21 "'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.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
And if ye walk. Translators give various renderings of the word qry, [1] keri. The Chaldee takes it to mean with hardness, as if it were their purpose to contend against God. Jerome renders it ex adverso mihi, (in opposition to me;) but, since the word signifies an accidental occurrence, or contingency, this sense has seemed to me much the most appropriate. To "walk at adventures" (fortuito) with God, therefore, is equivalent to passing by His judgments with their eyes shut; and even so to stupify themselves as to ascribe their adversities to fortune, and thus not to be humbled beneath His mighty hand; for hence arises unconquerable obstinacy, when the sinner imagines that whatever he suffers happens by chance. Therefore Jeremiah inveighs against the Jews in a severe reproof, because they supposed that evil and good did not proceed from the ordinance and decree of God, (Lamentations 3:38;) for hence is engendered brutal madness, so that wretched men rush with all their might to their own destruction. It will accord very well, then, that if men do not take heed to God's judgments, but rush onwards like furious beasts, His meeting with them will be, as it were, fortuitous, when He shall smite them indiscriminately, from right to left, high and low, as we say in French aller a tors et travers. This, therefore, the sinner at length obtains by his stupid obstinacy, that, overwhelmed by his manifold punishments, he sees no end to his troubles. Meanwhile there is no doubt but that Moses rebukes the iron obstinacy of the people, as David declares, that with the gentle God will be gentle, but that He will be stubborn, as it were, with the perverse. (Psalm 18:25, 26.) He finally points out the source of obstinacy, when the sinner is intoxicated by his stupidity into contempt for God, whilst he turns away from himself, as much as possible, the sense of His wrath. Let us learn, then, to withdraw our thoughts from vague speculations to the consideration of God's hand in all the punishments which He inflicts; because hence will arise acknowledgment of our guilt, which may lead to repentance. Else that will occur which Isaiah seems to have taken from this passage, that God's anger will never be turned away; but that, when we think that we are acquitted, His hand will be stretched out still. (Isaiah 9:12.)
1 - "Fortuito." -- Lat. A noun from qrh, to meet, to run against, to occur. It is not from S M. that C. has learnt what he here correctly states, viz., that the Chaldee Paraphrast, or Onkelos in his Targum on the Pentateuch gives qsyv, hardness, as his interpretation of the word. -- W
And if ye walk (k) contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins.
(k) Or as some read, by fortune, imputing my plagues to chance and fortune.
And if ye walk contrary unto me,.... To his mind and will, to his laws, commands, and ordinances, showing no regard unto them by a walk and conversation agreeably to them, but neglecting and breaking them continually; or by chance, as the Targum of Jonathan, not with any intention and design to obey the Lord, and to honour and glorify him, but in a careless and indifferent manner, having no regard to the law of God, only now and then, as it happens, act according to it, but having no concern for the honour and glory of God:
and will not hearken unto me; to his voice in his laws and his precepts, or by his prophets, exhorting them to obedience to them:
I will bring seven times more plagues upon you, according to your sins; greater and sorer punishments still, and these more frequently repeated, and in proportion to their transgressions of his righteous laws.
The second stage. - But if the people's resistance amounted to a hostile rebellion against God, He would smite them sevenfold for their sin by sending beasts of prey and childlessness. By beasts of prey He would destroy their cattle, and by barrenness He would make the nation so small that the ways would be deserted, that high roads would cease because there would be no traveller upon them on account of the depopulation of the land (Isaiah 33:8; Zephaniah 3:6), and the few inhabitants who still remained would be afraid to venture because of the wild beasts (Ezekiel 14:15). עם קרי הלך ("to go a meeting with a person," i.e., to meet a person in a hostile manner, to fight against him) only occurs here in Leviticus 26:21 and Leviticus 26:23, and is strengthened in Leviticus 26:24, Leviticus 26:27, Leviticus 26:28, Leviticus 26:40, Leviticus 26:41 into עם בּקרי הלך, to engage in a hostile encounter with a person. שׁבע מכּה, a sevenfold blow. "According to your sins," i.e., answering to them sevenfold. In Leviticus 26:22 the first clause corresponds to the third, and the second to the fourth, so that Nos. 3 and 4 contain the effects of Nos. 1 and 2.
*More commentary available at chapter level.