Leviticus 26:19
וְשָׁבַרְתִּי אֶת־גְּאוֹן עֻזְּכֶם וְנָתַתִּי אֶת־שְׁמֵיכֶם כַּבַּרְזֶל וְאֶֽת־אַרְצְכֶם כַּנְּחֻשָֽׁה׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וְשָׁבַרְתִּ֖י אֶת־גְּא֣וֹן עֻזְּכֶ֑ם וְנָתַתִּ֤י אֶת־שְׁמֵיכֶם֙ כַּבַּרְזֶ֔ל וְאֶֽת־אַרְצְכֶ֖ם כַּנְּחֻשָֽׁה׃
καὶ συντρίψω τὴν ὕβριν τῆς ὑπερηφανίας ὑμῶν, καὶ θήσω τὸν οὐρανὸν ὑμῖν σιδηροῦν καὶ τὴν γῆν ὑμῶν ὡσεὶ χαλκῆν.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
et conteram superbiam duritiæ vestræ. Daboque vobis cælum desuper sicut ferrum, et terram æneam.
Quebraré el orgullo que tienen de su poder, y haré que el cielo sea tan duro como el hierro y la tierra tan dura como el bronce.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y quebrantaré la soberbia de vuestra fortaleza, y tornaré vuestro cielo como hierro, y vuestra tierra como metal:
I will break down your stubborn pride and make your sky like iron and your land like bronze,
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse announces two consecutive actions using sequential perfect verbs: breaking "the pride of your strength" and turning the sky into iron and the earth into bronze. The imagery describes a transformation of the natural order using metallic comparisons.
Key words
- sha.var.Ti ("I will break", H7665) — qal sequential perfect, first person; continues a narrative chain of divine actions, each verb picking up from the previous one.
- ge.'on ("pride of", H1347) — masculine singular construct; grammatically bound to the following noun, forming the phrase "pride of X" rather than a standalone noun.
- 'u.ze + Khem ("strength" + "your", H5797 + H9026) — construct noun with pronominal suffix; completes the construct chain begun by ge.'on, yielding "pride of your strength."
- na.ta.Ti ("I will make", H5414I) — qal sequential perfect, first person; parallels sha.var.Ti in form, marking the second action in the sequence.
- ka. ("like the", H9004) — preposition plus article attached to bar.Zel ("iron", H1270) and ne.chu.Shah ("bronze", H5154); establishes the comparative relationship "like iron" / "like bronze" rather than stating identity.
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence is built on two sequential perfect verbs, sha.var.Ti ("I will break") and na.ta.Ti ("I will make"), both first person and both connected by the narrative vav (H9001), which chains this verse to the preceding material as a continuing sequence of actions. The first clause uses a construct chain: ge.'on ("pride of," H1347) governs 'u.ze ("strength," H5797) with the second-person plural suffix Khem ("your," H9026), producing "the pride of your strength" as a single grammatical unit rather than two separate ideas of "pride" and "strength."
The second clause repeats the same suffix pattern on two paired nouns, she.mei.Khem ("your heavens") and 'ar.tze.Khem ("your land"), each governed by the object marker 'et (H0853). These are followed by the comparative preposition ka. ("like the," H9004) attached to bar.Zel ("iron," H1270) and ne.chu.Shah ("bronze," H5154). The comparative ka- prefix signals simile — the heavens and land are said to become "like" these metals, not literally transformed into them. The parallel construction (heavens/iron, land/bronze) creates a balanced structure typical of Hebrew poetic parallelism embedded in this legal-narrative text.
Differences between versions
The Hebrew construct phrase ge.'on 'uzzekhem ("pride of your strength") is rendered in the LXX as τὴν ὕβριν τῆς ὑπερηφανίας ὑμῶν ("the arrogance of your pride"), doubling the concept into two nouns (ὕβρις and ὑπερηφανία) where the Hebrew has one construct pair. The Vulgate reads "superbiam duritiae vestrae" ("the pride of your hardness"), rendering 'oz ("strength," H5797) as "duritia" (hardness/stubbornness) rather than "strength." The Vulgate also adds "desuper" ("from above") to describe the sky becoming like iron, a spatial qualifier not present in the Hebrew text as given.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.