Bible Strands
Leviticus 26:16
then this is what I will do to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting disease, and fever that will destroy your sight and drain your life. You will sow your seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Yahweh addresses the Israelites through Moses at Sinai, pronouncing covenant curses immediately after the conditions for breaking the covenant in Leviticus 26:15. The speech occurs within a sequential list of divine judgments that continues into Leviticus 26:17.
The words — The Hebrew verb הִפְקַדְתִּי (hifkadti) translates literally as "I will appoint" or "I will visit," marking a deliberate divine action. It is paired with בְּהָלָה (behalah), meaning "sudden terror," to describe the psychological and physical assault God will bring upon the people.
The thread — The motif of sowing in vain and enemy consumption recurs in Job 31:8, Jeremiah 5:17, and Micah 6:15. These passages parallel Leviticus 26:16 by depicting agricultural loss as the direct result of covenant breach or divine judgment.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that covenant obedience is tied to tangible survival, not merely ritual compliance. It confronts the reader with the reality that divine discipline operates through historical and physical consequences.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
Cross-references
- Job 31:8 then may another eat what I have sown, and may my crops be uprooted.
- Jeremiah 5:17 They will devour your harvest and food; they will consume your sons and daughters; they will eat up your flocks and herds; they will feed on your vines and fig trees. With the sword they will destroy the fortified cities in which you trust.”
- Micah 6:15 You will sow but not reap; you will press olives but not anoint yourselves with oil; you will tread grapes but not drink the wine.
- 1 Samuel 2:33 And every one of you that I do not cut off from My altar, I will cause your eyes to fail and your heart to grieve. All your descendants will die by the sword of men.
- Deuteronomy 28:21 The LORD will make the plague cling to you until He has exterminated you from the land that you are entering to possess.
- Deuteronomy 28:32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, while your eyes grow weary looking for them day after day, with no power in your hand.
- Deuteronomy 28:51 They will eat the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain or new wine or oil, no calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks, until they have caused you to perish.
- Haggai 1:6 You have planted much but harvested little. You eat but never have enough. You drink but never have your fill. You put on clothes but never get warm. You earn wages to put into a bag pierced through.”
- Judges 6:3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites, and other people of the east would come up and invade them,
- Psalms 78:33 So He ended their days in futility, and their years in sudden terror.