Leviticus 26:16

Summary

The verse announces a divine response introduced by an emphatic formula ("also I") followed by a series of afflictions: sudden terror, wasting disease, and fever that destroy sight and drain life. It closes with an image of futile agricultural labor — sown seed consumed by enemies rather than by those who planted it.

Key words

• 'aph ("also", H0637) — an emphatic interjection preceding the pronoun, reinforcing the contrast between the addressees' prior action and the divine reaction that follows.
• 'e'eseh ("I will do", H6213A) — qal imperfect, first person, expressing an action not yet completed, tied to the demonstrative zot ("this", H2063) that points forward to what is enumerated afterward.
• hifqadti ("I will appoint", H6485I) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect; the causative stem indicates that the subject actively brings about or imposes the following conditions, rather than merely permitting them.
• mekhallot ("[which] cause to fail", H3615H) — piel participle, feminine plural, agreeing with sha'chefet ("consumption", H7829) and qaddachat ("fever", H6920); the piel stem intensifies the causative sense of "wasting away."
• 'akhaluhu ("they will eat it", H0398) — qal sequential perfect with third-person suffix "it" (H9033), referring back to zar'akhem ("your seed", H2233G); the verb closes the sequence begun with ze ra'tem ("you will sow").

What the text says

The verse opens with the construction 'aph 'ani ("also I"), placing the pronoun 'ani ("I", H0589) in emphatic position before the verb 'e'eseh ("I will do", H6213A). This word order foregrounds the subject, marking a shift or intensification relative to what precedes in the chapter. The demonstrative zot ("this", H2063) functions cataphorically, announcing that the content to follow specifies what "this" refers to.

The verb chain then shifts to sequential perfects — hifqadti ("I will appoint", H6485I), zera'tem ("you will sow", H2232), 'akhaluhu ("they will eat it", H0398) — a common narrative device in Biblical Hebrew for linking a series of consequential actions in future time, even though the verb forms are grammatically perfect. The hiphil stem of hifqadti marks a causative action: the subject does not merely observe but brings about the conditions described. The two participles mekhallot ("[which] cause to fail", H3615H) and medivot ("[which] make pine away", H1727), both piel/hiphil and feminine plural, modify sha'chefet and qaddachat, describing these conditions as actively producing failure of 'einayim ("eyes", H5869A, dual form) and wasting of nafesh ("life/being", H5315G).

The final clause uses the construct chain zar'akhem ("your seed", H2233G construct + suffix) and 'oyevei-khem ("your enemies", H0341 construct + suffix), both showing possessive constructions that tie the sown seed and the consuming enemies grammatically to "you" (plural), reinforcing that what is produced by the addressees' labor passes to another party's benefit.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders beha'lah ("sudden terror", H0928) as tēn aporian ("the perplexity/want"), a different semantic field than the Hebrew's sense of sudden dread. The Vulgate's in egestate ("in want/poverty") follows a similar direction to the LXX rather than the Hebrew's "terror." The Hebrew nafesh ("life/being", H5315G) appears in the LXX as tēn psychēn ("the soul") and in the Vulgate as animas ("souls"), terms carrying broader philosophical connotations than the Hebrew term's range of "life, breath, self."