“I shall also grant peace in the land, so that you may lie down with no one making you tremble. I shall also eliminate harmful beasts from the land, and no sword will pass through your land” (Lev 26:6).

Leviticus 26 provides much fodder for the eschatological vision of the prophets. For the prophets, the thought of Israel dwelling in peace in the land of promise, with no harmful beasts or enemies to frighten them, was a return to the Garden of Eden. Since the promises of Eden are conditioned upon Israel’s obedience to the law in Leviticus 26 (Lev 26:2-3), the prophets were painfully aware that Israel could never enter the fulness of this blessing without some kind of miraculous intervention.

Miraculously, the prophets transpose this conditional promise in Leviticus 26:6 into an unconditional reality of the future (Jer 30:10; 46:27; Ezek 34:28; 39:26; Mic 4:4; Zeph 3:13). For the prophets, the Torah’s promises of blessing could only become a reality, not by Israel’s keeping of the Sinai Covenant, but through God’s making of a brand new covenant (Jer 31:31-34; Ezek 36:25-27) and the coming of the Messiah (Jer 30:9; 33:15, 17, 21-22, 26; Ezek 34:23-24; 37:24-25).

It is, therefore, not an exaggeration to say that the new covenant and the Messianic Hope are the only keys capable of unlocking the door to the Torah’s promised blessings.

The prophets of Israel were reading Moses, they were truly longing for Jesus! And like the prophets, when we read Moses, we should see Jesus, and long for his coming too!

“And I, the LORD, will be their God, and My servant David will be prince among them; I the LORD have spoken. I will make a covenant of peace with them and eliminate harmful beasts from the land so that they may live securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods…. They will no longer be a prey to the nations, and the beasts of the earth will not devour them; but they will live securely, and no one will make them afraid” (Ezek 34:24-25, 28).