Leviticus 26:6

Summary

The verse announces a series of consequences framed as divine action: peace granted to the land, the people lying down without fear, dangerous animals removed, and no sword crossing the territory. Each clause is linked to the next through sequential verb forms, presenting them as a connected chain of results.

Key words

• na.ta.Ti ("I will give", H5414G) — qal sequential perfect, first person; opens the chain and marks the subject "I" as the one granting peace.
• sha.lOm ("peace", H7965G) — masculine singular noun, the direct object of "I will give," naming the specific condition granted to the land.
• ma.cha.Rid ("terrifies / one who terrifies", H2729) — hiphil (causative) participle, masculine singular; functions as a substantive describing an agent that causes fright, negated by 'Ein ("there not", H0369).
• hish.ba.Ti ("I will cause to cease", H7673A) — hiphil sequential perfect, first person; a causative verb, meaning the subject actively removes something rather than it simply disappearing.
• ta.'a.Vor ("it will pass", H5674A) — qal imperfect, third person feminine, agreeing with Che.rev ("a sword", H2719); the imperfect form marks this as a future/ongoing negated action rather than a completed one.

What the text says

The verse is built as a sequence of four clauses joined by the narrative vav (H9001) attached to sequential perfect verbs: na.ta.Ti ("I will give"), she.khav.Tem ("you will lie down"), hish.ba.Ti ("I will cause to cease"), each continuing the temporal/logical chain begun earlier in the passage. This grammatical form ties the clauses together as a unified continuation rather than isolated statements.

The phrase 'Ein ma.cha.Rid combines the negative existential particle 'Ein ("there not", H0369) with the hiphil participle ma.cha.Rid ("one who terrifies", H2729). The participle form presents "terrifying" as an ongoing characteristic of an agent, and its negation states the absence of any such agent, rather than negating a single event of terrifying.

The clause about the sword uses a different verbal pattern: lo'- ta.'a.Vor ("it will not pass") employs the negation lo' (H3808) with a qal imperfect verb, ta.'a.Vor (H5674A), agreeing in gender with the feminine noun Che.rev ("a sword", H2719). This contrasts with the sequential perfects used earlier — the imperfect here frames the sword's non-passing as a future or habitual state rather than a punctual completed action within the sequence.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders Che.rev ("a sword", H2719) with the general reference to the land already established (ἐκ τῆς γῆς ὑμῶν), and the Spanish SBLIBRE translates the same word as "guerra" ("war") rather than "sword," broadening the concrete image of the Hebrew noun into a more general term for armed conflict. The Vulgate's "gladius" and BSB's "sword" retain the more literal sense found in the Hebrew Che.rev.