What Does Leviticus 26:39 Mean in the King James?
And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.
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
Being left does not mean being restored: those who remain can still pine away.
THE MEANING
You may remain in the lands of enemies and still pine away; the verse holds survival and deterioration together. It names your own crookedness and the crookedness of your fathers as burdens that remain present with you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that surviving means you are whole or unharmed; being among those left does not stop the wasting.
THE ROOT
הַנִּשְׁאָרִים
han-nišʾārîm
GROWS FROM
שאר
remain, be left over
“they that are left” in this verse is han-nišʾārîm. Those left are named by שאר (shaʾar), “remain, be left over”; the word keeps survival in view even as the verse says they pine away. Its branches name a remainder or remnant, revealing that what remains can still carry the condition it has survived.
ALSO GROWS
sheʾerît: remnant; what remains
שְׁאֵרִית
This branch shares the root שאר and makes clear that a remnant is a remainder, not necessarily a restored whole.
sheʾār: remainder; rest
שְׁאָר
This branch shares the same root consonants and echoes the verse’s focus on those left over, whose remaining does not protect them from wasting away.
THE PATTERN
Scripture pictures devastation as a wasting away that can consume bodies and what people possess.
And your tires shall be upon your heads, and your shoes upon your feet: ye shall not mourn nor weep; but ye shall pine away for your iniquities, and mourn one toward another.And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.THE THREAD
And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.Leviticus and Zechariah use forms of the Hebrew root מקק (māqaq), “melt away, waste away.” Zechariah makes the image brutally physical, flesh, eyes, and tongue consuming while the body still stands, so “pine away” carries the force of decay within survival.
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