Leviticus 26:3-4:  “If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; (4) Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.”

I was reading in the Talmud this morning in Avodah Zarah 5a and found something interesting in the way this verse is translated by the sages.  It is how they translated the word im or if.  That word is a conjunction which in English has a variety of usages. The Greek, being a precise and exacting language has three if’s.  One is a conditional if, do it or else.  The second is a statement of fact, because if you do this you will… and the third is a plea, if only.  You recall when the enemy tempted Jesus he said: “If you be the Son of God turn these stones into bread.”  The Greek used the if  which expresses a statement of fact.  In other words he was not trying to get Jesus to prove He was the Son of God but was merely stating a fact, “Since you are the Son of God turn these stones into bread.”  Just as we automatically think the if in this New Testament passage is a challenge rather than a statement of fact, we somehow automatically read the if in Leviticus as a condition rather than a plea. The Talmud, however, teaches that this if is a plea, not a condition.

Unlike the Greek which clearly indicates the use of the word if as a condition, statement of fact or plea, the Hebrew does not do this and it is up to the translator to decide based upon the context and his own view of God.  So it is up to the translator to decide if you are going to make this statement a condition, if you keep my statutes or a wish, desire or plea, If only you would keep my statutes.

How you render this is going to be a reflection  your world view of God. This may seem trivial to you but stop and consider the implications of that little word only.  How you render this can have a profound effect on the tone you set for the very basis of your faith in God.  Do you see God as a commanding tyrant, dictator who will punish you for disobeying His laws?  If that is the case then you render your if as: on the condition you keep my commandments  and  do them then I will take care of you.  The implication is that if we don’t keep His commandments then look out, you will have no rain, yield of your land will not increase, the trees will bear no fruit and your will starve to death.

However, if you see God as a loving, nurturing God you will render this as the Talmud instructs you to render it and that is as a plea from God. If only you will keep my statutes and commandments, then I will give you rain.  You may think, “What difference does that make?”  The difference is this.  As a conditional statement it implies that your obedience has nothing to do with the yield of food.  As a plea it implies that you obedience to the statutes of God have a direct practical impact on your produce.  For instance in the thirties during the depression farmers worked their land to death, literally.  The statutes of God tells us that we must let the land rest for a year.  When this was not done in the 30’s the land literally died up at the loss of its nutrients and turned to dust not only making it useless to grow crops but also resulted in devastating dust storms.  In other words God has created this world to function according to a standard of laws. Laws which mean that you must give your land a rest so its nutrients will be restored.  If you break that law you break the harmony of His creation.

Early man had no concept of a microscopic world, a world of life that you could not see with the naked eye but had the potential of  killing us as we well know today.  Virus, and diseases are caused by these microscopic microbes.  Early man just assumed some evil unseen spirit had entered a person.  In a sense they were right as far as the unseen part but wrong on the spirit part.  The unseen were microscopic forms of life, not supernatural entities.  Not to say some illness can’t be spiritual, but we know from modern medicine that most are not. This little misunderstanding due to lack of knowledge led to many methods to remove these evil spirits, some methods which  were painful and harmful to the person and did nothing to cure the disease.

Note Luke 11:38: “And when the Pharisee saw [it], he marveled that he had not first washed before dinner.”  The Jews has no concept of the need for sanitation as they knew nothing about microbes.  Yet their oral law commanded that they wash their hands before a meal.  To them it was just a meaningless ritual given to show how devoted you were to God.  Yet, in an attempt to understand why God gave such a ridiculous ritual, over a period of time tradition took on certain teachings so that up to the time of Jesus it was taught that demons enter your body at night and make  their way to your hands.  These demons cause your hands to do horrible things, like steal, inappropriate sexual contact, hitting someone etc.  How convenient? The person would plead, “But it was not my fault, it was the demons in my hands.”   Now the Jewish sages somehow came up with the idea that demons hate water and so by washing your hands you were washing the demons out of you.  Sounds crazy, no? Therefore if you ended up stealing it was still your fault for not following the law to wash your hands and wash those demons out.  Jesus wanted to show how ridiculous the whole thing was.

Well, farmers in the thirties thought the law about a sabbatical year where you let your land rest like some tired out farmer and giving the land a Sabbath was ridiculous and crazy.  “I’ve got perfectly good land that I can grow extra crops on, how insane that I don’t use it.”  As a result when the rains did not come one year, the land quickly dried up and turned to useless dust.

Today every farmer knows that he must care for his land as if it were a living entity.  He nurtures his land and feeds it nutrients so when the rains do not come he does not end up with a field of dust.

How would you translate this passage?  Would you render it as:  “If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them…” as God trying to establish control and consolidate his power?  Or would you translate it as the ancient sages and masters of the Hebrew language translates it: “If only ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them…”   Is God demanding obedience to reaffirm His power and control or is He pleading with us to obey Him because if we don’t we end up starving to death,  suffering broken relationships or just knocking God’s creation out of its harmony? Depending upon how you view God and His love will determine which if im to use.