Leviticus 26:17

Summary

The verse describes YHWH turning against Israel: setting his "face" against them, causing their defeat before enemies, allowing those who hate them to rule over them, and having them flee even when no one pursues.

Key words

• panai ("my face", H6440H) — masculine plural construct noun with 1st person suffix; the idiom "set the face against" expresses direct hostile confrontation, not merely displeasure.
• nigaftem ("you will be defeated", H5062) — niphal (passive) sequential perfect; the passive voice marks Israel as the recipient of the action rather than the agent, contrasting with the following active verbs describing the enemies.
• radu ("they will rule", H7287A) — qal sequential perfect, 3rd person plural; the subject is son'eikhem ("those who hate you", H8130), a qal participle construct functioning as a substantive ("haters").
• nastem ("you will flee", H5127) — qal sequential perfect, 2nd person plural, continuing the chain of consequences begun by ve + perfect forms throughout the verse.
• rodef ("pursuer", H7291) — qal participle, singular, negated by 'ein ("there is not", H0369); the construction states the absence of any pursuing agent, intensifying the image of flight without external cause.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of five sequential perfect verbs (va-qatal forms), each introduced by the narrative ve-, producing a cause-and-effect sequence: setting the face (v.2), defeat (v.8), domination (v.14), flight (v.20), and the final clause negating pursuit (v.22-25). This syntactic chaining ties the divine action (natati panai, "I will set my face") directly to the subsequent human consequences without interruption, presenting them as one continuous unfolding event rather than isolated statements.

The final clause, ve-'ein rodef etkhem ("and there is no one pursuing you"), uses a nominal negation ('ein) rather than a verbal negation, which in Biblical Hebrew often marks a state or ongoing condition — here, the flight in verse 20 happens despite the total absence of any pursuing enemy, a detail that intensifies the passivity and disproportion of Israel's collapse compared to the qal participle rodef itself, which elsewhere in the passage would denote active pursuit.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew radu bakhem son'eikhem ("those who hate you will rule over you," H7287A) is rendered in the LXX as διώξονται ὑμᾶς οἱ μισοῦντες ὑμᾶς ("those who hate you will pursue you"), replacing the notion of "ruling" with "pursuing." The Vulgate's subjiciemini his qui oderunt vos ("you will be subjected to those who hate you") aligns more closely with the Hebrew sense of domination. Additionally, RV1909 translates panai ("my face") as "mi ira" ("my wrath"), an interpretive rendering not reflected literally in the Hebrew noun panim ("face").