Leviticus 26. Final Exhortation. The bulk of this chapter (Leviticus 26:3-45) forms a noble and impressive conclusion to the foregoing code. Few passages in the Bible reach a higher level of impassioned rhetoric. In form and position it is most naturally compared with the similar conclusion to the Deuteronomic code (Deuteronomy 28), where, as here, the blessings of obedience precede the much more detailed curses pronounced on disobedience. Dt. has no reference to repentance and restoration (Leviticus 26:40-44). In language and thought the chapter shows the influence of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 4:4; Jeremiah 9:25; Jeremiah 14:19; Jeremiah 15:8 f.), but still more of Ezekiel (cf. Leviticus 26:40 ff. with Ezekiel 16:60-63; Ezekiel 36:31 ff.; Baentsch has paralleled almost every verse from Ezekiel; see also Chapman, Introd. to Pent., pp. 246ff.). Certain phrases, however (fall towards the sword, 7, and upright, 13) do not occur in Ezekiel; the end of the chapter, impressive as it is, is only sketchy as compared with the statement of the doctrine of restoration (here only hinted at) in Ezekiel 36, while Ezekiel 39 is directly opposed to Ezekie's characteristic doctrine. On the other hand, the interpretation of the Exile and the prediction of repentance and restoration remind the reader strikingly of Ezekiel. The picture of disasters, indeed, (Leviticus 26:27-32) might have been written by any man of deep religious feeling and literary imagination in the previous century; the same might even be said, as Eerdmans urges (suggesting Hezekiah's reign), of Leviticus 26:33-38; but the conjunction of the four motives of humiliation, confession, the covenant, and the land, could not well have been written before Jeremiah or even before Ezekiel. Everything points to the work of some member or members of the company of reformers in which both Ezekiel and the authors of H were prominent, and which fused the prophetic and priestly ideals in a passion of obedience to Yahweh's revealed will. The actual period may have been the reign of Zedekiah, when Ezekiel, already in exile, was foretelling, like Jeremiah, the final downfall of Jerusalem. It may be added that this chapter, Deuteronomy 28, and the other hortatory passages in Dt. show that the Law was thought of, not simply as a body of mechanical precepts with their appropriate sanctions, but as a moral challenge given to Israel either to accept or refuse, even though refusal, like the rejection of Christ in the NT, involves certain and terrible penalties.