Confessional Lutheran Ministerium

Leviticus 26:23-46 NKJV ²³ ‘And if by these things you are not reformed by Me, but walk contrary to Me,

²⁴ then I also will walk contrary to you, and I will punish you yet seven times for your sins.

²⁵ And I will bring a sword against you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant;

when you are gathered together within your cities I will send pestilence among you;

and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

²⁶ When I have cut off your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall bring back your bread by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied.

²⁷ ‘And after all this, if you do not obey Me, but walk contrary to Me,

²⁸ then I also will walk contrary to you in fury;

and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.

²⁹ You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.

³⁰ I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your idols;

and My soul shall abhor you.

³¹ I will lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet aromas.

³² I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it.

³³ I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you;

your land shall be desolate and your cities waste.

³⁴ Then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land;

then the land shall rest and enjoy its sabbaths.

³⁵ As long as it lies desolate it shall rest—

for the time it did not rest on your sabbaths when you dwelt in it.

³⁶ ‘And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies;

the sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee;

they shall flee as though fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues.

³⁷ They shall stumble over one another, as it were before a sword, when no one pursues;

and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies.

³⁸ You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.

³⁹ And those of you who are left shall waste away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands;

also in their fathers’ iniquities, which are with them, they shall waste away.

⁴⁰ ‘But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, and that they also have walked contrary to Me,

⁴¹ and that I also have walked contrary to them and have brought them into the land of their enemies;

if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they accept their guilt—

⁴² then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham I will remember;

I will remember the land.

⁴³ 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.

⁴⁴ Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them;

for I am the Lord their God.

⁴⁵ But for their sake I will 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.’ ”

⁴⁶ These are the statutes and judgments and laws which the Lord made between Himself and the children of Israel on Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.

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Throughout the history of the Old Testament, and here again in Leviticus 26, we read of God’s warnings to His people not to disobey lest terrible things befall them. As was mentioned in yesterday’s devotion, God’s discipline and threat are a demonstration of His love. He does not want His people to disobey. He knows what is best for them and it’s simply to their overwhelming benefit that they obey and not rebel.

Here God states clearly that He will walk contrary to His people if they walk contrary to them. If God walks against you, you cannot be saved, and you will suffer hardship, loss, pain, suffering, and quite possibly eternal damnation unless you repent and come back to God’s Word and ways.

But no matter how disobedient and rebellious God’s people were, their sins would not frustrate God’s gracious will for them and their land. Like a loving father, God disciplined his people to bring them back to the right worship of Him. But if they did not heed His acts of discipline, He turned against them in His wrath. His aim in all this was to humble their proud hearts, so that they would confess their sins and accept their punishment.

You, dear saint, are sinful by nature, stubborn, hard-headed, and hard-hearted. God’s Law is meant to bring you to repentance so that you do not continue in sin. Luther was right in 1517 in his first of the 95 Theses: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, said repent, He willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.” Repentance keeps you right with God; it admits that God is right, and you are wrong. Repent and receive God’s forgiveness through Holy Absolution and the Supper, those things through which God delivers His grace, forgiveness, and strength to you.

Let us pray: Dear God, thank You for sending Jesus to pay for my sins on the cross. Help me always to trust You and Your Word and not myself, and bring me at last to Your eternal Banquet in heaven, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Leviticus 26:1-22 NKJV

26 ‘You shall not make idols for yourselves;

neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves;

nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land, to bow down to it;

for I am the Lord your God.

² You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary:

I am the Lord.

³ ‘If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them,

⁴ then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

⁵ Your threshing shall last till the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last till the time of sowing;

you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.

⁶ I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none will make you afraid;

I will rid the land of evil beasts,

and the sword will not go through your land.

⁷ You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you.

⁸ Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight;

your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.

⁹ ‘For I will look on you favorably and make you fruitful, multiply you and confirm My covenant with you.

¹⁰ You shall eat the old harvest, and clear out the old because of the new.

¹¹ I will set My tabernacle among you, and My soul shall not abhor you.

¹² I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.

¹³ I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves;

I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you walk upright.

