Leviticus 26:15

Summary

Leviticus 26:15 presents a conditional clause describing rejection of divine statutes and judgments, resulting in non-observance of commandments and the breaking of a covenant. The verse is structured as a chain of consequences: rejection leads to abhorrence, which leads to non-performance, which leads to covenant violation.

Key words

• chuqqotai ("my statutes", H2708) — feminine plural construct noun with 1st person suffix; the object of rejection in the first conditional clause.
• tim'asu ("you will reject", H3988A) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural; denotes an ongoing or future collective action of rejection.
• tig'al ("it will abhor", H1602) — qal imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular; the subject is nafshechem ("your soul/self", H5315I), giving the verb its feminine agreement.
• mitzvotai ("my commandments", H4687) — feminine plural construct with 1st person suffix; object of the infinitive 'asot ("to do", H6213A).
• beriti ("my covenant", H1285) — feminine singular construct with 1st person suffix; the final object affected via the hiphil infinitive hafrechem ("your breaking", H6565A).

What the text says

The verse contains two parallel conditional clauses introduced by 'im ("if", H0518A), each governed by ve ("and", H9002). The first clause names chuqqotai ("my statutes", H2708) as the object of the verb tim'asu ("you will reject", H3988A), a qal imperfect second-person plural form addressing the collective "you." The second clause shifts subject: it is not "you" directly but nafshechem ("your soul/self", H5315I) that performs the action of tig'al ("it will abhor", H1602), a qal imperfect third-person feminine singular verb agreeing with the feminine noun nefesh. This grammatical shift places the verb of abhorrence in the "self" rather than in the addressed group directly, a distinction visible only in the Hebrew morphology.

The consequences of these two conditions are expressed through two infinitive clauses linked by le- ("to", H9005). The first, le-vilti 'asot ("to not do", H1115 + H6213A), uses the negating noun bilti before the infinitive 'asot, describing failure to perform kol mitzvotai ("all my commandments", H3605 + H4687). The second infinitive clause, le-hafrechem ("to your breaking", H6565A), is built on a hiphil (causative) infinitive with a pronominal suffix "you," indicating that the addressees themselves cause the breaking of beriti ("my covenant", H1285). The hiphil stem marks this as a causative action distinct from the qal forms used earlier in the verse.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew's two conditional 'im clauses (H0518A) as a continuous sequence with ὥστε ("so that") connecting results, differing from the Hebrew's paratactic ve-'im...ve-'im structure. The Vulgate uses "si spreveritis... et judicia mea contempseritis" employing two finite verbs where the Hebrew uses one finite verb (tim'asu) and one clause with a feminine-subject verb (tig'al) governed by nafshechem, a grammatical nuance not preserved in the Latin.