Bible Strands
Leviticus 26:25
And I will bring a sword against you to execute the vengeance of the covenant. Though you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God addresses Israel through Moses during the covenant curses section of Leviticus, detailing the consequences of persistent disobedience. The verse sits between warnings of intensified hostility and the subsequent famine curse.
The words — The Hebrew חֶרֶב (cherev) means "sword," denoting violent military defeat, while נִקְמַת הַבְּרִית (niqmat habberit) literally translates to "vengeance of the covenant," indicating the covenant's enforcement mechanism. The verb הֵבֵאתִי (heveti) means "I will bring," establishing divine agency in the coming judgment.
The thread — The pattern of divine plague and enemy conquest as covenant enforcement runs through Deuteronomy 28:21 and Ezekiel 5:17, where God similarly threatens military and biological judgment for disobedience. Numbers 14:12 also references God striking with plague as a direct response to covenant rebellion.
Why it lands — The text states that fleeing to fortified cities will not prevent the combined judgment of sword and plague, and that survival will depend entirely on enemy capture. It requires the reader to recognize that covenant blessings cannot be retained while covenant violations continue, and that divine justice operates independently of human defensive strategies.
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 I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
Cross-references
- Numbers 14:12 I will strike them with a plague and destroy them—and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they are.”
- Ezekiel 5:17 I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring a sword against you. I, the LORD, have spoken.”
- 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 32:25 Outside, the sword will take their children, and inside, terror will strike the young man and the young woman, the infant and the gray-haired man.
- Jeremiah 24:10 And I will send against them sword and famine and plague, until they have perished from the land that I gave to them and their fathers.’”
- Jeremiah 29:17 this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “I will send against them sword and famine and plague, and I will make them like rotten figs, so bad they cannot be eaten.
- Ezekiel 6:3 You are to say: ‘O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD! This is what the Lord GOD says to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys: I am about to bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places.
- Ezekiel 14:17 Or if I bring a sword against that land and say, ‘Let a sword pass through it,’ so that I cut off from it both man and beast,
- Ezekiel 20:37 I will make you pass under the rod and will bring you into the bond of the covenant.
- Ezekiel 29:8 Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: I will bring a sword against you and cut off from you man and beast.