¹⁴ ‘But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments,

¹⁵ and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant,

¹⁶ I also will do this to you:

I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart.

And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

¹⁷ I will set My face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies.

Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you.

¹⁸ ‘And after all this, if you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.

¹⁹ I will break the pride of your power;

I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze.

²⁰ And your strength shall be spent in vain;

for your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit.

²¹ ‘Then, if you walk contrary to Me, and are not willing to obey Me, I will bring on you seven times more plagues, according to your sins.

²² I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number;

and your highways shall be desolate.

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In the first 13 verses of today’s reading, we hear First and Third Commandment language. Having idols or graven images violates the First, and keeping God’s Sabbaths refers to the Third. God promised the Israelites wonderful blessings if they simply obeyed Him. The blessings were rain in the land (v. 5), peace in the land (v. 6), the growth of each Israelite family and clan (vv. 9-10), and God’s promise of dwelling with His people (vv. 11-12). He also promised His continual presences among them to walk with them and be their God. God established the Sabbaths and the sanctuary, so that through them He could dwell with His people and lavish His blessings on them in the promised land.

However, in vv. 14-22 terrible things were promised if the people did not obey: terror, disease, fever, fear, crop failure, defeat by their enemies, livestock destroyed, loss of children, plagues, and a general threat of seven times the punishments listed. Simply stated, by their disobedience the Israelites would annul the proper operation of God’s Covenant and so forfeit His rich blessings.

Like a parent warning his child not to do something lest a punishment would be inflicted, God told His people how He would deal with them; it’s not like they hadn’t been warned. By these punishments, however, He disciplined and corrected them. He disciplined them to bring them back to right worship of Him. As in Proverbs 13:24, “He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly.” And Heb 12:6, “For whom the Lord loves He chastens.” That is always God’s motivation and goal, to love us and to bring us back to Him.

Repent, dear Christian, of every disobedience against God, then run to Holy Absolution and the Holy Supper where God deliver’s His forgiveness to you and strengthens you to continue to live in His grace.

Let us pray: Lord, thank You for Your loving discipline, and help me to learn from it and grow in Your grace; through Jesus Christ, Your Son. Amen.

Leviticus 25:35-55 NKJV

³⁵ ‘If one of your brethren becomes poor, and falls into poverty among you, then you shall help him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you. ³⁶ Take no usury or interest from him; but fear your God, that your brother may live with you. ³⁷ You shall not lend him your money for usury, nor lend him your food at a profit. ³⁸ I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.

³⁹ ‘And if one of your brethren who dwells by you becomes poor, and sells himself to you, you shall not compel him to serve as a slave. ⁴⁰ As a hired servant and a sojourner he shall be with you, and shall serve you until the Year of Jubilee. ⁴¹ And then he shall depart from you—he and his children with him—and shall return to his own family. He shall return to the possession of his fathers. ⁴² For they are My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. ⁴³ You shall not rule over him with rigor, but you shall fear your God. ⁴⁴ And as for your male and female slaves whom you may have—from the nations that are around you, from them you may buy male and female slaves. ⁴⁵ Moreover you may buy the children of the strangers who dwell among you, and their families who are with you, which they beget in your land; and they shall become your property. ⁴⁶ And you may take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them as a possession; they shall be your permanent slaves. But regarding your brethren, the children of Israel, you shall not rule over one another with rigor.

⁴⁷ ‘Now if a sojourner or stranger close to you becomes rich, and one of your brethren who dwells by him becomes poor, and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner close to you, or to a member of the stranger’s family, ⁴⁸ after he is sold he may be redeemed again. One of his brothers may redeem him; ⁴⁹ or his uncle or his uncle’s son may redeem him; or anyone who is near of kin to him in his family may redeem him; or if he is able he may redeem himself. ⁵⁰ Thus he shall reckon with him who bought him: The price of his release shall be according to the number of years, from the year that he was sold to him until the Year of Jubilee; it shall be according to the time of a hired servant for him. ⁵¹ If there are still many years remaining, according to them he shall repay the price of his redemption from the money with which he was bought. ⁵² And if there remain but a few years until the Year of Jubilee, then he shall reckon with him, and according to his years he shall repay him the price of his redemption. ⁵³ He shall be with him as a yearly hired servant, and he shall not rule with rigor over him in your sight. ⁵⁴ And if he is not redeemed in these years, then he shall be released in the Year of Jubilee—he and his children with him. ⁵⁵ For the children of Israel are servants to Me; they are My servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

