Leviticus 26: 1 – 46
Are You Blessed or Cursed?
26 ‘You shall not make idols for yourselves; neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves; nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am the LORD your God. 2 You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary: I am the LORD. 3 ‘If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them, 4 then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5 Your threshing shall last till the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last till the time of sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. 6 I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none will make you afraid; I will rid the land of evil beasts, and the sword will not go through your land. 7 You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. 8 Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you. 9 ‘For I will look on you favorably and make you fruitful, multiply you and confirm My covenant with you. 10 You shall eat the old harvest, and clear out the old because of the new. 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. 13 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves; I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you walk upright. 14 ‘But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments, 15 and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant, 16 I also will do this to you: I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. 17 I will set My face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you. 18 ‘And after all this, if you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. 19 I will break the pride of your power; I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. 20 And your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit. 21 ‘Then, if you walk contrary to Me, and are not willing to obey Me, I will bring on you seven times more plagues, according to your sins. 22 I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number; and your highways shall be desolate. 23 ‘And if by these things you are not reformed by Me, but walk contrary to Me, 24 then I also will walk contrary to you, and I will punish you yet seven times for your sins. 25 And I will bring a sword against you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant; when you are gathered together within your cities I will send pestilence among you; and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. 26 When I have cut off your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall bring back your bread by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied. 27 ‘And after all this, if you do not obey Me, but walk contrary to Me, 28 then I also will walk contrary to you in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. 29 You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. 30 I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your idols; and My soul shall abhor you. 31 I will lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet aromas. 32 I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it. 33 I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you; your land shall be desolate and your cities waste. 34 Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. 35 As long as it lies desolate it shall rest— for the time it did not rest on your Sabbaths when you dwelt in it. 36 ‘And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee; they shall flee as though fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues. 37 They shall stumble over one another, as it were before a sword, when no one pursues; and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. 38 You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. 39 And those of you who are left shall waste away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; also in their fathers’ iniquities, which are with them, they shall waste away. 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. 43 The land also shall be left empty by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; they will accept their guilt, because they despised My judgments and because their soul abhorred My statutes. 44 Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God. 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.’” 46 These are the statutes and judgments and laws which the LORD made between Himself and the children of Israel on Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.
Today we are going to take our own inventories. You are not going to hand in your test. This is between our Holy Master and you personally. As we start off I am anxious to share with you some of the blessings and curses that can happen to us. We will then move on to take a review of today’s scripture verses.
What would you like for your life- Blessing or Curse? As a Loving Father our Holy Yahweh God offers all who are His children an ‘umbrella’ of protection. To stay under this umbrella we have to seek Him, His heart, and follow His commands. The nice thing about our Magnificent and Pure God is that He does not have tons of rules. What He does require from us are straight forward. If we strive to obey all that He requires then we will be blessed and protected. Blessed, not in the form of money, we have to get outside of that mind set, blessings come in many ways.
If we choose to step outside of that umbrella of protection, we are stepping outside of a Righteous and Honorable God’s protection and may fall under a curse. That is a dangerous place to be; of the world and Satan’s prey. We will see that our Holy God will also send our enemies to overtake us, and without His protection…… well, it is a sure loss.
So today I want to list some of the blessing we can get in our lives for obedience:
1. Exaltation. The Lord promised the children of Israel that if they should hearken or listen and obey His commandment, then He will exalt them above all the nations upon the earth. When you obey the commandments of the Lord as written in the Bible He promises that He will exalt you wherever you go. Everyone will see that the hand of the Lord is upon you.
2. Prosperity. The Lord promised the Children of Israel that when they obey His commandment then as listed in the book of Deuteronomy 28:3-5, 8 “blessed shalt thou be in the field….and the fruit of the ground, and the fruit of thy cattle… blessed shall be thy basket and thy store….The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee”-. This promise is being made to each one of us today. The Lord has promised us that He will make us prosperous if we walk in his commandment. You will never lack.
