What Does Leviticus 26:7 Mean?
You shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.THE KEY
The direction of pursuit reverses: you are the one chasing, while your enemies fall before you.
THE MEANING
The verse places you in pursuit of your enemies, who fall in front of you by the sword. It names victory as visible and violent defeat, without softening what the sword does.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that your enemy always controls the pursuit is undone: here you chase, while the enemy falls before you.
THE ROOT
רָדַף
radaf
GROWS FROM
רדף
to pursue, chase
“pursue” in this verse is radaf. The root can name both the act of pursuing and the person pursued, so its branches hold both sides of the chase together. Here the verse places you in the pursuing position and your enemies in the falling one.
ALSO GROWS
rodef: one who pursues; a pursuer
רֹדֵף
This active form makes the reversal concrete: you are the one moving after your enemies.
nirdaf: one pursued; the pursued person
נִרְדָּף
This passive form names the other side of the same root, showing how the position in the chase can turn.
THE PATTERN
Scripture depicts hostile power as reversible: the force that threatens can end up falling or fleeing before the threatened.
The LORD shall give your enemies who rise up against you, struck down before your face. They shall come out against you on one road, and flee before you on seven roads.I pursue my enemies and overtake them, and I do not turn back until they run out.If anyone is bound for captivity, into it he goes; if anyone kills with the sword, he must be killed with the sword. Here is the bearing up under, and the trust of the set-apart ones.THE THREAD
I pursue my enemies and overtake them, and I do not turn back until they run out.The same pursuit root רדף (radaf, to pursue) appears in both verses. Leviticus says the enemies fall before you; Psalm 18 makes the reversal explicit through pursuit and overtaking.
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