What Does Leviticus 26:44 Mean?
And yet, for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not push them away, nor will I recoil from them, to finish them, and to break my covenant with them. For I am the LORD their God.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the LORD their God.THE KEY
The enemy land is not proof of rejection: God names the people as his own even where their circumstances seem to say otherwise.
THE MEANING
When you are in a hostile place, this verse does not treat that location as proof that God has discarded or loathed the people bound to him. The covenant remains unbroken in God’s own words, and “I am the LORD their God” names that bond in the present.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that hardship, displacement, or living among enemies proves God has repudiated his covenant with his people.
THE ROOT
לֹא־מְאַסְתִּים
lo-me'astim
GROWS FROM
מאס
m-'-s
Reject, refuse, or set aside.
“push them away” in this verse is lo-me'astim. The verb under “cast them away” is the language of deliberate refusal. The verse denies that act even in enemy territory: the land changes, but rejection is not what God does to the people bound to him.
ALSO GROWS
ma'asu: They rejected or refused.
מָאֲסוּ
Psalm 118:22 uses this root for the builders’ rejection of the stone; here the same kind of setting aside is explicitly denied of God’s people.
ma'asta: You rejected.
מָאַסְתָּ
In 1 Samuel 15:23, this root describes rejection of the LORD’s word and the rejection that follows; here it is negated of God’s response.
לְהָפֵר
lehafer
GROWS FROM
הפר
p-r-r
Break, annul, or make void.
“break” in this verse is lehafer. The verse names covenant-breaking as an act God will not perform. This root also describes annulment and the frustrating of a purpose, so the promise speaks to the bond’s continued force, not merely to a passing feeling.
ALSO GROWS
tapheru: You break or violate.
תָּפֵרוּ
Jeremiah 33:20 uses this root for breaking God’s covenant with the day and night; the same verb makes annulment the precise possibility this verse rules out.
yapher: He will annul or make void.
יָפֵר
Isaiah 14:27 uses this root for disannulling what the LORD has purposed, extending the word from a broken bond to a thwarted purpose.
THE PATTERN
A present rupture does not by itself mean God has repudiated a relationship he names as his own.
For the LORD will not cast off his people, and will not let go of his inheritance.For the favors and the calling of God are not taken back.If we do not trust, he remains steady, for he cannot deny himself.THE THREAD
Thus says the LORD. If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, declares the LORD.“Cast off” uses the same root, מאס (ma’as), as “cast them away” here. Jeremiah places that rejection behind an impossible condition; Leviticus speaks the same refusal from within the enemy land, where rejection might seem certain.
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