writings of Daniel we see him praying at the end of the seventy years for God to keep his promise and return the repentance Israelis to the land. In Nehemiah and Ezra we have the history of their return and the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem.

Isaiah, Jeremiah and Lamentations were all written during the time of the Babylonian exile. Within the context of the Exile prophetic writings we find mention of yet a future time, when another judgment would take place and the Messianic Kingdom would be established.

During this future eschatological event, we find once again the progression of God's judgment upon rebelling Israel.

Both Leviticus 26 and the Revelation tells us the details of what would happen and did happen in Israel and Jerusalem during what Josephus termed the War of the Jews, in the time frame of 63-70 AD.