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This section of Leviticus 25 begins with the case of Israelites who worked off a debt to pay their fellow Israelites. The creditor was not allowed to take advantage of the impoverished person in his vulnerable state to rob him of his livelihood and push him even deeper into debt. These obligations to an impoverished family were motivated by the fear of God and Israel’s experience of Him as their emancipator and land-giver.

 The remaining verses deal with the status and treatment of Israelites who sold themselves to pay off a debt. The Israelites were not allowed to treat such people as their slaves. Instead, they employed them as hired laborers who lived with them on their land and used their wages to pay off their debt. Even if they had not yet paid off their full debt, they and their children were released from service at the Jubilee, so that they could return to their kin group free from debt and reclaim their holding from its buyer or its redeemer.

They were to be released then because they were God’s royal servants, His slaves, and He had released them from slavery in the land of Egypt. They belonged to God; therefore, they could not be sold as slaves. Their Israelite employers were therefore to fear God and take care not to trample on them “harshly” as the Israelites had been trampled on in Egypt (See Exodus 1:13-14)

By his substitutionary sacrifice, Christ paid off our debt to God and proclaimed our “release” from oppression by Satan. All those who, by faith, trust in Jesus are beneficiaries of God’s grace, His royal amnesty to His rebellious subjects. Just as the Jubilee issued from the Day of Atonement in ancient Israel, so their release from all sin and all the powers of darkness is the result of Christ’s sacrificial death

Let us pray: Lord Jesus, thank You for atoning for our sins in Your suffering and death on the cross. Strengthen our faith through Your Word and Sacraments until You call us Home to be with You forever. Amen.

Leviticus 25:18-34 NKJV

¹⁸ ‘So you shall observe My statutes and keep My judgments, and perform them; and you will dwell in the land in safety. ¹⁹ Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill, and dwell there in safety.

²⁰ ‘And if you say, “What shall we eat in the seventh year, since we shall not sow nor gather in our produce?” ²¹ Then I will command My blessing on you in the sixth year, and it will bring forth produce enough for three years. ²² And you shall sow in the eighth year, and eat old produce until the ninth year; until its produce comes in, you shall eat of the old harvest.

²³ ‘The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me. ²⁴ And in all the land of your possession you shall grant redemption of the land.

²⁵ ‘If one of your brethren becomes poor, and has sold some of his possession, and if his redeeming relative comes to redeem it, then he may redeem what his brother sold. ²⁶ Or if the man has no one to redeem it, but he himself becomes able to redeem it, ²⁷ then let him count the years since its sale, and restore the remainder to the man to whom he sold it, that he may return to his possession. ²⁸ But if he is not able to have it restored to himself, then what was sold shall remain in the hand of him who bought it until the Year of Jubilee; and in the Jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his possession.

²⁹ ‘If a man sells a house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; within a full year he may redeem it. ³⁰ But if it is not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house in the walled city shall belong permanently to him who bought it, throughout his generations. It shall not be released in the Jubilee. ³¹ However the houses of villages which have no wall around them shall be counted as the fields of the country. They may be redeemed, and they shall be released in the Jubilee. ³² Nevertheless the cities of the Levites, and the houses in the cities of their possession, the Levites may redeem at any time. ³³ And if a man purchases a house from the Levites, then the house that was sold in the city of his possession shall be released in the Jubilee; for the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel. ³⁴ But the field of the common-land of their cities may not be sold, for it is their perpetual possession.

