The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes.
Parallel translations
- WEB 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, even because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes.
- BSB For the land will be abandoned by them, and it will enjoy its Sabbaths by lying desolate without them. And they will pay the penalty for their iniquity, because they rejected My ordinances and abhorred My statutes.
- NKJV The land also shall be left empty by them, and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; they will accept their guilt, because they despised My judgments and because their soul abhorred My statutes.
- NASB For the land will be abandoned by them, and will restore its Sabbaths while it is made desolate without them. They, meanwhile, will be making amends for their wrongdoing, because they rejected My ordinances and their soul loathed My statutes.
- NLT For the land must be abandoned to enjoy its years of Sabbath rest as it lies deserted. At last the people will pay for their sins, for they have continually rejected my regulations and despised my decrees.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The land will enjoy its Sabbaths in their absence while they accept the just punishment for rejecting God's law. Judgment and the path to restoration go together.
Overview
This verse holds together the land's enforced rest and the people's acceptance of their deserved discipline for despising God's ordinances. Restoration comes not by denying guilt but by owning it. The honest acknowledgment of sin under God's righteous judgment is precisely what prepares the way for renewed fellowship with Him.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 25
- Rom 8:7Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
- Lev 26:15And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant:
- Job 5:17Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty:
- Jer 31:19Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth.
- 2 Chr 33:12And when he was in affliction, he besought the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers,
- Ps 50:15And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.
- Ps 119:71It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.
- Ps 119:67Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.
- Lev 26:41And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity:
- Isa 26:16LORD, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them.
- Lev 26:30And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.
- Job 34:31–32Surely it is meet to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement, I will not offend any more:
- Ps 50:17Seeing thou hatest instruction, and casteth my words behind thee.
- 2 Kgs 17:7–17For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods,
- Ps 119:75I know, O LORD, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.
- John 7:7The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.
- Dan 9:14Therefore hath the LORD watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for the LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth: for we obeyed not his voice.
- 2 Chr 36:14–16Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the LORD which he had hallowed in Jerusalem.
- Zech 11:8Three shepherds also I cut off in one month; and my soul lothed them, and their soul also abhorred me.
- Amos 5:10They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.
- John 15:23–24He that hateth me hateth my Father also.
- Heb 12:5–11And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
- Dan 9:7–9O LORD, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, through all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against thee.
- Lev 26:34–35Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths.
- 1 Kgs 8:46–48If they sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near;
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Every sacrifice, every priest, and every day of atonement points beyond itself to the one perfect offering and the great High Priest who, by his own blood, makes the unclean holy once for all.
How Leviticus 26:43 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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