Promises and threatening; blessings and curses

If Israel keeps God’s sabbaths and statutes, and forsakes their own idolatrous statue, then God will bless them (1-13).

• agricultural plenty (4-5)
• peace and safety (6)
• perplexed enemies (7-9)
• prosperity (10)
• God’s presence (11-13)

If Israel forsakes God’s law, then God will withhold good and heap evil upon them (14-39).

• fear (14-15)
• defeat (17-18)
• barrenness (19-20)
• wild animal attacks (21-22)
• rationing and famine (23-29)
• enemy invasions (30-32)
• terror and confusion 33-39)

If Israel repents of its rebellion, God will forgive them; nonetheless, God will not utterly forsake His people (40-46).

• God will be merciful (40-43
• God will visit them in the land of their enemies (44)
• God will remember His covenant (45)

Meditation Points:

God has the right to be merciful to whom He will. Has He been merciful to you?

Disobedient children, no matter how much loved by their parents, should expect discipline from those loving parents.

When these evils come upon a modern nation, who ever suspects that God has brought them?

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O, what Jubile!

Having been instructed regarding daily and annual sabbaths and feasts, Israel is now instructed regarding sabbatical years.

I. God promises to provide for man and beast during the 7th year rest (1-7).

II. Following the 7th such 7th year rest, the 50th year was also to be a sabbatical year, with the added celebration of restoring land to its rightful tribe (8-17).

III. God promises to provide for man in this jubile year also (18-22).

IV. The right of the kinsman redeemer (23-55)

• regarding the buying and selling of land (23-38)
• regarding the sale of houses within walled cities and those outside walls (29-31)
• regarding the sale of Levite properties (32-34)
• regarding the poor (35-38)
• regarding Hebrews in bondage to another Hebrew (39-46)
• regarding Hebrews in bondage to foreigners (47-55)

Meditation Points:

1. If we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, we need not worry about food or clothing needs (Matthew 6:33).
2. When our sin debt to God was so great that we could never hope to buy our way out, Jesus Christ, our elder brother and kinsman redeemer, paid it all.

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Oil and bread, and a foul-mouth son

I. Give me oil in my lamp, keep it burning… (1-4)

II. Man shall not live by bread alone; but there’d better be bread on the table every day…(5-9)

III. Watch your mouth son, or the neighbors will kill you…(10-23)

Meditation Points:

• How often have you heard a TV chef recommend extra-virgin olive oil? Do you see what kind of oil God requires for the oil-burning lamps in the Tabernacle?
• The way to God is not a leap in the dark; it is a well-lit path of repentance and faith in His Son Jesus.
• 12 loaves of bread on the table? 12 sons of Jacob, 12 tribes of Israel.
• His mother was a Hebrew; his father was not. It’s too bad that this son of Shelomith didn’t listen to his mother as did another son of a mixed marriage (Timothy, in Acts 16:1-3)
• See the death penalty for blasphemy and murder.
• Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Isn’t that how God’s justice works today?
• “For I am the Lord your God.” (v. 22). Is there a better reason to obey God?
• One law for citizens and the same law for foreigners.

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Holy Days

1. The weekly Sabbath (3)
2. Passover and The Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Passover (4-8)
3. The Feast of First-fruits (9-14)
4. The Feast of Pentecost (15-22)
5. The Feast of Trumpets (23-25)
6. The Day of Atonement (26-32) and The Feast of Tabernacles (33-44)

Meditation Points:

• Vacation? What better way to spend your time away from necessary employment than to worship God.
• Weekly calls to devotion.
• Special days, and even weeks, set apart for worship.

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