Leviticus 26:31

Summary

The verse declares that the cities will be turned into ruins, the sanctuaries devastated, and the pleasant aroma of offerings will no longer be received. It is phrased as a first-person divine announcement using sequential verb forms that continue a chain of consequences.

Key words

• na.ta.Ti ("I will make", H5414I) — qal sequential perfect, first person; continues a chain of prior actions, here producing the result "waste place" for the cities.
• char.Bah ("a waste place", H2723) — feminine singular noun functioning as the resulting state of the cities, not a verb of destroying but the condition they become.
• ha.shi.mo.Ti ("I will devastate", H8074G) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect; the causative stem marks the subject as actively causing desolation, distinct from char.Bah which names the state itself.
• mik.de.shei ("sanctuaries", H4720) — masculine plural construct, "sanctuaries of," bound to the following suffix khem ("your").
• 'a.Ri.ach ("I will smell", H7306) — hiphil imperfect, first person; paired with the negation Lo' ("not", H3808) to express a future/ongoing refusal to smell.
• ni.Cho.cha ("soothing", H5207) — masculine singular construct, "soothing [aroma] of," modifying rei.ach ("odor of", H7381) in a double construct chain: "odor of soothing of your [offerings]."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure relies on the narrative vav (ve-) attached to sequential perfect verbs (na.ta.Ti, ha.shi.mo.Ti), a construction that links this verse to a preceding chain of divine actions, presenting them as consequences following in sequence rather than isolated statements. The first clause uses na.ta.Ti ("I will make") with the direct object 'ares eikhem ("your cities") and the predicate noun char.Bah ("a waste place"), meaning the cities are set to become a waste place — a state of being, expressed nominally rather than through a verb of destruction. The second clause switches to the hiphil stem ha.shi.mo.Ti ("I will devastate"), which grammatically encodes causation: the subject is not merely present at desolation but causes it directly regarding mik.de.shei.khem ("your sanctuaries").

The final clause pivots with ve-lo' ("and not") before the hiphil imperfect 'a.Ri.ach ("I will smell"), shifting from completed sequential actions to a negated ongoing/future action. The object of this verb is expressed through a double construct chain: rei.ach ("odor of") governing ni.Cho.cha ("soothing of") governing khem ("your"), literally "the odor of the soothing of your [something understood as offerings]." The suffix khem attaches to an implied noun for offerings/sacrifices not explicitly listed in the word-by-word data, though the construct chain itself grammatically indicates a scent connected to the addressees.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders rei.ach ni.cho.cha.khem as "τῆς ὀσμῆς τῶν θυσιῶν ὑμῶν" ("the odor of your sacrifices"), explicitly supplying "sacrifices" (θυσιῶν) where the Hebrew construct chain leaves the final referent implicit within the possessive suffix. The Vulgate renders the same phrase as "odorem suavissimum" ("a most sweet odor"), omitting any explicit noun for sacrifices and instead intensifying the adjective describing the smell itself.