Leviticus 26:20

26:20 Your strength will be used up in vain, your land will not give its yield, and the trees of the land ¹  will not produce their fruit.

Deuteronomy 28:38-40

The Curse of Reversed Status

28:38 “You will take much seed to the field but gather little harvest, because locusts will consume it. 28:39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will not drink wine or gather in grapes, because worms will eat them. 28:40 You will have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourself with olive oil, because the olives will drop off the trees while still unripe. ² 

Isaiah 62:8-9

62:8 The Lord swears an oath by his right hand,

by his strong arm: ³ 

“I will never again give your grain

to your enemies as food,

and foreigners will not drink your wine,

which you worked hard to produce.

62:9 But those who harvest the grain ⁴  will eat it,

and will praise the Lord.

Those who pick the grapes will drink the wine ⁵ 

in the courts of my holy sanctuary.”

Isaiah 65:21-22

65:21 They will build houses and live in them;

they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

65:22 No longer will they build a house only to have another live in it, ⁶ 

or plant a vineyard only to have another eat its fruit, ⁷ 

for my people will live as long as trees, ⁸ 

and my chosen ones will enjoy to the fullest what they have produced. ⁹ 

Jeremiah 12:13

12:13 My people will sow wheat, but will harvest weeds. ¹⁰ 

They will work until they are exhausted, but will get nothing from it.

They will be disappointed in their harvests ¹¹ 

because the Lord will take them away in his fierce anger. ¹² 

Joel 1:10-12

1:10 The crops of the fields ¹³  have been destroyed. ¹⁴ 

The ground is in mourning because the grain has perished.

The fresh wine has dried up;

the olive oil languishes.

1:11 Be distressed, ¹⁵  farmers;

wail, vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley.

For the harvest of the field has perished.

1:12 The vine has dried up;

the fig tree languishes –

the pomegranate, date, and apple ¹⁶  as well.

In fact, ¹⁷  all the trees of the field have dried up.

Indeed, the joy of the people ¹⁸  has dried up!

Amos 5:11

5:11 Therefore, because you make the poor pay taxes on their crops ¹⁹ 

and exact a grain tax from them,

you will not live in the houses you built with chiseled stone,

nor will you drink the wine from the fine ²⁰  vineyards you planted. ²¹ 

Zephaniah 1:13

1:13 Their wealth will be stolen

and their houses ruined!

They will not live in the houses they have built,

nor will they drink the wine from the vineyards they have planted.

Haggai 1:6

1:6 You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but are never filled. You drink, but are still thirsty. You put on clothes, but are not warm. Those who earn wages end up with holes in their money bags.’” ²² 

[26:20]  ¹ tn Heb “the tree of the land will not give its fruit.” The collective singular has been translated as a plural. Tg. Onq., some medieval Hebrew mss, Smr, LXX, and Tg. Ps.-J. have “the field” as in v. 4, rather than “the land.”

[28:40]  ² tn Heb “your olives will drop off” (נָשַׁל, nashal), referring to the olives dropping off before they ripen.

[62:8]  ³ tn The Lord’s right hand and strong arm here symbolize his power and remind the audience that his might guarantees the fulfillment of the following promise.

[62:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “it,” the grain mentioned in v. 8a.

[62:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “and those who gather it will drink it.” The masculine singular pronominal suffixes attached to “gather” and “drink” refer back to the masculine noun תִּירוֹשׁ (tirosh, “wine”) in v. 8b.

[65:22]  ⁶ tn Heb “they will not build, and another live [in it].”

[65:22]  ⁷ tn Heb “they will not plant, and another eat.”

[65:22]  ⁸ tn Heb “for like the days of the tree [will be] the days of my people.”

[65:22]  ⁹ tn Heb “the work of their hands” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “their hard-won gains.”

[12:13]  ¹⁰ sn Invading armies lived off the land, using up all the produce and destroying everything they could not consume.

[12:13]  ¹¹ tn The pronouns here are actually second plural: Heb “Be ashamed/disconcerted because of your harvests.” Because the verb form (וּבֹשׁוּ, uvoshu) can either be Qal perfect third plural or Qal imperative masculine plural many emend the pronoun on the noun to third plural (see, e.g., BHS). However, this is the easier reading and is not supported by either the Latin or the Greek which have second plural. This is probably another case of the shift from description to direct address that has been met with several times already in Jeremiah (the figure of speech called apostrophe; for other examples see, e.g., 9:4; 11:13). As in other cases the translation has been leveled to third plural to avoid confusion for the contemporary English reader. For the meaning of the verb here see BDB 101 s.v. בּוֹשׁ Qal.2 and compare the usage in Jer 48:13.

[12:13]  ¹² tn Heb “be disappointed in their harvests from the fierce anger of the Lord.” The translation makes explicit what is implicit in the elliptical poetry of the Hebrew original.

[1:10]  ¹³ tn Heb “the field has been utterly destroyed.” The term “field,” a collective singular for “fields,” is a metonymy for crops produced by the fields.

[1:10]  ¹⁴ tn Joel uses intentionally alliterative language in the phrases שֻׁדַּד שָׂדֶה (shuddad sadeh, “the field is destroyed”) and אֲבְלָה אֲדָמָה (’avlah ’adamah, “the ground is in mourning”).

[1:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “embarrassed”; or “be ashamed.”

[1:12]  ¹⁶ tn This Hebrew word וְתַפּוּחַ (vÿtappuakh) probably refers to the apple tree (so most English versions), but other suggestions that scholars have offered include the apricot, citron, or quince.

[1:12]  ¹⁷ tn These words are not in the Hebrew text but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[1:12]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the sons of man.”

[5:11]  ¹⁹ tn Traditionally, “because you trample on the poor” (cf. KJV, ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT). The traditional view derives the verb from בּוּס (bus, “to trample”; cf. Isa. 14:25), but more likely it is cognate to an Akkadian verb meaning “to exact an agricultural tax” (see H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 49; S. M. Paul, Amos [Hermeneia], 172-73).

[5:11]  ²⁰ tn Or “lovely”; KJV, NASB, NRSV “pleasant”; NAB “choice”; NIV “lush.”

[5:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “Houses of chiseled stone you built, but you will not live in them. Fine vineyards you planted, but you will not drink their wine.”

[1:6]  ²² tn Some translate “pockets” (so NLT) but the Hebrew word צְרוֹר (tsÿror) refers to a bag, pouch, or purse of money (BDB 865 s.v. צְרוֹר; HALOT 1054 s.v. צְרוֹר 1). Because coinage had been invented by the Persians and was thus in use in Haggai’s day, this likely is a money bag or purse rather than pouches or pockets in the clothing. Since in contemporary English “purse” (so NASB, NIV, NCV) could be understood as a handbag, the present translation uses “money bags.”