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Today’s section of Leviticus 25 begins with God’s command for the people to observe His statutes, keep His judgments, and perform them. God made two promises to those who observed these statutes. First, the land would be so productive that the Israelites would be secure and have more than enough to eat. Second, God allayed their understandable fears about making ends meet in the Sabbatical Years. He personally promised then that He would bless them so richly and provide such a bumper harvest for them on the sixth year so that they would not just have enough to last until the eighth year, but into the ninth year as well as they sow new crops and wait for them to come to fruition. He therefore called on them to trust in His provision for them by observing the Sabbatical Years. Simply stated, God says, “Do what I say, and all will be well.  Believe Me and trust in My care for you.” The unspoken truth is also obvious: Disobey Me, and you will suffer.

In the second part of the speech, God elaborated on what He had said in 25:10b about the return of the Israelites to their patrimony by instituting the right of redemption for the land and its tenants. The particular cases of redemption were introduced by a general decree from God in 25:23-24. The right of redemption was based on God’s ownership of the land. It was His royal estate. This meant that the Israelites too belonged to God as His royal servants. They, then, were not landowners. Rather, they resided on the land at His discretion, as if they were resident aliens. So, since both the land and the people belonged to God, He decreed that the people should provide for the redemption of the land. The cases that follow show that this has two sides to it. On the one hand, all leased land returned to its original holders. On the other hand, all landholders returned to their landholdings.

By God-given faith we believe God’s Word and promises, particularly the promise of eternal life in Christ. We disobey to our eternal peril but obey (believe) to our eternal blessing.

Let us pray: Thank You, Lord, for your promises and blessings; through Christ our Lord. Amen

Leviticus 25:1-17 NKJV

25 And the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, ² “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to the Lord. ³ Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather its fruit; ⁴ but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the Lord. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. ⁵ What grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine, for it is a year of rest for the land. ⁶ And the sabbath produce of the land shall be food for you: for you, your male and female servants, your hired man, and the stranger who dwells with you, ⁷ for your livestock and the beasts that are in your land—all its produce shall be for food.

⁸ ‘And you shall count seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years; and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. ⁹ Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. ¹⁰ And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family. ¹¹ That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee to you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of its own accord, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine. ¹² For it is the Jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat its produce from the field.

¹³ ‘In this Year of Jubilee, each of you shall return to his possession. ¹⁴ And if you sell anything to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor’s hand, you shall not oppress one another. ¹⁵ According to the number of years after the Jubilee you shall buy from your neighbor, and according to the number of years of crops he shall sell to you. ¹⁶ According to the multitude of years you shall increase its price, and according to the fewer number of years you shall diminish its price; for he sells to you according to the number of the years of the crops. ¹⁷ Therefore you shall not oppress one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the Lord your God.

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In this fascinating section of Leviticus, we hear of the “sabbath of solemn rest” for the land. In this year the Israelites were not to sow seed or prune the vineyards. God was teaching His people to trust Him to provide, even though they would not be growing more food for themselves. Through Moses, God was instructing the Israelites that when they come into the land of promise they are to treat the land with respect, giving it a rest every seventh year. As the Creator of all, God certainly knows how to care for His creation, in this case, the land. And every fiftieth year, after seven sabbath cycles, the Israelites were to proclaim a year of Jubilee (in the Hebrew, a “shout of joy; a battle cry”). As God says to Moses in v. 12, “For it is the Jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat its produce from the field.”

Just as the Israelites were to rest on the Sabbath from their work, so the land was given a time of rest from its work of production. On each seventh year, the landholders let the land lie fallow. The fields were left unsown, and the vineyards were left unpruned; their owners too did not harvest their produce for commercial use. The self-grown grain and the self-grown grapes were not gathered up for storage and sale. They were treated as common property that was available to be gleaned as food by all the people and animals that resided on the land. Thus, the land was given a time of rest from human cultivation.  God teaches that He alone is the One who provides for His people in His own way. The only thing the people had to do was trust and obey.

 Christians celebrate a weekly sabbath of sorts each Lord’s Day in the Divine Service, our “seventh day.” On this day and in the conduct of the Devine Service we receive from the Lord the gifts of His faith-strengthening Gospel preached, and Sacraments administered. He gives; we receive. He “works,” we rest in Him and His gifts.

