What Does Leviticus 26:43 Mean in the King James?
The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes.
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 land’s “enjoy” and the people’s “accept” come from the same Hebrew root: the land’s withheld rest is fulfilled as the people meet the cost of their crookedness.
THE MEANING
The land receives the rest its people withhold, while the people bear the consequences of their crookedness. The verse names the cause plainly: the judgments are despised and the statutes are abhorred. The land’s sabbaths are fulfilled even as the people face what their iniquity brings.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Leaving the land does not erase its denied rest or make the people’s contempt consequence-free.
THE ROOT
תִּרֶץ
tirets
GROWS FROM
רצה
רצה (ratsah): to be pleased with, accept, or satisfy.
“enjoy / accept” in this verse is tirets. The land “enjoys” its sabbaths and the people “accept” their iniquity through forms of the same verb. English gives these different actions, while Hebrew binds them through satisfaction: the land’s owed rest is fulfilled, and the people meet what their crookedness brings.
ALSO GROWS
tirtseh: shall be satisfied with or enjoy
תִּרְצֶה
Leviticus 26:34 uses this form for the land enjoying its sabbaths, showing that the land’s rest is something fulfilled.
venirtseh: and it shall be accepted
וְנִרְצָה
This form in Leviticus 1:4 shows the same root describing acceptance, echoing the people’s encounter with what their iniquity brings.
שַׁבְּתֹתֶיהָ
shabbetoteha
GROWS FROM
שבת
שבת (shavat): to cease, stop, or rest.
The land’s sabbaths are built from the root of ceasing. Rest here is not an empty interval: it is the land’s recurring cessation, which remains due even when people refuse to grant it.
ALSO GROWS
shabbat: Sabbath, a day of cessation and rest
שַׁבָּת
The familiar Sabbath word names the same rhythm of rest that the land receives in this verse.
vayishbot: and he ceased or rested
וַיִּשְׁבֹּת
Genesis 2:2 uses this form for God ceasing from work, placing the land’s rest within creation’s pattern.
THE PATTERN
Rest is a claim within creation that people can defer but cannot erase.
But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard.To fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.THE THREAD
Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths.Leviticus 26:34 uses the same Hebrew root רצה (ratsah, “to accept or be satisfied”) for the land’s sabbaths. Here that root also describes the people’s encounter with their iniquity, tying the land’s fulfilled rest to human accountability.
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