What Does Leviticus 26:25 Mean in the King James?
And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse’s two verbs make judgment a sequence of transfers: pestilence is sent into the cities, then the people themselves are given into the enemy’s hand.
THE MEANING
The verse names covenant judgment in concrete stages: violence comes against the people, pestilence enters their gathered cities, and the people are placed in an enemy’s power. The final handoff reaches beyond physical harm to their collective security.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that covenant belonging makes a people immune from judgment: here the covenant’s consequences include violence, pestilence, and enemy control.
THE ROOT
וְנִתַּתֶּם
wə-nittatem
GROWS FROM
נתן
Give, set, place.
“delivered” in this verse is wə-nittatem. The Hebrew verb means that the people are given or placed into the enemy’s hand. The final movement is a transfer of control, not a rescue.
ALSO GROWS
natan: Give, set, place.
נָתַן
This verb names the handoff directly: the people are placed into the enemy’s power.
mattanah: Gift, something given.
מַתָּנָה
The related noun keeps the root’s basic sense of giving visible, while the verse makes clear that this particular giving over is hostile.
וְשִׁלַּחְתִּי
wə-shillachti
GROWS FROM
שלח
Send forth, release.
“send” in this verse is wə-shillachti. The pestilence is deliberately sent into the people’s midst. The root can describe sending or release, but here its object is disease, and the violence of that act remains plain.
ALSO GROWS
shilluaḥ: Sending away, dismissal.
שִׁלּוּחַ
This branch shows the root’s reach from sending forth to releasing or sending away.
Shiloach: Sent forth; the name of the waters of Shiloah.
שִׁלֹחַ
The same sending-root appears in the name of the waters associated with restored sight; here the thing sent is pestilence.
נֹקֶמֶת
noqemet
GROWS FROM
נקם
Avenge, exact vengeance.
“avenge” in this verse is noqemet. The verse repeats נקם across the verb and noun: the sword is described as avenging the covenant’s vengeance. That echo ties the weapon directly to the covenant’s reckoning.
ALSO GROWS
naqam: Avenge, take vengeance.
נָקַם
This verbal form shares the action named by the sword’s description.
neqamah: Vengeance.
נְקָמָה
This noun makes the root echo in the phrase explicit: the sword avenges the covenant’s vengeance.
THE PATTERN
Judgment is pictured as a cascade of exposure in which disease and violence enter while a community loses control of its security.
The LORD shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest to possess it.And afterward, saith the LORD, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and such as are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those that seek their life: and he shall smite them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have mercy.And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.THE THREAD
And the heathen shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity: because they trespassed against me, therefore hid I my face from them, and gave them into the hand of their enemies: so fell they all by the sword.Ezekiel uses the same root נתן (natan, give or place) for giving a people into their enemies’ hand. The shared verb makes the handoff concrete, and the next phrase keeps its consequence in view: they fall by the sword.
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