Lev 26:16 | NETfull | STEP | I for my part will do this to you: I will inflict horror on you, consumption and fever, which diminish eyesight and drain away the vitality of life. You will sow your seed in vain because your enemies will eat it.

Leviticus 26:16

16 I for my part ^{▼▼ Or “I also” (see HALOT 76 s.v. אַף 6.b).} will do this to you: I will inflict horror on you, consumption and fever, which diminish eyesight and drain away the vitality of life. ^{▼▼ 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.} You will sow your seed in vain because ^{▼▼ Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have causal force here.} your enemies will eat it. ^{▼▼ That is, “your enemies will eat” the produce that grows from the sown seed.}