Leviticus 26:20
וְתַם לָרִיק כֹּחֲכֶם וְלֹֽא־תִתֵּן אַרְצְכֶם אֶת־יְבוּלָהּ וְעֵץ הָאָרֶץ לֹא יִתֵּן פִּרְיֽוֹ׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וְתַ֥ם לָרִ֖יק כֹּחֲכֶ֑ם וְלֹֽא־תִתֵּ֤ן אַרְצְכֶם֙ אֶת־יְבוּלָ֔הּ וְעֵ֣ץ הָאָ֔רֶץ לֹ֥א יִתֵּ֖ן פִּרְיֽוֹ׃
καὶ ἔσται εἰς κενὸν ἡ ἰσχὺς ὑμῶν, κα οὐ δώσει ἡ γῆ ὑμῶν τὸν σπόρον αὐτῆς, καὶ τὸ ξύλον τοῦ ἀγροῦ ὑμῶν οὐ δώσει τὸν καρπὸν αὐτοῦ.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Consumetur incassum labor vester, non proferet terra germen, nec arbores poma præbebunt.
Ustedes gastarán sus fuerzas en vano, porque su tierra no les dará ninguna cosecha ni los árboles les darán su fruto.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y vuestra fuerza se consumirá en vano; que vuestra tierra no dará su esquilmo, y los árboles de la tierra no darán su fruto.
and your strength will be spent in vain. For your land will not yield its produce, and the trees of the land will not bear their fruit.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Leviticus 26:20 describes a consequence within a series of covenant curses: human strength will be exhausted without result, and the earth itself will withhold its yield — neither cultivated land nor trees will produce.
Key words
- Tam ("it will be consumed", H8552) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the chain of coming events; describes the strength as reaching total exhaustion, not merely diminishing.
- Rik ("emptiness", H7385) — noun with prefixed preposition la ("to/in"), forming the idiom "into emptiness/for nothing," qualifying how the strength is consumed.
- ko.cha.khem ("strength of you", H3581B + H9026) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, meaning "your [collective, masculine plural] strength/labor-capacity."
- ti.Ten ("it will give", H5414G) — qal imperfect, feminine subject (the land), expressing a future/ongoing refusal to give.
- pir.Yo ("its fruit", H6529 + H9023) — construct noun with third-person masculine singular suffix, referring back to 'Etz ("tree").
What the text says
The verse is built as two parallel clauses joined by the narrative ve ("and", H9001/H9002), continuing a sequence of curse-statements. The first clause states that ko.cha.khem ("your strength", H3581B) will Tam ("be consumed", H8552) la.Rik ("into emptiness", H7385 + H9005) — the qal sequential perfect verb form ties this outcome directly to what precedes it as the next link in a chain of consequences, not an isolated event.
The second and third clauses shift to feminine imperfect verbs (ti.Ten, yi.Ten, both H5414G) governing 'ar.tze.khem ("your land", H0776G + H9026) and 'Etz ha.'A.retz ("the tree of the land", H6086H + H9009 + H0776G) as subjects. Both are construct-chain nouns: "land of you" and "tree of the land," each paired with an object — ye.vu.Lah ("its produce", H2981 + H9024) and pir.Yo ("its fruit", H6529 + H9023). The repetition of the negation lo' (H3808) before each verb produces a double refusal: the land will not give its produce, and the tree will not give its fruit — a structural parallelism reinforcing total agricultural failure following the exhaustion of human effort.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders ye.vu.Lah ("its produce", H2981) as τὸν σπόρον ("the seed/sowing"), a narrower term than the Hebrew's more general "produce" or "yield." The Vulgate uses germen ("sprout, growth") for the same word, and labor vester ("your labor") for ko.cha.khem ("your strength", H3581B), shifting the semantic focus from physical strength/capacity to the activity of labor itself.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.