Imamat 26:1-6

Exhortation to Obedience

26:1 “‘You must not make for yourselves idols, ¹  so you must not set up for yourselves a carved image or a pillar, and you must not place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down before ²  it, for I am the Lord your God. 26:2 You must keep my Sabbaths and reverence ³  my sanctuary. I am the Lord.

The Benefits of Obedience

26:3 “‘If you walk in my statutes and are sure to obey my commandments, ⁴  26:4 I will give you your rains in their time so that ⁵  the land will give its yield and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. ⁶  26:5 Threshing season will extend for you until the season for harvesting grapes, ⁷  and the season for harvesting grapes will extend until sowing season, so ⁸  you will eat your bread until you are satisfied, ⁹  and you will live securely in your land. 26:6 I will grant peace in the land so that ¹⁰  you will lie down to sleep without anyone terrifying you. ¹¹  I will remove harmful animals ¹²  from the land, and no sword of war ¹³  will pass through your land.

Imamat 26:14-18

The Consequences of Disobedience

26:14 “‘If, however, ¹⁴  you do not obey me and keep ¹⁵  all these commandments – 26:15 if you reject my statutes and abhor my regulations so that you do not keep ¹⁶  all my commandments and you break my covenant – 26:16 I for my part ¹⁷  will do this to you: I will inflict horror on you, consumption and fever, which diminish eyesight and drain away the vitality of life. ¹⁸  You will sow your seed in vain because ¹⁹  your enemies will eat it. ²⁰  26:17 I will set my face against you. You will be struck down before your enemies, those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when there is no one pursuing you.

26:18 “‘If, in spite of all these things, ²¹  you do not obey me, I will discipline you seven times more on account of your sins. ²² 

[26:1]  ¹ sn For the literature regarding the difficult etymology and meaning of the term for “idols” (אֱלִילִם, ’elilim), see the literature cited in the note on Lev 19:4. It appears to be a diminutive play on words with אֵל (’el, “god, God”) and, perhaps at the same time, recalls a common Semitic word for “worthless, weak, powerless, nothingness.” Snaith suggests a rendering of “worthless godlings.”

[26:1]  ² tn Heb “on.” The “sculpted stone” appears to be some sort of stone with images carved into (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 181, and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 449).

[26:2]  ³ tn Heb “and my sanctuary you shall fear.” Cf. NCV “respect”; CEV “honor.”

[26:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “and my commandments you shall keep and do them.” This appears to be a kind of verbal hendiadys, where the first verb is a modifier of the action of the second verb (see GKC 386 §120.d, although שָׁמַר [shamar, “to keep”] is not cited there; cf. Lev 20:8; 25:18, etc.).

[26:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[26:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “the tree of the field will give its fruit.” As a collective singular this has been translated as plural.

[26:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “will reach for you the vintage season.”

[26:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[26:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “to satisfaction”; KJV, ASV, NASB “to the full.”

[26:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[26:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and there will be no one who terrifies.” The words “to sleep” have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[26:6]  ¹² tn Heb “harmful animal,” singular, but taken here as a collective plural (so almost all English versions).

[26:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “no sword”; the words “of war” are supplied in the translation to indicate what the metaphor of the sword represents.

[26:14]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “And if.”

[26:14]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and do not do.”

[26:15]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “to not do.”

[26:16]  ¹⁷ tn Or “I also” (see HALOT 76 s.v. אַף 6.b).

[26:16]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “soul.” These expressions may refer either to the physical effects of consumption and fever as the rendering in the text suggests (e.g., J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 452, 454, “diminishing eyesight and loss of appetite”), or perhaps the more psychological effects, “which exhausts the eyes” because of anxious hope “and causes depression” (Heb “causes soul [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh] to pine away”), e.g., B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 185.

[26:16]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have causal force here.

[26:16]  ²⁰ tn That is, “your enemies will eat” the produce that grows from the sown seed.

[26:18]  ²¹ tn Heb “And if until these.”

[26:18]  ²² tn Heb “I will add to discipline you seven [times] on your sins.”