Leviticus 26:38

And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(38) And ye shall perish among the heathen.—Better, And ye shall be lost among the heathen, as the word here rendered “perish” is often translated. (See Deuteronomy 22:3; 1Samuel 9:3; 1Samuel 9:20; Jeremiah 1:6; Ezekiel 34:4; Ezekiel 34:16; Psalm 119:176, &c.) The context plainly shows that utter destruction is not meant here. The very next verse speaks of a remnant who are to pine away, whilst Leviticus 26:40 speaks of their confessing their guilt.

The land of your enemies shall eat you up.—That is, they shall be so completely mixed up with the heathen nations amongst whom they are to be dispersed, and so utterly incorporated amongst them, that they will disappear, and have no separate existence. This is the sense of this peculiar phrase in Numbers 13:32; Ezekiel 36:13.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

26:14-39 After God has set the blessing before them which would make them a happy people if they would be obedient, he here sets the curse before them, the evils which would make them miserable, if they were disobedient. Two things would bring ruin. 1. A contempt of God's commandments. They that reject the precept, will come at last to renounce the covenant. 2. A contempt of his corrections. If they will not learn obedience by the things they suffer, God himself would be against them; and this is the root and cause of all their misery. And also, The whole creation would be at war with them. All God's sore judgments would be sent against them. The threatenings here are very particular, they were prophecies, and He that foresaw all their rebellions, knew they would prove so. TEMPORAL judgments are threatened. Those who will not be parted from their sins by the commands of God, shall be parted from them by judgments. Those wedded to their lusts, will have enough of them. SPIRITUAL judgments are threatened, which should seize the mind. They should find no acceptance with God. A guilty conscience would be their continual terror. It is righteous with God to leave those to despair of pardon, who presume to sin; and it is owing to free grace, if we are not left to pine away in the iniquity we were born in, and have lived in.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The land of your enemies shall eat you up - Compare Numbers 13:32; Ezekiel 36:13.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

38. the land of your enemies shall eat you up, &c.—On the removal of the ten tribes into captivity, they never returned, and all traces of them were lost.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And ye shall perish among the Heathen,.... Not utterly, but great numbers of them, through change of air, and different diet, as Aben Ezra, and through the cruel usage of their enemies; for there is a body of them which continues unto this day; unless this is to be understood of the ten tribes, as R. Akiba (b) interprets it, who are supposed to be entirely lost and swallowed up among the nations where they were carried captive:

and the land of your enemies shall eat you up; they should die in it through one disease or another; by the pestilence, as the Targum of Jonathan, and so be buried in it; in which sense it may be said to eat them up, or consume them, for the grave swallows up and consumes all that are put into it; Jarchi says, this is to be understood of those that die in captivity.

(b) In Torat Cohanim, ut supra. (par. 1. fol. 197. 2.)

Geneva Study Bible

And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Leviticus 26:38

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

So far as the nation was concerned, those who were left when the kingdom was overthrown would find no rest in the land of their enemies, but would perish among the heathen for their own and their fathers' iniquities, till they confessed their sins and bent their uncircumcised hearts under the righteousness of the divine punishments. בּכם הנּשׁארים (nominative abs.): "as for those who are left in (as in Leviticus 5:9), i.e., of, you," who have not perished in the destruction of the kingdom and dispersion of the people, God will bring despair into their heart in the lands of your enemies, that the sound ("voice") of a moving leaf will hunt them to flee as before the sword, so that they will fall in their anxious flight, and stumble one over another, though no one is pursuing. The ἁπ. λεγ. מרך from מרך, related to מרח and מרק to rub, rub to pieces, signifies that inward anguish, fear, and despair, which rend the heart and destroy the life, δειλία, pavor (lxx, Vulg.), what is described in Deuteronomy 28:65 in even stronger terms as "a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind." There should not be to them תּקוּמה, standi et resistendi facultas (Rosenmller), standing before the enemy; but they should perish among the nations. "The land of their enemies will eat them up," sc., by their falling under the pressure of the circumstances in which they were placed (cf. Numbers 13:32; Ezekiel 36:13).