Leviticus 26:14

Summary

The verse presents a conditional clause introducing consequences that follow if the addressed group fails to listen and to carry out the commandments. It functions as the hinge between a preceding blessings section and a following list of curses, marked entirely by negated verbs describing failure to comply.

Key words

• 'im ("if", H0518A) — conditional particle that opens the protasis, setting up a hypothetical or expected future scenario rather than a statement of fact.
• tishme'u ("you will listen", H8085G) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural, expressing an ongoing or future action of listening/obeying; negated by lo' ("not", H3808).
• ta'aSu ("you will do", H6213A) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural, paired with the direct object marker 'et (H0853) and governing the noun phrase that follows; also negated by lo' ("not", H3808).
• mitzvot ("commandments", H4687) — feminine plural noun, in construct relationship with kol ("all", H3605), forming the phrase "all the commandments."
• ha-'eleh ("these", H0428) — demonstrative particle with article, modifying ha-mitzvot ("the commandments", H4687+H9009) and pointing to a specific, already-identified set of commandments.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a double negative conditional: ve-'im lo' tishme'u li ("and if you will not listen to me") followed by ve-lo' ta'aSu 'et kol-ha-mitzvot ha-'eleh ("and you will not do all these commandments"). Both verbs, tishme'u (H8085G) and ta'aSu (H6213A), are qal imperfect plural forms, each preceded by its own negation lo' (H3808), creating a parallel structure of two coordinated failures: failure to listen and failure to act. The imperfect aspect allows the clause to be read as describing a general or future condition rather than a single past event.

The phrase li ("to me", H9005+H9030) attaches a first-person pronominal suffix directly to the preposition, indicating that the listening is directed toward a specific speaker. The object of the second verb is marked explicitly by 'et (H0853), a grammatical marker with no independent gloss, which signals that kol-ha-mitzvot ha-'eleh ("all these commandments") is the direct object of ta'aSu. The construct chain kol-ha-mitzvot (H3605+H4687) links "all" to "the commandments" as a single unit, further specified by the demonstrative ha-'eleh (H0428), which restricts the reference to a defined, prior set rather than commandments in general.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders tishme'u ("you will listen", H8085G) with hypakousēte ("obey"), shifting the semantic field from auditory listening to compliance, and translates mitzvot ("commandments", H4687) as prostagmata ("ordinances/commands"). The Vulgate follows a similar pattern with audieritis ("you will have heard") and mandata ("commandments"), while modern versions such as BSB use "obey" for tishme'u, aligning with the LXX's interpretive choice rather than the more literal "hear/listen" of the Hebrew root H8085G.