Let us pray: Thank You, God, for giving us Your Word and Sacraments through which we are fed and nourished in the faith; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Psalm 103:14-22 NKJV

¹⁴ For He knows our frame;
He remembers that we are dust.

¹⁵ As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
¹⁶ For the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
And its place remembers it no more.
¹⁷ But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
On those who fear Him,
And His righteousness to children’s children,
¹⁸ To such as keep His covenant,
And to those who remember His commandments to do them.

¹⁹ The Lord has established His throne in heaven,
And His kingdom rules over all.

²⁰ Bless the Lord, you His angels,
Who excel in strength, who do His word,
Heeding the voice of His word.
²¹ Bless the Lord, all you His hosts,
You ministers of His, who do His pleasure.
²² Bless the Lord, all His works,
In all places of His dominion.

Bless the Lord, O my soul!

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The entirety of Psalm 103, given to David by the Holy Spirit, is one of beautifully and lovingly stated thanks to God for His goodness, for making the body and soul, and making us joyful and confident in God, and for delivering us from our enemies and distresses.

Specifically in today’s verses we are comforted with the fact that God Himself “knows our frame;” He made us, and He knows us better than we could ever know ourselves. He knows that we are dust – from the dust of the ground He made Adam and Eve – so it is important for us always to acknowledge that fact. David reminds us that our lives are fleeting. In fact, everything about our earthy existence is temporary. We are not to hold on to this life or make every effort not to leave this world, but to focus on the life of the world to come which is promised to all who, by faith, believe in Jesus and His all-atoning sacrifice to pay for all sin.

In stark contrast to our fleeting and temporary existence in this world, we are reminded, more importantly, that God’s mercy is “from everlasting to everlasting;” it is never temporary or uncertain. You can count on God’s mercy to strengthen and bolster you through the troubles and trials of this fallen world. He gave His only Son to pay for your sins, therefore God has invested Himself totally in your eternal well-being and promises to strengthen and support you with His unbridled love.

Dear saint, trust in God; bless the Lord, remember his loving Commandments, and know that your eternal salvation is certain through faith in Christ.

Let us pray:  O God, You see that of ourselves we have no strength. Keep us both outwardly and inwardly that we may be defended from all adversities that may happen to the body and from all evil thoughts that may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Psalm 102:1-28 NKJV

102 Hear my prayer, O Lord,
And let my cry come to You.
² Do not hide Your face from me in the day of my trouble;
Incline Your ear to me;
In the day that I call, answer me speedily.

³ For my days are consumed like smoke,
And my bones are burned like a hearth.
⁴ My heart is stricken and withered like grass,
So that I forget to eat my bread.
⁵ Because of the sound of my groaning
My bones cling to my skin.
⁶ I am like a pelican of the wilderness;
I am like an owl of the desert.
⁷ I lie awake,
And am like a sparrow alone on the housetop.

⁸ My enemies reproach me all day long;
Those who deride me swear an oath against me.
⁹ For I have eaten ashes like bread,
And mingled my drink with weeping,
¹⁰ Because of Your indignation and Your wrath;
For You have lifted me up and cast me away.
¹¹ My days are like a shadow that lengthens,
And I wither away like grass.

¹² But You, O Lord, shall endure forever,
And the remembrance of Your name to all generations.
¹³ You will arise and have mercy on Zion;
For the time to favor her,
Yes, the set time, has come.
¹⁴ For Your servants take pleasure in her stones,
And show favor to her dust.
¹⁵ So the nations shall fear the name of the Lord,
And all the kings of the earth Your glory.
¹⁶ For the Lord shall build up Zion;
He shall appear in His glory.
¹⁷ He shall regard the prayer of the destitute,
And shall not despise their prayer.

¹⁸ This will be written for the generation to come,
That a people yet to be created may praise the Lord.
¹⁹ For He looked down from the height of His sanctuary;
From heaven the Lord viewed the earth,
²⁰ To hear the groaning of the prisoner,
To release those appointed to death,
²¹ To declare the name of the Lord in Zion,
And His praise in Jerusalem,
²² When the peoples are gathered together,
And the kingdoms, to serve the Lord.