3. Victory. The Lord said unto the Israelites through His prophet Isaiah chapter 54:17, “The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face: they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways”. When you walk in the fear of the Lord people will rise up against you but their counsel shall not stand because “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper…”-
4. Head and not the Tale- The head is the part of the body that makes the decision, while the tale is dragged around. God Is not promising you that He will make you the boss of your company or head of government, but what He Is telling you that He will exalt you and people will come to you instead of you going to them for advice and blessing. He will set you up and you will be respected by even your enemies.
5. Fruitfulness. The book of Psalms 128:3 Children are a heritage from the Lord and is therefore seen as a blessing. The Lord has promised that the woman womb will be fruitful when you obey the Lord. One of the things that is very noticeable with the Israelites is that they had a lot of children.
6. Health. Sickness is not of God (though at times he will afflict you with sickness when you do not obey the Lord). When you obey the Lord He will not allow sickness to have free reign in your life. If He does it is to build you or to prove a point in your life. Many people are sick because of their action, for example they consume too many sweets.
Now if you will not be faithful to Almighty God then the opposite conditions will happen. We do not want these:
1. Humiliation –you will feel ashamed and foolish in various situations that occur in your life
2. Barrenness- The opposite of fruitfulness is barrenness. One of the reasons why many #women cannot get pregnant is because a curse exists in the family or specifically on her life, or that of the husband.
3. Sickness of every kind. One point of evidence in being cursed is when sickness is upon the land as Deuteronomy 28:27-29 points out, “The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. At midday you will grope about like a blind person in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.”-
4. Poverty and failure. It is not the will of God that his people live in poverty, poverty or lack is not for the children of God. If you are always working but can’t seems to make ends meet no matter what you do, or you never have enough then you may be under a curse.
There are some people that are always broke, always in debt and always lacking. Today they are on top, but tomorrow they are on their face. It does not matter what they do or how much money they received each month, they always lack. I do agree that at times the Lord will test your faithfulness or bring you through a process of lack, but this is not forever. If you are always ‘going through a process’ then your process may be caused from a curse. Additionally, if everything you put your hands to fail, then something is seriously wrong. No one always have bad luck or failure.
5. Defeat. When the Children of Israel walked contrary to the will of God, God would at times allow their enemies to come upon them and defeat them. You can know you are under a curse when people are always fighting against you and succeeding, especially when you are innocent. It is not natural for people always to fight against you and win if they do then you need to take a check of your life.
6. Tale and not the head. If the head is the one that makes the decision, then the tale is the one that is always following or being drag along. God does not expect or create us to always be beneath others but he wants us to be above. If people are always stepping on you and your always be dragged along, then your life may be under a curse.
The Book now virtually closes with the recognition that Israel was bound to Him, and only Him, by the covenant. Yahweh reaffirms His authority over them and then confirms the blessings and cursing. If they walk with Him faithfully, blessing, but if they turn away there can only be disaster.
26 ‘You shall not make idols for yourselves; neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves; nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am the LORD your God.
First of all they must recognize that Yahweh, the invisible Holy One, the One Who Is there with them, Is their God. Thus in lieu of this they were to make no idols nor were they to raise up a graven image or a pillar or any figure of stone for the purpose of bowing down to them. The whole paraphernalia of idolatrous worship was to be avoided.
2 You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary: I am the LORD.
The people of God are to keep His Sabbaths and reverence His Sanctuary thus indicating their submission to the signs of His Lordship and presence. What we believe is indicated by the preferences we choose, and this is especially true of worship. If our worship becomes debased, so also will our view of God.
3 ‘If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them, 4 then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5 Your threshing shall last till the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last till the time of sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.
The first promise in response to their obedience is that He would send the rain at the right times, when they were due, and would make the land and the trees fruitful. Their agricultural way of life would prosper. They would be continually busy because they would have so much grain to thresh that by the time they had completed the task the vintage harvest would be ready. Then there would be so many grapes that by the time that they had gathered in the fruit it would be time for sowing. They would be full of all manner of food. And they would dwell securely.
6 I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none will make you afraid; I will rid the land of evil beasts, and the sword will not go through your land.
