Leviticus 26:17 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Leviticus 26:17
And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.
to give · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 1st person common singular
face
פָנַי֙fa.Nai
H6440
the face (as the part that turns) · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix
slain
וְנִגַּפְתֶּ֖םve.ni.gaf.Tem
H5062
to push · conjunction + verb, niphal sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine plural
before
לִפְנֵ֣יlif.Nei
H6440
the face (as the part that turns) · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct
enemies
אֹיְבֵיכֶ֑ם'o.ye.vei.Khem
H341
hating · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
hate
שֹֽׂנְאֵיכֶ֔םso.ne.'ei.Khem
H8130
to hate (personally) · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
reign
וְרָד֤וּve.ra.Du
H7287
to tread down · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person common plural
flee
וְנַסְתֶּ֖םve.nas.Tem
H5127
to flit · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine plural
pursueth
רֹדֵ֥ףro.Def
H7291
to run after (usually with hostile intent · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Leviticus 17:10 And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even…
Leviticus 26:36-37 And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken…
Deuteronomy 28:25 The LORD shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them: and s…
Psalms 53:5 There were they in great fear, where no fear was: for God hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee: thou hast put them to…
Proverbs 28:1 The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.
Judges 2:14 And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into…
1 Samuel 31:1 Now the Philistines fought against Israel: and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa.
Psalms 106:41-42 And he gave them into the hand of the heathen; and they that hated them ruled over them.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Leviticus 26:14-39
After God had set the blessing before them (the life and good which would make them a happy people if they would be obedient), he here sets the curse before them, the death and evil which would make them as miserable if they were disobedient. Let them not think themselves so deeply rooted as that God's power could not ruin them, nor so highly favoured as that his justice would not ruin them if they revolted from him and rebelled against him; no You only have I known, therefore I will punish you soonest and sorest. Amo 3:2. Observe,
I. How their sin is described, which would bring all this misery upon them. Not sins of ignorance and infirmity; God had provided sacrifices for those. Not the si…
I will even appoint over you terror--the falling sickness [PATRICK].
consumption, and the burning ague--Some consider these as symptoms of the same disease--consumption followed by the shivering, burning, and sweating fits that are the usual concomitants of that malady. According to the Septuagint, "ague" is "the jaundice," which disorders the eyes and produces great depression of spirits. Others, however, consider the word as referring to a scorching wind; no certain explanation can be given.
Adam Clarke on Leviticus 26:16
I will even appoint over you terror, etc. - How dreadful is this curse! A whole train of evils are here personified and appointed to be the governors of a disobedient people. Terror is to be one of their keepers. How awful a state! to be continually under the influence of dismay, feeling indescribable evils, and fearing worse! Consumption, שחפת shachepheth, generally allowed to be some kind of atrophy or marasmus, by which the flesh was consumed, and the whole body dried up by raging fever through lack of sustenance. See the note on Lev 11:16. How circumstantially were all these threatenings fulfilled in this disobedient and rebellious people! Let a deist read over this chapter and compare i…
Heathen — (Heb. plural goyum). At first the word goyim denoted generally all the nations of the world (Gen. 18:18; comp. Gal. 3:8). The Jews afterwards became a people distinguished in a marked manner from the…
Jerusalem — Called also Salem, Ariel, Jebus, the “city of God,” the “holy city;” by the modern Arabs el-Khuds, meaning “the holy;” once “the city of Judah” (2 Chr. 25:28). This name is in the original in the…
Armies Of Israel, The · Without God easily overcome — Without God easily overcome
Backsliders · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Blessing · CONTINGENT UPON OBEDIENCE — CONTINGENT UPON OBEDIENCE
Contingencies · IN DIVINE GOVERNMENT OF MAN — IN DIVINE GOVERNMENT OF MAN
Disobedience To God · 18:19;28:15-68; — 18:19;28:15-68;
Fear, Unholy · The wicked judicially filled with — The wicked judicially filled with
Judgments · General references — General references
Panic · In armies — In armies
Protection · Withdrawn from the: Disobedient — Withdrawn from the: Disobedient
Rebellion Against God · Punishment for — Punishment for
Reward
John Gill on Leviticus 26:17
And I will set my face against you,.... Exert his power, and stir up his wrath and indignation against them, as enemies of his, to cut them off; see Psalm 34:16; which is the reverse of having respect to them, Leviticus 26:9,
and ye shall be slain before your enemies; as they were sometimes by the Philistines and others:
and they that hate you shall reign over you; as did the Chaldeans and Babylonians; see Psalm 106:41,
and ye shall flee when none pursueth you; of such pusillanimous spirits should they be, and filled with such dread and terror of their enemies, so contrary from what is promised them on their obedience, Leviticus 26:8.
John Calvin on Leviticus 26:14–end
Leviticus 26:14-45
14. But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments;
14. Si autem non audieritis me, neque feceritis omnia praecepta ista.
15. And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant:
15. Et, si decreta mea spreveritis, et judicia mea abominata fuerit anima vestra, ita ut non faciatis omnia praecepta mea, et irritum faciatis pactum meum:
16. 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 sh…
Yea, the Lord would turn His face against them, so that they would be beaten by their enemies, and be so thoroughly humbled in consequence, that they would flee when no man pursued (cf. Lev 26:36).
But if these punishments did not answer their purpose, and bring Israel back to fidelity to its God, the Lord would punish the disobedient nation still more severely, and chasten the rebellious for their sin, not simply only, but sevenfold. This He would do, so long as Israel persevered in obstinate resistance, and to this end He would multiply His judgments by degrees. This graduated advance of the judgments of God is so depicted in the following passage, that four times in succession new and mul…
The objective of God’s punishment of his people is to change behavior and restore relationship. God responds to his disobedient people as a perfectly righteous and loving parent would to a child. The punishments designed to curb rebellious behavior gradually increase, giving Israel the opportunity to repent at any time (26:18-28). Even when Israel was punished with exile from the land in 722 and 586 BC, God was working to restore his people (see, e.g., Isa 40–66; Jer 29:10; Amos 9:11-15).
Rashi on Leviticus 26:17
ונתתי פני AND I WILL SET פני [AGAINST YOU] — i. e. פנאי שלי, My leisure, — I will turn away from all My other affairs in order to do you evil (cf. Rashi on Leviticus 17:20).
ורדו בכם שנאיכם — These words mean exactly what they imply: THEY THAT HATE YOU SHALL RULE OVER YOU. — The Agadic explanation of the Torat Cohanim (Sifra, Bechukotai, Chapter 4 1-5) on this section is as follows:
אף אני אעשה זאת — I speak to you only with the expression אף. Similarly it states, (v. 41) “So, too, (אף) I will walk contrary unto them”.
והפקדתי עליכם I WILL ORDER UPON YOU denotes that the calamities will come upon you from one to another — while the first will still be on visit to you (will afflict you) I…
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
