Leviticus 26:38

Summary

The verse announces that those addressed will perish among foreign nations, and that the land belonging to their enemies will consume them. It continues a sequence of consequences using two sequential verb forms joined by "and."

Key words

• 'a.vad.Tem ("you will perish", H0006) — qal sequential perfect, 2nd masculine plural: continues a prior chain of actions, projecting this outcome as the next link in a sequence rather than an isolated statement.
• go.Yim ("nations", H1471A) — masculine plural noun, object of the preposition ba ("among/in the"), marking the location where the perishing occurs.
• 'a.khe.Lah ("it will consume", H0398) — qal sequential perfect, 3rd feminine singular: the subject is grammatically feminine, matching 'E.retz ("land"), which follows.
• 'E.retz ("land of", H0776G) — feminine singular noun in construct state, meaning it must be followed by another noun to complete its meaning ("land of X").
• 'o.ye.vei.khem ("your enemies", H0341 + H9026) — qal participle, masculine plural construct with 2nd masculine plural suffix: literally "the ones being hostile to you," completing the construct chain begun by 'E.retz.

What the text says

The verse is built as two parallel clauses joined by the narrative va ("and", H9001), each opening with a sequential perfect verb — a verb form that carries forward a chain of announced events rather than standing as a simple standalone statement. The first clause, va'avadtem bagoyim ("and you will perish among the nations"), places the addressed group (2nd person masculine plural) as the grammatical subject of 'a.vad.Tem ("you will perish", H0006), located spatially "among" (ba) the goyim ("nations", H1471A).

The second clause shifts the grammatical subject to 'E.retz ("land", H0776G), which governs the verb 'a.khe.Lah ("it will consume", H0398) — feminine singular, agreeing with the feminine noun "land." The addressed group becomes the direct object, marked by 'et (H0853) plus the suffix khem ("you", H9036). The phrase 'Eretz 'oyeveikhem ("land of your enemies") is a construct chain: 'Eretz cannot stand alone grammatically and requires the following noun 'oyeveikhem ("your enemies", H0341 with suffix H9026) to complete its sense — literally "the land belonging to the ones hostile to you." The participle form of 'oyeveikhem frames "enemies" not as a fixed noun but as those actively "being hostile."

Differences between versions

The Hebrew verb 'a.khe.Lah (H0398) carries the basic sense "to eat/consume." The LXX renders it with katedetai ("will devour"), and the Vulgate with consumet ("will consume"), both preserving the consuming image but with different intensity of connotation (devouring vs. general consumption). The SBLIBRE Spanish rendering "se los tragará" ("will swallow them") intensifies this further, emphasizing ingestion more strongly than the BSB's "will consume."