Furthermore the land would know peace. They would be able to rest content with a total sense of security. They would not be troubled either by plagues of evil beasts or by the swords of evil men. Yahweh would keep their land free of both.
7 You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. 8 Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.
When faced with an enemy they would always be victorious. When they chased them they would fall before them. To deal with a hundred they would only require five men. And their own medium unit of ‘a hundred’ would be sufficient to deal with ten large units of ‘a thousand’ each (ten thousand). For their enemy would be unable to resist them.
9 ‘For I will look on you favorably and make you fruitful, multiply you and confirm My covenant with you.
Our Great and Mighty God Yahweh would watch over them, and take notice of them and watch out for them, and cause their numbers to multiply. He would make His covenant with them firm and strong, fulfilling its potential.
10 You shall eat the old harvest, and clear out the old because of the new
Such would be their harvests that they would find that they always had good stocks of wheat and barley continually dating back a long time. They would never find themselves without. And because they would have such abundance they would have to bring the old out in order to make way for the new.
11 I will set My tabernacle among you, and My soul shall not abhor you.
His tabernacle would be set among them. He would be there with them. And there would be nothing about them that He could hate, because their hearts were truly set towards Him. They would be able to be confident that His love was set on them and that there was no barrier between Him and them. With our Holy God on your side you do not need anything more.
12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.
El Shaddai Himself would walk among them and be their God, and they would be His people. It would be like the Garden of Eden restored. Who in their right mind would not want all this to happen? It was our Holy God’s purpose that He might be their God, recognized, acknowledged, worshipped and obeyed. Then would they in turn be His people, watched over, protected, honored, prosperous and secure.
13 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves; I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you walk upright.
For it was for this that He in His mighty power and presence as The Great and Mighty Yahweh God had brought them forth safely from the land of Egypt so that they would not be bondmen but free. That was why He had broken the bar of their yoke so that they could go upright. All this then would be so if only they were responsive and obedient to His will as revealed in His covenant.
The same equally applies to Christians. If we would enjoy overflowing spiritual blessing it can only result from obedience. But without responsive obedience there will be no genuine blessing. It is those who hear the Master’s voice and walk in the Master’s way (John 10.27-28), and only they, who will enjoy the fullness of what He wants to give. Only fullness of obedience will bring fullness of blessing.
Jesus constantly stressed that there were only two ways, one was the narrow way of obedience, the afflicted way, the hemmed in way, the way that leads to life, where men do not do their own will but His will. The other was the broad and easy road and it leads to destruction for all. There is no middle way (Matthew 7.13-14). The one way was to build on the solid foundation, the rock, of hearing His words and doing them, the other way was to build on sand, hearing His words but not doing them (Matthew 7.24-27). We need to take note that both hear His words. It is the way that they then take that reveals them for what they are. Not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter under the Kingdom of God, only those who do the will of His Father Who Is in Heaven (Matthew 7.21). If we try to dilute His words then we all need to know that is will be at our own peril.
The devastating consequence of disobedience and unfaithfulness is now laid out in all its detail. We have here a foretaste of the history of Israel, for Moses was a prophet. But this was not just prophecy, they were the words of someone who was aware of the troubles and problems that could come on an unprotected nation, and who recognized what God could bring on them from the lessons of history. Moses was well aware of those. He would have both seen and heard about such things during his upbringing. It was enlightened awareness, not the trickery of an oracle which could claim to be right whatever happened.
14 ‘But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments, 15 and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant,
Here is the picture of the one who will be cursed. He does not obey God. He does not love His word. It is not that he does not believe. Like the devils he believes and trembles. It is that he does not have responsive faith. He does not hear God’s voice and respond to it, he does not do what God requires in His commands. He chooses to reject God’s statutes and live his own life. He wants to be the captain of his own life. He does not like what God demands, thus he turns from it and breaks the covenant. He does not live as God requires.
