Leviticus 26:9

For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(9) For I will have respect unto you.—Better, And I will turn unto you, as it is rendered in the Authorised Version in Ezekiel 46:9, the only other passage where this phrase occurs; that is, be merciful to them and bless them. (Comp. 2Kings 13:23; Psalm 25:16; Psalm 69:17, &c.)

And multiply you, and establish my covenant with you.—That is, by multiplying them as the stars of heaven and the sand of the sea, God fulfil the covenant which He made with their fathers (Genesis 12:2; Genesis 13:16; Genesis 15:5; Genesis 22:17; Exodus 23:26).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

26:1-13 This chapter contains a general enforcement of all the laws given by Moses; by promises of reward in case of obedience, on the one hand; and threatenings of punishment for disobedience, on the other. While Israel maintained a national regard to God's worship, sabbaths, and sanctuary, and did not turn aside to idolatry, the Lord engaged to continue to them temporal mercies and religious advantages. These great and precious promises, though they relate chiefly to the life which now is, were typical of the spiritual blessings made sure by the covenant of grace to all believers, through Christ. 1. Plenty and abundance of the fruits of the earth. Every good and perfect gift must be expected from above, from the Father of lights. 2. Peace under the Divine protection. Those dwell in safety, that dwell in God. 3. Victory and success in their wars. It is all one with the Lord to save by many or by few. 4. The increase of their people. The gospel church shall be fruitful. 5. The favour of God, which is the fountain of all Good. 6. Tokens of his presence in and by his ordinances. The way to have God's ordinances fixed among us, is to cleave closely to them. 7. The grace of the covenant. All covenant blessings are summed up in the covenant relation, I will be your God, and ye shall be my people; and they are all grounded upon their redemption. Having purchased them, God would own them, and never cast them off till they cast him off.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Establish my covenant - All material blessings were to be regarded in the light of seals of the "everlasting covenant." Compare Genesis 17:4-8; Nehemiah 9:23.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

5. your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time, &c.—The barley harvest in Judea was about the middle of April; the wheat harvest about six weeks after, or in the beginning of June. After the harvest came the vintage, and fruit gathering towards the latter end of July. Moses led the Hebrews to believe that, provided they were faithful to God, there would be no idle time between the harvest and vintage, so great would be the increase. (See Am 9:13). This promise would be very animating to a people who had come from a country where, for three months, they were pent up without being able to walk abroad because the fields were under water.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

i.e. Actually perform all that I have promised you in my covenant made with you,

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For I will have respect unto you,.... Look at them with delight and pleasure, and with a careful eye on them, watch over them to do them good, and protect them from all evil; or turn himself to them from all others, having a particular regard for them and special care of them:

and make you fruitful and multiply you; increase their number, as he did in Egypt, even amidst all their afflictions; and much more might they expect this blessing in the land of Canaan, when settled there, which is the original blessing of mankind, see Genesis 1:28,

and establish my covenant with you; not the new covenant spoken of in Jeremiah 31:31; as Jarchi and other Jewish writers (l) suggest; for that was not to take place but in future time, under the Gospel dispensation; but rather the covenant made with them at Sinai, though perhaps it chiefly respects the covenant made with their ancestors concerning multiplication of their seed as the stars of heaven and the sand of the sea, Genesis 15:5, since it follows upon the promise of an increase of them.

(l) Torat Cohenim, apud Yalkut, par. 1. fol. 196. 3.

Geneva Study Bible

For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and {c} establish my covenant with you.

(c) Perform that which I have promised.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. will establish] rather, will carry out. The Heb. expression means, to fulfil the promises of an older covenant. Cp. Genesis 26:3, ‘I will establish [to Isaac] the oath which I sware unto Abraham’; Deuteronomy 9:5, to ‘establish the word which the Lord sware unto thy fathers.’ So Jeremiah 34:18 of the inhabitants of Jerusalem who did not carry out the words of the covenant which they had made.

Leviticus 26:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Moreover the Lord would bestow His covenant blessing upon them without intermission. אל פּנה signifies a sympathizing and gracious regard (Psalm 25:16; Psalm 69:17). The multiplication and fruitfulness of the nation were a constant fulfilment of the covenant promise (Genesis 17:4-6) and an establishment of the covenant (Genesis 17:7); not merely the preservation of it, but the continual realization of the covenant grace, by which the covenant itself was carried on further and further towards its completion. This was the real purpose of the blessing, to which all earthly good, as the pledge of the constant abode of God in the midst of His people, simply served as the foundation.