Imamat 26:1-4

Exhortation to Obedience

26:1 “‘You must not make for yourselves idols, ¹  so you must not set up for yourselves a carved image or a pillar, and you must not place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down before ²  it, for I am the Lord your God. 26:2 You must keep my Sabbaths and reverence ³  my sanctuary. I am the Lord.

The Benefits of Obedience

26:3 “‘If you walk in my statutes and are sure to obey my commandments, ⁴  26:4 I will give you your rains in their time so that ⁵  the land will give its yield and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. ⁶ 

[26:1]  ¹ sn For the literature regarding the difficult etymology and meaning of the term for “idols” (אֱלִילִם, ’elilim), see the literature cited in the note on Lev 19:4. It appears to be a diminutive play on words with אֵל (’el, “god, God”) and, perhaps at the same time, recalls a common Semitic word for “worthless, weak, powerless, nothingness.” Snaith suggests a rendering of “worthless godlings.”

[26:1]  ² tn Heb “on.” The “sculpted stone” appears to be some sort of stone with images carved into (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 181, and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 449).

[26:2]  ³ tn Heb “and my sanctuary you shall fear.” Cf. NCV “respect”; CEV “honor.”

[26:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “and my commandments you shall keep and do them.” This appears to be a kind of verbal hendiadys, where the first verb is a modifier of the action of the second verb (see GKC 386 §120.d, although שָׁמַר [shamar, “to keep”] is not cited there; cf. Lev 20:8; 25:18, etc.).

[26:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[26:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “the tree of the field will give its fruit.” As a collective singular this has been translated as plural.