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B’chuqotai

By My Regulations
“Remember the Land”

Leviticus 26:3-27:34
Jeremiah 16:19-17:24

excerpted from TorahScope, Volume I

B’chuqotai brings the Book of Leviticus to completion. For ten portions, the Torah student has been learning about many aspects of the Levitical priesthood. This includes instructions about the various offerings,[1] the establishment of the priesthood,[2] the laws of purification,[3] the Day of Atonement,[4] various prohibitions about heathen customs,[5] laws of holiness,[6] and the appointed times of the Lord.[7] Now, as the listing of instructions comes to a close, Leviticus ch. 26 focuses our attention on the blessings of obedience versus the consequences of disobedience, and Leviticus ch. 27 closes with details about voluntary contributions for the maintenance of the sanctuary. Among the things we are considering in our Torah portion for this week, one verse really jumped out at me:

“then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land” (Leviticus 26:42, WMB).

While reflecting on B’chuqotai, the reality of God’s covenantal faithfulness to His chosen kept coming to my mind. We are reminded that in spite of Israel’s frequent disobedience to God, He is still faithful to keep the promises He originally made with the Patriarchs. According to the Scriptures, He will fulfill His Word and bring these promises to their eventual fruition. But here in B’chuqotai, we find that God’s people too have some responsibilities, and they too must act in order to receive of God’s blessings.

To Bless or To Curse

As B’chuqotai begins, Moses relayed to the Israelites that if they obeyed the Lord, that He would bless and prosper them, saying:

“If you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments, and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit…I will set my tent among you, and my soul won’t abhor you. I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you will be my people” (Leviticus 26:3-4; 11-12, WMB).

The main benefit of obeying God, is that the Israelites would experience Him dwelling and walking among them. The Lord would be Israel’s God, and Israel would be His special people. Obeying God is not something which people do out of some legalistic obligation or burden, but it is something which comes because of an intimate relationship one desires with the Creator. This does not mean obedience is optional, though. Moses must also speak God’s words about disobedience to the Israelites, which were fairly severe:

“But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments, and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it. I will set my face against you, and you will be struck before your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you; and you will flee when no one pursues you. If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like bronze. Your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won’t yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit. If you walk contrary to me, and won’t listen to me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins. I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number. Your roads will become desolate. If by these things you won’t be turned back to me, but will walk contrary to me, then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins. I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight. You shall eat, and not be satisfied. If you in spite of this won’t listen to me, but walk contrary to me, then I will walk contrary to you in wrath. I will also chastise you seven times for your sins. You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you. I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation. I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings. I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it will be astonished at it. I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it didn’t have in your Sabbaths when you lived on it” (Leviticus 26:14-35, WMB).

As you read this lengthy list of punishments—some of which are quite grotesque—the gravity of disobeying God is very apparent.[8] The Lord did not desire His people to disobey Him, yet each time Israel would refuse to obey Him, the severity of the punishment against them would increase. First would come illness, followed by defeat from the enemies of Israel. Next, a famine would ravage the Land. Then, wild beasts would be sent to devour children and livestock. A siege would come from a foreign power which imposed incredible hardship on Israel, including people eating their own children. Finally, when obedience was not achieved, God would scatter or exile Israel among the nations.

What is interesting to note, is that during this listing of punishments for disobedience—no less than four times—Moses was instructed to communicate that the judgments will be seven times more (Leviticus 26:18; 21, 24, 28) for the sins. God served as a Judge issuing the sentence for breaking a law. In His justice system regarding the proper treatment of the Promised Land, a seven-fold payment was required to satisfy severe sins of disobedience. This section concludes with a reminder to Ancient Israel about the requirement for Sabbath rests to the Land.

When reading through this, you can see how the Lord was very interested in the Promised Land receiving its Sabbath rest. One way or another, He was going to make sure that His Land had its rest. Then, while the Land was enjoying its Sabbath rest, His people would be separated from it in exile:

“As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword. They will fall when no one pursues. They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues. You will have no power to stand before your enemies. You will perish among the nations. The land of your enemies will eat you up. Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they shall pine away with them” (Leviticus 26:36-39, WMB).

