Leviticus 26:17

26:17 I will set my face against you. You will be struck down before your enemies, those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when there is no one pursuing you.

Leviticus 26:36-37

26:36 “‘As for ¹  the ones who remain among you, I will bring despair into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a blowing leaf will pursue them, and they will flee as one who flees the sword and fall down even though there is no pursuer. 26:37 They will stumble over each other as those who flee before a sword, though ²  there is no pursuer, and there will be no one to take a stand ³  for you before your enemies.

Deuteronomy 28:15

Curses as Reversal of Blessings

28:15 “But if you ignore ⁴  the Lord your God and are not careful to keep all his commandments and statutes I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you in full force: ⁵ 

Deuteronomy 28:25

Curses by Defeat and Deportation

28:25 “The Lord will allow you to be struck down before your enemies; you will attack them from one direction but flee from them in seven directions and will become an object of terror ⁶  to all the kingdoms of the earth.

Deuteronomy 28:51-52

28:51 They ⁷  will devour the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your soil until you are destroyed. They will not leave you with any grain, new wine, olive oil, calves of your herds, ⁸  or lambs of your flocks ⁹  until they have destroyed you. 28:52 They will besiege all of your villages ¹⁰  until all of your high and fortified walls collapse – those in which you put your confidence throughout the land. They will besiege all your villages throughout the land the Lord your God has given you.

Jeremiah 42:16

42:16 the wars you fear will catch up with you there in the land of Egypt. The starvation you are worried about will follow you there to ¹¹  Egypt. You will die there. ¹² 

¹ tn Heb “And.”

² tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) is used in a concessive sense here.

³ tn The term rendered “to stand up” is a noun, not an infinitive. It occurs only here and appears to designate someone who would take a powerful stand for them against their enemies.

⁴ tn Heb “do not hear the voice of.”

⁵ tn Heb “and overtake you” (so NIV, NRSV); NAB, NLT “and overwhelm you.”

⁶ tc The meaningless MT reading זַעֲוָה (za’avah) is clearly a transposition of the more commonly attested Hebrew noun זְוָעָה (zÿva’ah, “terror”).

⁷ tn Heb “it” (so NRSV), a collective singular referring to the invading nation (several times in this verse and v. 52).

⁸ tn Heb “increase of herds.”

⁹ tn Heb “growth of flocks.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “gates,” also in vv. 55, 57.

¹¹ tn Or “will follow you right into Egypt,” or “will dog your steps all the way to Egypt”; Heb “cling after.” This is the only case of this verb with this preposition in the Qal stem. However, it is used with this preposition several times in the Hiphil, all with the meaning of “to pursue closely.” See BDB 180 s.v. דָּבַק Hiph.2 and compare Judg 20:45; 1 Sam 14:22; 1 Chr 10:2.

¹² tn The repetition of the adverb “there” in the translation of vv. 14, 16 is to draw attention to the rhetorical emphasis on the locale of Egypt in the original text of both v. 14 and v. 16. In v. 14 they say, “to the land of Egypt we will go…and there we will live.” In v. 16 God says, “wars…there will catch up with you…the hunger…there will follow after you…and there you will die.” God rhetorically denies their focus on Egypt as a place of safety and of relative prosperity. That can only be found in Judah under the protective presence of the Lord (vv. 10-12).