Leviticus 26:7

Summary

Leviticus 26:7 states that the addressees will pursue their enemies, and those enemies will fall before them by the sword. The verse forms part of a sequence of consequences following certain conditions established earlier in the chapter.

Key words

• redaftem ("you will pursue", H7291) — qal sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine plural; the sequential perfect continues a chain of future actions begun earlier in the passage, functioning as a future tense in this narrative sequence.
• oyeveikhem ("your enemies", H0341) — qal participle masculine plural construct of the root meaning "to be hostile," with pronominal suffix "your" (H9026); as a participle it denotes "those who are hostile," i.e., "the ones enemy-ing you."
• nafelu ("they will fall", H5307J) — qal sequential perfect, 3rd person plural, continuing the same sequence as redaftem.
• lifneikhem ("before you", H6440G + H9026) — construct noun pnei ("face of") plus preposition li and suffix "your," literally "to the face of you," an idiom for spatial precedence.
• le-charev ("by/to the sword", H2719) — feminine singular noun charev ("sword") with prefixed preposition le ("to/by") and article, indicating the instrument or manner of the enemies' fall.

What the text says

The verse is built from two clauses joined by the narrative vav (H9001), each using a qal sequential perfect verb (redaftem, nafelu). This verbal form links the verse to the preceding conditional and consequential statements in the chapter, presenting these actions as the next expected outcome in a chain rather than as isolated events. The subject of the first clause is the addressee group ("you," masculine plural), who will pursue; the object is oyeveikhem, literally "the ones who are hostile to you," built from a participle rather than a static noun, emphasizing an ongoing hostile relationship rather than a fixed category of person.

The second clause shifts the grammatical subject to the enemies themselves, who "will fall" (nafelu). The phrase lifneikhem ("before you," H6440G + H9026) uses the construct form of panim ("face"), a common Hebrew idiom for spatial or positional priority — literally "to the face of you." The final phrase, le-charev ("by the sword," H2719), specifies the means of the enemies' fall using the preposition le attached to the noun for "sword." The Hebrew sentence structure places the action (falling) before the instrument (sword) and location (before you), a common Hebrew word order distinct from the English or Spanish translations, which do not alter meaning but do reorganize word sequence for target-language readability.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders le-charev ("by the sword", H2719) as phonō ("by slaughter/murder"), a broader term than the specific instrument named in the Hebrew. The Vulgate (VULCLEM) omits any equivalent to le-charev entirely, stating only "et corruent coram vobis" ("and they will fall before you"), without specifying the sword. The RV1909, BSB, and SBLIBRE translations all retain "sword" or "cuchillo/espada," matching the Hebrew charev more closely than either the LXX or Vulgate.