April 17, 2022

Today’s reading: Leviticus 26:40-42, 45

Blessings, Curses, God’s Mercy

If you read through Leviticus 26, you will learn about the great and tremendous blessings God has for Israel if only they respect the covenant they made with Him.

We could see here that the Sinaitic covenant Israel had with God comes with physical blessings. From economic to military prosperity, Israel would enjoy such great blessings IF they stay faithful to God.

To top it all, the greatest blessing that Israel would receive is written in Leviticus 26:11-12:

¹¹ I will set My tabernacle among you, and My soul shall not abhor you.

¹² I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.

All the physical blessings would be nothing and vain without this promise. 

In the same manner, all the material wealth we have on this earth would be nothing if we don’t have a personal relationship with the Most High.

However, there are also curses that will happen when Israel would ignore and violate their covenant with God.

You can read a longer list of curses in Leviticus 26:14-39. You can go through them and have a better idea of what is to come to people who don’t respect God’s covenant.

The curses include defeat, desolation, suffering, fear, suffering, food scarcity, barren land, plagues, diseases, and death.

Perhaps, one of the most notable curses here is in verse 29:

²⁹ You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.

This was fulfilled in 2 Kings 6:24-29:

²⁴ And it happened after this that Ben-Hadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria. ²⁵ And there was a great famine in Samaria; and indeed they besieged it until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and one-fourth of a kab of dove droppings for five shekels of silver.

²⁶ Then, as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”

²⁷ And he said, “If the LORD does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?” ²⁸ Then the king said to her, “What is troubling you?”

And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ ²⁹ So we boiled my son, and ate him. And I said to her on the next day, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him’; but she has hidden her son.” 

Just imagine the desperation of these people that they had to kill and eat their children. It was sad but it really happened as part of the curse.

Thankfully, we can still see God’s mercy. After giving a list of curses, the Almighty is still willing to accept Israel. 

We read in Leviticus 26:40-42, 45:

⁴⁰ ‘But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, and that they also have walked contrary to Me,

⁴¹ and that I also have walked contrary to them and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they accept their guilt—

⁴² then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham I will remember; I will remember the land. 

⁴⁵ But for their sake I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, 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.’

Friends, God has given us free will – the ability to choose our actions. 

However, this one thing is true, we can’t choose the consequences of our actions.

Yahweh has set spiritual laws that if we break, it will break us.

When given the choice, may we make the right decision and enjoy God’s blessings and mercies.

🔥 To learn more, I highly recommend you read, “How to be a Good Steward of God’s Blessings.”

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