²³ He weakened my strength in the way;
He shortened my days.
²⁴ I said, “O my God,
Do not take me away in the midst of my days;
Your years are throughout all generations.
²⁵ Of old You laid the foundation of the earth,
And the heavens are the work of Your hands.
²⁶ They will perish, but You will endure;
Yes, they will all grow old like a garment;
Like a cloak You will change them,
And they will be changed.
²⁷ But You are the same,
And Your years will have no end.
²⁸ The children of Your servants will continue,
And their descendants will be established before You.”

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This known as the fifth of the traditional “penitential psalms. The first half of the first sequence is all “I” — I am miserable, I am sad, my heart withers away like the grass in the heat, I lie awake at night, I feel like a mournful bird, I mingle my drink with tears, my days flee like the shadow of an evening, and so forth. Life being rough, a good amount of our days are passed with such sentiments, so it is usually not difficult to pray this part of the psalm.

The second half of the first sequence arrives with the expression, “but You, O Lord,”. “You” is contrasted with “I.” God is not like me; God is almighty and does what He wants and He, certainly, does not die. God’s is enthroned forever, and His name endures from generation to generation. God will arise and deliver His people.

The second and shorter contrasting sequence repeats the first. Once again, as at the beginning, there is the sense of our human frailty, our shortened days, our strength broken midway through our existence. To this is contrasted the eternity of God; His years endure unto all generations. Thus, both sequences in this psalm form contrasts between the permanence of God and the transience of everything created.

In this psalm, as read through New Testament eyes, the God who made the heavens is Christ our Lord. And yet, the Church is also referenced with Psalm 102. Both sequences are completed by celebrating the hope of God’s people. Being “the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15), the one source of her stability is that same Lord who spread out the heavens and will, at the end, fold them up like a cloak. The single permanent institution in this world is that consecrated people that God has chosen for His own inheritance. God shares His permanence with His beloved bride, the Church.

Let us pray: O Lord, amidst this world full of changes and chances, may You ever keep our eyes fixed upon Your unchanging peace through Christ. Amen.

Leviticus 24:1-23 NKJV

24 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ² “Command the children of Israel that they bring to you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to make the lamps burn continually. ³ Outside the veil of the Testimony, in the tabernacle of meeting, Aaron shall be in charge of it from evening until morning before the Lord continually; it shall be a statute forever in your generations. ⁴ He shall be in charge of the lamps on the pure gold lampstand before the Lord continually.

⁵ “And you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with it. Two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each cake. ⁶ You shall set them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure gold table before the Lord. ⁷ And you shall put pure frankincense on each row, that it may be on the bread for a memorial, an offering made by fire to the Lord. ⁸ Every Sabbath he shall set it in order before the Lord continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant. ⁹ And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place; for it is most holy to him from the offerings of the Lord made by fire, by a perpetual statute.”

¹⁰ Now the son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel; and this Israelite woman’s son and a man of Israel fought each other in the camp. ¹¹ And the Israelite woman’s son blasphemed the name of the Lord and cursed; and so they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.) ¹² Then they put him in custody, that the mind of the Lord might be shown to them.

¹³ And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ¹⁴ “Take outside the camp him who has cursed; then let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him.

¹⁵ “Then you shall speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. ¹⁶ And whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall certainly stone him, the stranger as well as him who is born in the land. When he blasphemes the name of the Lord, he shall be put to death.

¹⁷ ‘Whoever kills any man shall surely be put to death. ¹⁸ Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, animal for animal.

¹⁹ ‘If a man causes disfigurement of his neighbor, as he has done, so shall it be done to him— ²⁰ fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has caused disfigurement of a man, so shall it be done to him. ²¹ And whoever kills an animal shall restore it; but whoever kills a man shall be put to death. ²² You shall have the same law for the stranger and for one from your own country; for I am the Lord your God.’ ”

²³ Then Moses spoke to the children of Israel; and they took outside the camp him who had cursed, and stoned him with stones. So the children of Israel did as the Lord commanded Moses.

