Leviticus 26:28

Summary

This verse continues a divine warning within a conditional sequence in Leviticus 26: if the people persist in disobedience, God announces two actions — walking against them in hostile anger, and disciplining them sevenfold for their sins. The syntax emphasizes both continuity (through sequential verb forms) and personal involvement (through an emphatic pronoun).

Key words

• ha.lakh.Ti ("I will walk", H1980I) — qal sequential perfect; continues the chain of divine actions begun earlier in the passage, indicating this is one link in an ongoing series of consequences.
• chamat ("anger of", H2534) — feminine singular construct noun, grammatically bound to the following word to form a construct phrase, "anger of...".
• Keri ("contrariness", H7147) — masculine singular noun completing the construct chain chamat-Keri, literally "anger of contrariness/opposition."
• yi.sar.Ti ("I will discipline", H3256) — piel (intensive) sequential perfect; the piel stem intensifies the basic sense of the root, marking a stronger, deliberate corrective action, again continuing the sequential chain.
• 'A.ni ("I", H0589) — independent personal pronoun following 'af ("also", H0637); this creates emphatic redundancy, since the verb yi.sar.Ti already encodes "I" — the added pronoun stresses the subject's direct agency.

What the text says

The verse is built on two sequential perfect verbs, ha.lakh.Ti ("I will walk", H1980I) and yi.sar.Ti ("I will discipline", H3256), both continuing a narrative chain introduced by the vav prefix (H9001) on each. This grammatical form ties the verse to the preceding conditions in the chapter, presenting these acts as the next consequence in a developing sequence rather than isolated statements.

The phrase bachamat-Keri ("in the anger of contrariness", H2534 + H7147) is a construct chain: chamat ("anger of") is grammatically bound to Keri ("contrariness"), producing a compound expression describing a specific quality of anger — one associated with opposition or contrary action, rather than anger in a general sense.

The clause 'af-'Ani ("also I", H0637 + H0589) adds an independent pronoun after a verb that already contains the first-person subject within its conjugation. This redundancy in Hebrew grammar functions to place emphasis on the acting subject, marking the second action (yi.sar.Ti, piel "I will discipline") as deliberate and personally executed, distinct in intensity from the first verb (ha.lakh.Ti, "I will walk").

Differences between versions

The Hebrew preposition 'im (rendered 'imakhem, "with you", H5973A) is preserved as "with" in the LXXSWETE (μεθ' ὑμῶν, "with you"), but the Vulgate renders it as adversus vos ("against you"), and the BSB follows this sense with "against you." The Hebrew construct bachamat-Keri ("anger of contrariness") is rendered in the LXX as ἐν θυμῷ πλαγίῳ ("in oblique/crooked wrath"), and in the Vulgate as in furore contrario ("in contrary fury") — each version selecting a different nuance for the noun Keri (H7147).