Bible Strands
Leviticus 26:39
Those of you who survive in the lands of your enemies will waste away in their iniquity and will decay in the sins of their fathers.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Yahweh speaks through Moses to the Israelites regarding the final stages of covenant judgment. The declaration targets the remnant who survive the initial destruction and are scattered among hostile nations.
The words — The Hebrew verb יִמַּקּוּ (yiMa.ku) literally means "they will rot away" or decay. It describes the progressive wasting of the survivors in the lands of their enemies.
The thread — This motif of survivors wasting away in iniquity runs through Ezekiel 4:17 and Ezekiel 33:10. Both passages apply the same pattern of post-judgment deterioration to the remaining population.
Why it lands — The text states that survival does not erase the consequences of ancestral rebellion. It requires readers to acknowledge that collective covenant failure produces inherited decay that outlives the original generation.
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 they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 4:17 So they will lack food and water; they will be appalled at the sight of one another wasting away in their iniquity.
- Ezekiel 24:23 Your turbans will remain on your heads and your sandals on your feet. You will not mourn or weep, but you will waste away because of your sins, and you will groan among yourselves.
- Ezekiel 33:10 Now as for you, son of man, tell the house of Israel that this is what they have said: ‘Our transgressions and our sins are heavy upon us, and we are wasting away because of them! How can we live?’
- Exodus 20:5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
- Deuteronomy 28:65 Among those nations you will find no repose, not even a resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul.
- Ezekiel 6:9 Then in the nations to which they have been carried captive, your survivors will remember Me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts that turned away from Me, and by their eyes that lusted after idols. So they will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their abominations.
- Matthew 23:35 And so upon you will come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.
- Exodus 34:7 maintaining loving devotion to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers on their children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”
- Numbers 14:18 ‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in loving devotion, forgiving iniquity and transgression. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon their children to the third and fourth generation.’
- Deuteronomy 5:9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,