16 I also will do this to you: I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
To such a person God will react with the very opposite of His blessings. We need to also take note that God says that He will be directly active in it. It may not seem like that, but that will be how it will be. He will be against them. He will put them through hard and difficult times, He will make them afraid with wasting disease and fever, their eyes will suffer, and their inner hearts will be full of grief. When they sow their seed it will be in vain. It is the enemy who will eat of it. In every way times will be hard.
Sometimes such things happen to us as a test, to see whether we will be faithful or not, and to chasten us and purify us so that our love and response to Him becomes stronger (Hebrews 12.5-11). But we need to be aware that if we claim to be His people, then disobedience to his will can result in what goes beyond chastening to a harshness of judgment that will bring us to deep repentance. As we discover at the end of the chapter this would be His purpose for Israel.
17 I will set My face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you.
For He will set His face against them, and when their enemies come they will be unable to combat them. They will be beaten down before them. They will come under the ruler ship of tyrants who do not seek their good. Things will be so bad that they will even run away when there is nothing really to be afraid of. Their nerve will have gone. They will be without faith.
This picture is not of the outside world but of the supposed people of God. We need to be afraid when we do not look to God in obedience, for then we face a long track downwards. God is not mocked.
18 ‘And after all this, if you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.
If all these problems do not wake you up to repent and fall upon the Mercy and Grace of our Holy God then their chastisement will increase sevenfold. Instead of sevenfold divine blessing there will be sevenfold divine chastisement.
19 I will break the pride of your power; I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. 20 And your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit.
He will break the pride of their power. They will not be so sure of their leaders, or confident in themselves. Our Great God will break that in which they trust, that of which they are so proud (Isaiah 22.8-12).
The heavens would be like iron. There would be no rain for them. The earth would be like bronze, hard and unyielding. All their efforts to produce grain and fruit would be in vain. The land would not yield its increase. The trees would not yield their fruit.
21 ‘Then, if you walk contrary to Me, and are not willing to obey Me, I will bring on you seven times more plagues, according to your sins. 22 I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number; and your highways shall be desolate.
Still if they will disobey Him and would not listen, the plagues and troubles that came on them would increase seven times because their sins had increased seven times. When the land becomes hardened animals seek out prey. Guess where they wind up at? These wild animals will kill off the livestock and even attack them so that their numbers decreased (2 Kings 17.25-26). Their ways would be desolate.
23 ‘And if by these things you are not reformed by Me, but walk contrary to Me, 24 then I also will walk contrary to you, and I will punish you yet seven times for your sins.
If they still would not listen and be reformed, but continued to walk in the opposite direction to His will, then He would walk in the opposition to them and smite them another seven times for their sins. With the previous warning this made seven times seven. The number seven of blessing was being turned against them and becoming the number seven of doom.
25 And I will bring a sword against you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant; when you are gathered together within your cities I will send pestilence among you; and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
The bombardment will intensify if they still would not listen, a powerful enemy would come against them, one who would strike with the sword
Look again at the the phrase ‘vengeance of the covenant’. This covenant which was intended to be such a blessing to them would become the instrument of their judgment. God’s goodness spurned becomes a terrible weapon against men.
26 When I have cut off your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall bring back your bread by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied.
From war comes famine. Their staff of bread, that food that they relied on and leaned on, would be broken. There would be so little that one small oven would be sufficient for ten women to bake in. Indeed the food would be rationed and handed out by weighing it, as in a siege, and there would never be enough to go around. They would eat and not be satisfied.
27 ‘And after all this, if you do not obey Me, but walk contrary to Me, 28 then I also will walk contrary to you in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.
Again if they still would not listen but continued to walk contrary to Him, His anger would be roused and He would walk even more contrary to them. They would be chastised seven times for their sins. Divine retribution would come on them.
29 You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.
The end result is cannibalism. They would come to such a state that they would eat their own children because their hunger had become so desperate.
30 I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your idols; and My soul shall abhor you.
We see here examples of their disobedience. They would be offering incense at high places where altars had been built, and worshipping before sun-images. So God would destroy their high places and would cut down their sun-images and then toss their own bodies on to the bodies of their idols. And because of their idolatry God would have an aversion against them. (Ezekiel 6.6-7).
