Leviticus 26:16

26:16 I for my part ¹  will do this to you: I will inflict horror on you, consumption and fever, which diminish eyesight and drain away the vitality of life. ²  You will sow your seed in vain because ³  your enemies will eat it. ⁴ 

Leviticus 26:22

26:22 I will send the wild animals ⁵  against you and they will bereave you of your children, ⁶  annihilate your cattle, and diminish your population ⁷  so that your roads will become deserted.

Leviticus 26:25

26:25 I will bring on you an avenging sword, a covenant vengeance. ⁸  Although ⁹  you will gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you and you will be given into enemy hands. ¹⁰ 

¹ tn Or “I also” (see HALOT 76 s.v. אַף 6.b).

² 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.

³ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have causal force here.

⁴ tn That is, “your enemies will eat” the produce that grows from the sown seed.

⁵ tn Heb “the animal of the field.” This collective singular has been translated as a plural. The expression “animal of the field” refers to a wild (i.e., nondomesticated) animal.

⁶ tn The words “of your children” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied.

⁷ tn Heb “and diminish you.”

⁸ tn Heb “vengeance of covenant”; cf. NAB “the avenger of my covenant.”

⁹ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) has a concessive force in this context.

¹⁰ tn Heb “in hand of enemy,” but Tg. Ps.-J. and Tg. Neof. have “in the hands of your enemies” (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 454).