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Moses describes how a man who blasphemed the name of God received terrible punishment. God clarified that the one who spoke a curse was to be publicly executed, that he might be punished openly, not in secret, so that the children would take note.

Instead of blasphemy of the name of God being the most prominent message, the main emphasis of the New Testament is on the proper use of God’s name and on the confession of the name of the Lord Jesus. Christians are called to hallow the name of God the Father and use it as He has ordained it to be.

Again, veering from the Old Testament — where it is displayed how much God desires His name to be hallowed — the teaching of Jesus on blasphemy is most surprising. On the one hand, He declares that people can receive forgiveness from God for every kind of blasphemy -except- blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Mt. 12:31-32). This is so because they depend on the Holy Spirit for their justification —since the Spirit creates faith in Christ, through whom alone comes the forgiveness of sins — and their sanctification. On the other hand, Jesus extends the scope of blasphemy to include all careless words that people utter against Him (Mt. 12:33-37).

Yet, despite that, Jesus is more concerned about the blaspheming heart than blasphemous speech (Mt. 15:19). He aims to make anew man’s evil heart by His Word and Holy Spirit so that the believer, like a fruitful tree, will confess Him as Lord and praise God wholeheartedly (Mt. 12:33-35; Heb. 13:15; Eph. 4:31; and Col. 3:8). Rejoice, for God has turned your stoney hearts of unbelief into fleshly hearts of faith! Let us pray:  O Lord God, You led Your ancient people through the wilderness and brought them to the promised land. Guide the people of Your Church that following our Savior we may walk through the wilderness of this world toward the glory of the world to come; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

Leviticus 23:23-44 NKJV ²³ Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ²⁴ “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a sabbath-rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. ²⁵ You shall do no customary work on it; and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord.’ ”

²⁶ And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ²⁷ “Also the tenth day of this seventh month shall be the Day of Atonement. It shall be a holy convocation for you; you shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. ²⁸ And you shall do no work on that same day, for it is the Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God. ²⁹ For any person who is not afflicted in soul on that same day shall be cut off from his people. ³⁰ And any person who does any work on that same day, that person I will destroy from among his people. ³¹ You shall do no manner of work; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. ³² It shall be to you a sabbath of solemn rest, and you shall afflict your souls; on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall celebrate your sabbath.”

³³ Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ³⁴ “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days to the Lord. ³⁵ On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it. ³⁶ For seven days you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. On the eighth day you shall have a holy convocation, and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. It is a sacred assembly, and you shall do no customary work on it.

³⁷ ‘These are the feasts of the Lord which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire to the Lord, a burnt offering and a grain offering, a sacrifice and drink offerings, everything on its day— ³⁸ besides the Sabbaths of the Lord, besides your gifts, besides all your vows, and besides all your freewill offerings which you give to the Lord.

³⁹ ‘Also on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of the Lord for seven days; on the first day there shall be a sabbath-rest, and on the eighth day a sabbath-rest. ⁴⁰ And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. ⁴¹ You shall keep it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month. ⁴² You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths, ⁴³ that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.’ ”

⁴⁴ So Moses declared to the children of Israel the feasts of the Lord.

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The last feast of the year was the Feast of Tabernacles, during which the Israelites were made to live in tabernacles and to carry around beautiful branches for seven days. At this feast they sang their Hosanna from Psalm 118:26. This is why the very same song was sung on Palm Sunday when they honored Christ with green branches (Matt. 21:8-9).

But in this feast they called to mind: (1) what great misery they had endured long before in Egypt, (2) how God had graciously redeemed them and so wonderfully fed them in the wilderness with bread from heaven for forty years, (3) how He had now cleared the precious  land of Canaan for them, (4) how they only had a certain amount of time to live in this world, even as those who dwell in booths do not build them to endure long, and (5) how God would finally take them up to the eternal tabernacle (Luke 16:9). Oh, what a remembrance!