31 I will lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet aromas. 32 I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it.
The land would be invaded, their cities laid waste, their holy place become desolation, and God would not regard their offerings. The land will be so desolated that even their enemies will be astonished at it.
33 I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you; your land shall be desolate and your cities waste.
Just as Israel were to scatter the Canaanites among the nations, so would be done to Israel. They in their turn would be scattered among the nations, and their land would be desolated, and their cities laid waste.
34 Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest and enjoy its Sabbaths.
For one way or another God would ensure that His land enjoyed its Sabbaths, and if Israel would not ensure it voluntarily, then He would bring it about compulsorily. If Israel failed to observe God’s sabbatical years, then God Himself would require them of them. For every year in which they had failed to give the land its rest, and more, God would give the land its rest. It would be deserted, and what would grow would grow of it. There would be no sowing, no reaping, only continual desolation.
35 As long as it lies desolate it shall rest— for the time it did not rest on your Sabbaths when you dwelt in it.
What they sowed in sin, they would reap in judgment. The desolated land would have the rest that they had failed to give it. If they refused to obey God he would bring His purpose about in His own way. Man’s disobedience cannot thwart God; it can only bring problems on himself.
36 ‘And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee; they shall flee as though fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues. 37 They shall stumble over one another, as it were before a sword, when no one pursues; and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies.
But all the devastation is not ended. The judgment will still continue to follow the remnant who survives. They will be faint in heart. Even the sound of a leaf driven by the wind will alarm them. Their state will be such that they will imagine fears even when there are none. They will run even when there is no enemy, pursued by their own fears. They will fall over one another in their desperation to escape from their illusions. They will be without the strength to stand up to their enemies. They will be possessed with imaginary terrors.
38 You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.
For if they behaved like the Canaanites then the same exclusion would come on them too. What they had feared will actually happen.
39 And those of you who are left shall waste away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; also in their fathers’ iniquities, which are with them, they shall waste away. 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.
Once the shock of the destruction of their country and exile has taken hold of them, they will come to their senses and recognize what they have done. They will pine away because of their sin and the sin of their fathers. They will admit their sin and their guilt, and the ways in which they have disobeyed His laws, and have walked in the opposite way to that in which He wanted them to go. For they will recognize that this is what has made God walk contrary to them, which has resulted in their being in the land of their enemies.
Then everything will depend on their response. The uncircumcised heart is one that has not responded to the act of circumcision by genuine covenant obedience. Being outwardly circumcised, God is saying, is of no use unless the heart is circumcised as well. For circumcision to mean anything it must be revealed in the direction which their hearts take. A circumcised heart is one that loves God and His covenant, and reveals it by obedience.
For we need to recognize the important lesson that while God forgives immediately, very often the consequences of our sins go on. We cannot call back what we have done.
43 The land also shall be left empty by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; they will accept their guilt, because they despised My judgments and because their soul abhorred My statutes.
As repentant believers then have to patiently accept the punishment of their iniquity, while their land remained in desolation. And this would be because they had rejected His ordinances and hated His requirements as expressed in His statutes.
44 Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God.
Out of all this hurt and desolation the hope that is prevalent is that He would not forget them forever. While they had broken the covenant, He would not. He therefore would not totally reject them, or hate them, or destroy them utterly. He would not break His covenant with them. And this was because of Who He Is. He Is Yahweh, the One Who will be what He wants to be, Who does what He wants to do, Who brings into being what He wants to bring into being. Thank You Merciful God.
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.’”
For their sakes He will remember the covenant He had made with their ancestors when He brought them forth from the land of Egypt in the sight of all the nations, revealing Himself as their God, as Yahweh. For His own name’s sake He will deliver them and restore them that all the world might know that He had the power to do so, and that He was faithful and true.
It is important to recognize that He did do so. He brought them back to the land and established them there. The opportunity was there for them once more to be His people. And He brought their Messiah and called on them to respond to Him.
46 These are the statutes and judgments and laws which the LORD made between Himself and the children of Israel on Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.
This further record is now closed in writing stating what is in the record.