Remember the Land

As you read further on in our parashah, you see how the covenant-keeping God of Israel was prophetically declaring His plan to restore His exiled people to the Promised Land after it experienced its years of Sabbath rest. But it would not be enough for the Promised Land to just lay fallow for a period of time, as there were some requirements His exiled people would have to demonstrate. In order for them to be returned to the Promised Land, the Lord required His scattered people to confess and repent of the sins which exiled them out of it in the first place:

“If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me; and also that because they walked contrary to me, I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land. The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes. Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly and to break my covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God. But I will for their sake 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” (Leviticus 26:40-45, WMB).

God’s exiled people were required to acknowledge the wrong which they committed before Him (Leviticus 26:40). They must recognize how their transgressions kept them from a right relationship before Him. Israel must acknowledge how its ancestors committed evil and acted with hostility against God, and desire corporate forgiveness and restoration.

The Lord does acknowledge that as Israel would repent of its sin, “I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies” (Leviticus 26:41, RSV). This qeri, or “opposition, contrariness” (BDB),[9] was required because the severe sins of Israel had to be judged—although we do not see any implication here that God wanted to judge His people. Quite contrary to this, Moses communicated how the Lord would remember His covenants with the Patriarchs, and that He would remember His covenant with the Land (Leviticus 26:42). Then, the blessings of remembrance and the mercy and faithfulness of Him toward His people could again be bestowed (Leviticus 26:43-45).

After the Promised Land has had its Sabbath rests, the Lord would restore it to Israel. God says He would not reject, abhor, or destroy Israel for breaking the covenants with Him (Leviticus 26:44). Instead, this great restoration would be done l’einei ha’goyim or “before the eyes of the nations” (Leviticus 26:45, YLT), as a great testimony of His faithfulness to those who are repentant.

The Promised Land Today

It is interesting to see how the words of B’chuqotai do not just compose some kind of farfetched idealism—but how they indeed involve prophecies being fulfilled in our day. In the past century, the Land of Israel went from being largely desolate and underdeveloped, to now being a place of great agricultural and economic prosperity. Via the advent of the Zionist movement, and many Jews wanting to return home to the Promised Land, we can certainly consider how much (or at least some) of their attention was directed to words like Leviticus 26:35-38, in wanting to once again have a safe Jewish homeland.

Throughout Jewish history we see how many lived in the lands of their enemies, or at least those of people who were not always neighborly to them. There was often very little strength to stand up to the authorities, and Jewish communities were frequently harassed, restricted, regulated, and subjected to various degrees of persecution. Is it possible that after all of the persecutions, pogroms, inquisitions, and the Holocaust—some of the inheritors of God’s promises began to confess their sins and the iniquities of their ancestors? It appears that in God’s mercy toward His people, He heard their pleas and responded by making a way to restore them to the Promised Land. The creation of the modern-day State of Israel in the Middle East is a great testimony to God honoring His word to remember the land (Leviticus 26:42). Today, the Jewish people have their own state and homeland, which is a regional power quite capable of defending itself, and has great respect in the eyes of many across the world.

Much more regarding Israel, of course, may be said to be transpiring. Today in the Messianic movement, not only have we witnessed thousands upon thousands of Jewish people come to faith in Messiah Yeshua—but also a great number of evangelical Believers embrace their faith heritage in the Scriptures of Israel, considering the Torah to be quite valuable to their spirituality. God is bringing His people together in a unique way.

The emerging Messianic community we see forming in our generation has a way to go, involving a great deal of Bible study and consideration for the mission which the Father wants us to perform. I think people are beginning to see that as important as the formation of the State of Israel has been, there is much more on God’s agenda which needs to be accomplished. He will remember the Promised Land. But in order for any of us, whether we be Jewish Believers who can become Israeli citizens, or non-Jewish Believers who become a part of the Messianic movement—the key is that we confess and repent of our sins. Only by acknowledging that we have committed things abominable and unacceptable in the eyes of our Creator, can we be restored to His purpose. Individual redemption must precede corporate redemption.

Have you offered the necessary prayers of confession? Only when we have all done this, can all of the great promises, the Father has issued regarding His Land, come to pass! Only then can Yeshua the Messiah return to take up His throne from Jerusalem.