Leviticus 26:16

16 I also will do this to you: I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

Leviticus 26:16 Meaning and Commentary

Leviticus 26:16

I also will do this unto you
Henceforward follow threatenings of dreadful evils to the transgressors and despisers of the commandments of God, which thus begin: I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning
ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart;
some, as Aben Ezra observes, take these to design what may affect the seed sown and the increase of it, such as blasting and mildew, because it follows: "ye shall sow in vain"; but no doubt diseases of the body are intended; for what we translate "terror" does not signify terror of mind, but some sudden, hasty, terrible distemper; perhaps the pestilence, as the Targum of Jonathan; some have thought of the falling sickness, as Bishop Patrick, because the word has the signification of haste and precipitance; and the second is a disease well known among us, and so called from its wasting and consuming nature; Jarchi interprets it of a disease which swells the flesh, either fills it with tumours and pustules, the Septuagint calls it the itch; or with wind or water, which has led some to think of the dropsy; and the last of them seems to be rightly rendered a burning ague or fever, though the Septuagint takes it for the jaundice, but that seems not to be so threatening, terrible, and dangerous, as what may be here supposed: now these diseases and all others are by the appointment of God, they come and go by his order, and while they continue have the power over persons, nor can they rid themselves of them at pleasure; and these have such an effect on persons seized by them, as to cause dimness of sight, a hollowness of their eyes, which sink into the head, as well as fill the heart with grief and sorrow; either through present pains and agonies, or in a view of future judgment and wrath to come: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it;
either eat it up for forage before it is ripe, or, if ripe and gathered in the barn, should come and besiege their cities and plunder their granaries.

Leviticus 26:16 In-Context

14 'But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments,
15 and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant,
16 I also will do this to you: I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
17 I will set My face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you.
18 'And after all this, if you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.