Bible Strands
Leviticus 26:20
and your strength will be spent in vain. For your land will not yield its produce, and the trees of the land will not bear their fruit.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Yahweh addresses Israel within the covenant curse sequence, speaking after declaring the sky like iron and the land like bronze in verse 19 and before warning of multiplied plagues in verse 21.
The words — תַּם (Tam) translates literally as consumed or spent, and רִיק (Rik) means emptiness or futility, together forming the phrase "spent in vain."
The thread — The motif of fruitless labor appears in Deuteronomy 11:17 where God shuts the heavens to withhold rain, Psalm 127:1 where builders labor in vain without the Lord, and Isaiah 49:4 where the speaker spends strength in futility.
Why it lands — The text states that covenant disobedience will halt agricultural yield, and it requires the reader to accept that human effort cannot override divine withholding of provision.
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
And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 11:17 or the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you. He will shut the heavens so that there will be no rain, nor will the land yield its produce, and you will soon perish from the good land that the LORD is giving you.
- Psalms 127:1 A song of ascents. Of Solomon. Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain; unless the LORD protects the city, its watchmen stand guard in vain.
- Isaiah 49:4 But I said, “I have labored in vain, I have spent My strength in futility and vanity; yet My vindication is with the LORD, and My reward is with My God.”
- Leviticus 26:4 I will give you rains in their season, and the land will yield its produce, and the trees of the field will bear their fruit.
- Habakkuk 2:13 Is it not indeed from the LORD of Hosts that the labor of the people only feeds the fire, and the nations weary themselves in vain?
- Deuteronomy 28:18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, as well as the produce of your land, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.
- Deuteronomy 28:38 You will sow much seed in the field but harvest little, because the locusts will consume it.
- Deuteronomy 28:42 Swarms of locusts will consume all your trees and the produce of your land.
- Job 31:40 then let briers grow instead of wheat and stinkweed instead of barley.” Thus conclude the words of Job.
- Psalms 107:34 and fruitful land into fields of salt, because of the wickedness of its dwellers.