The Lord focuses His New Testament Christians to the remembrance of a fulfilled promise. Regarding the Sacrament of the Altar, St. Paul was inspired to write “You shall proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes again” (1 Cor. 11:26), bringing us to rejoice in the forgiveness of sins fully merited by Christ, who did it for us. When pondering the animal sacrifices that took place through century upon century up to (and some years beyond) the point of Christ — an almost unimaginable amount of blood being constantly spilled — all of it pointed to the blood of the One perfect, all-sufficient ransom that was made. Christ crucified is the message of the cross that is foolish to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God! (1 Cor. 1:18)

Let us pray:  O Lord God, You led Your ancient people through the wilderness and brought them to the promised land. Guide the people of Your Church that following our Savior we may walk through the wilderness of this world toward the glory of the world to come; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

Leviticus 23:1-22 NKJV

23 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ² “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts.

³ ‘Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.

⁴ ‘These are the feasts of the Lord, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times. ⁵ On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the Lord’s Passover. ⁶ And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord; seven days you must eat unleavened bread. ⁷ On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it. ⁸ But you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord for seven days. The seventh day shall be a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it.’ ”

⁹ And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ¹⁰ “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. ¹¹ He shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. ¹² And you shall offer on that day, when you wave the sheaf, a male lamb of the first year, without blemish, as a burnt offering to the Lord. ¹³ Its grain offering shall be two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering made by fire to the Lord, for a sweet aroma; and its drink offering shall be of wine, one-fourth of a hin. ¹⁴ You shall eat neither bread nor parched grain nor fresh grain until the same day that you have brought an offering to your God; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.

¹⁵ ‘And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed. ¹⁶ Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the Lord. ¹⁷ You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven. They are the firstfruits to the Lord. ¹⁸ And you shall offer with the bread seven lambs of the first year, without blemish, one young bull, and two rams. They shall be as a burnt offering to the Lord, with their grain offering and their drink offerings, an offering made by fire for a sweet aroma to the Lord. ¹⁹ Then you shall sacrifice one kid of the goats as a sin offering, and two male lambs of the first year as a sacrifice of a peace offering. ²⁰ The priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits as a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs. They shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. ²¹ And you shall proclaim on the same day that it is a holy convocation to you. You shall do no customary work on it. It shall be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.

²² ‘When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field when you reap, nor shall you gather any gleaning from your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger: I am the Lord your God.’ ”

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The Israelites were not to eat any new grain, bread, or bushels until they had offered God the first fruits. They were brought to thank God for the produce of the soil, to call on Him for its prosperity, and to glorify Him by using it to help their neighbor. The first sheaves were offered as a wave offering the day after the Sabbath, that is, on a Sunday, and thereupon the full reaping or harvest began. In the year that Christ suffered His Passion, this fell right on that Easter Sunday when Christ rose from the dead. As St. Paul was inspired to write at 1 Corinthians 15:20, Christ, is the Firstfruits from the dead

Fifty days after the first sheaves had been offered as a wave offering, the Israelites were to offer God new fruits. Just as Christians do — they pray before and after the meal. Hence the feast was called the Feast of Pentecost (of the Fifty Days), or Feast of weeks, after the seven weeks, or the Feast of Firstfruits, after the new fruits. Valerius Herberger created a blessed prayer from all of this. Thus, Let us pray: O Lord Jesus, here I see that it was on this day that You poured out Your Holy Spirit upon Your apostles. For it is the proper work of the Holy Spirit (1) to explain the holy 10 Commandments to us rightly, that we may understand them better than the scribes and Pharisee; (2) to show us living consolation in Your most holy wounds when we have come to the knowledge of our sins by contemplation of the Ten Commandments; (3) to make us joyful before God, just as the Israelites made merry on the Feast of Pentecost, and to teach us to pray boldly, “Abba, dear Father” (Rom. 8:15); (4) to show us the full reaping and the rich, abundant harvest of Your precious merit, in which we have full abundance (Jn. 10:10); (5) to direct our heart to offer ourselves up to God as a voluntary gift, as St. Paul says: “Where the Spirit is, there is freedom” (2 For. 3:17). Send the Holy Spirit to me also and grant Him to perform such a blessed Pentecost labor in my heart also, that my heart may be a blessed Pentecost chapel acceptable to You. Amen (Great Works of God, M. Carver, Pt. VII, pg. 164 EP)