Leviticus 26:39-45

Restoration through Confession and Repentance

26:39 “‘As for the ones who remain among you, they will rot away because of ¹  their iniquity in the lands of your enemies, and they will also rot away because of their ancestors’ ²  iniquities which are with them. 26:40 However, when ³  they confess their iniquity and their ancestors’ iniquity which they committed by trespassing against me, ⁴  by which they also walked ⁵  in hostility against me ⁶  26:41 (and I myself will walk in hostility against them and bring them into the land of their enemies), and ⁷  then their uncircumcised hearts become humbled and they make up for ⁸  their iniquity, 26:42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, ⁹  and I will remember the land. 26:43 The land will be abandoned by them ¹⁰  in order that it may make up for ¹¹  its Sabbaths while it is made desolate ¹²  without them, ¹³  and they will make up for their iniquity because ¹⁴  they have rejected my regulations and have abhorred ¹⁵  my statutes. 26:44 In spite of this, however, when they are in the land of their enemies I will not reject them and abhor them to make a complete end of them, to break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. 26:45 I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors ¹⁶  whom I brought out from the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord.’”

[26:39]  ¹ tn Heb “in” (so KJV, ASV; also later in this verse).

[26:39]  ² tn Heb “fathers’” (also in the following verse).

[26:40]  ³ tn Heb “And.” Many English versions take this to be a conditional clause (“if…”) though there is no conditional particle (see, e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV; but see the very different rendering in B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 190). The temporal translation offered here (“when”) takes into account the particle אָז (’az, “then”), which occurs twice in v. 41. The obvious contextual contrast between vv. 39 and 40 is expressed by “however” in the translation.

[26:40]  ⁴ tn Heb “in their trespassing which they trespassed in me.” See the note on Lev 5:15, although the term is used in a more technical sense there in relation to the “guilt offering.”

[26:40]  ⁵ tn Heb “and also which they walked.”

[26:40]  ⁶ tn Heb “with me.”

[26:41]  ⁷ tn Heb “or then,” although the LXX has “then” and the Syriac “and then.”

[26:41]  ⁸ tn Heb “and then they make up for.” On the verb “make up for” see the note on v. 34 above.

[26:42]  ⁹ tn Heb “my covenant with Abraham I will remember.” The phrase “I will remember” has not been repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[26:43]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “from them.” The preposition “from” refers here to the agent of the action (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 455).

[26:43]  ¹¹ tn The jussive form of the verb with the simple vav (ו) here calls for a translation that expresses purpose.

[26:43]  ¹² tn The verb is the Hophal infinitive construct with the third feminine singular suffix (GKC 182 §67.y; cf. v. 34).

[26:43]  ¹³ tn Heb “from them.”

[26:43]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “because and in because,” a double expression, which is used only here and in Ezek 13:10 (without the vav) for emphasis (GKC 492 §158.b).

[26:43]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and their soul has abhorred.”

[26:45]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “covenant of former ones.”