EXOD332 Collective reward and punishment. The context or framework of the commandments assumes God will reward and punish on a collective, national basis. This is a consequence of the collective nature of God's covenant with Israel--that is, Israel as a nation agreed to accept its role as God's covenant partner and thereby become "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" [this verse, Exodus 24:3,7]. Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 enumerate the blessings and curses that will come upon the people of Israel as a result of its observance or non-observance of God's laws. Rewards include sufficient rains and plenteous harvests, abundant fertility for their human and animal populations, immunity from foreign invaders, and God's continual and beneficent Presence. More detailed and numerous are the penalties for flouting the commandments: affliction by disease, agricultural infertility, lethal attacks by wild animals, invasions by foreign armies and the resultant food shortages, exile from the land of Israel, and divine rejection. The collective nature of the reward and punishment motivates individual Israelites not only to comply, but, further, to compel their fellow Israelites to observe God's laws and initiate prosecution against those who do not. Deuteronomy in particular repeats the admonition to show no toleration for evil-doers, ("show no pity" and "sweep out evil from your midst"), lest calamity engulf the nation as a whole (13:6, 17:7, 19:19, 21:21). [For author's discussion of "Individual reward and punishment," see [[EXOD684]] Exodus 22:23 your OXFORD 39] (By Elaine Adler Goodfriend, “Ethical Theory and Practice in the Hebrew Bible)