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The Consequences of Disobedience

14 “‘If, however,[a] you do not obey me and keep[b] all these commandments— 15 if you reject my statutes and abhor my regulations so that you do not keep[c] all my commandments and you break my covenant— 16 I for my part[d] will do this to you: I will inflict horror on you, consumption and fever, which diminish eyesight and drain away the vitality of life.[e] You will sow your seed in vain because[f] your enemies will eat it.[g]

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Footnotes

  1. Leviticus 26:14 tn Heb “And if.”
  2. Leviticus 26:14 tn Heb “and do not do.”
  3. Leviticus 26:15 tn Heb “to not do.”
  4. Leviticus 26:16 tn Or “I also” (see HALOT 76 s.v. אַף 6.b).
  5. Leviticus 26:16 tn Heb “soul.” These expressions may refer either to the physical effects of consumption and fever as the rendering in the text suggests (e.g., J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 452, 454, “diminishing eyesight and loss of appetite”), or perhaps the more psychological effects, “which exhausts the eyes” because of anxious hope “and causes depression” (Heb “causes soul [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh] to pine away”), e.g., B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 185.
  6. Leviticus 26:16 tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have causal force here.
  7. Leviticus 26:16 tn That is, “your enemies will eat” the produce that grows from the sown seed.

Punishment for Disobedience

14 “‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands,(A) 15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws(B) and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant,(C) 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever(D) that will destroy your sight and sap your strength.(E) You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it.(F)

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