Leviticus 26:36

Lev 26:36 And upon them that are left [alive] of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth.

Ver. 36. I will send a faintness.] See this explained in Job 15:21-22.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lev 26:36. The sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them — A very significant phrase, importing that they should sink into a state of the most slavish fear and despicable cowardice.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

26:36-39 Disastrous defeat and captivity would later be the fate of both Israel and Judah (see study notes on 18:28; 26:14-39).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

As if their enemies did chase them.

Or, cowardness.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

(36, 37) And upon them that are left alive of you.—Better, And as to those that remain of you, as the Authorised Version generally renders this expression. This obviates the insertion of the expression “alive,” which is not in the original, and is not put in the Authorised Version in Lev_26:39, where the same phrase occurs. Where these will remain is explained in the next clause.

I will send a faintness into their hearts.—That is, He will implant in them such timidity and cowardice that they will be frightened at the faintest sound. He will make life a misery to them. (Comp. Deu_28:65-67.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

36. the sound of driven leaf] Cp. Lev_26:17; Pro_28:1.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And they shall fall one upon another,.... In their hurry and confusion, everyone making all the haste he can to escape the imaginary danger; or "a man upon his brother" (z); his friend, as Aben Ezra interprets it, having no regard to relation and friendship, every one endeavouring to save himself. There is another sense which some Jewish writers (a) give of this phrase, and is observed by Jarchi, which is, that everyone shall fall for the iniquities of his brother; for all the Israelites say, they are sureties for one another; but the former sense is best:

as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: as if a sword was drawn and brandished at them, just ready to be thrust in them, filling them with the utmost dread and terror, and yet at the same time none in pursuit of them:

and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies; no heart to resist them, no strength nor spirit to oppose them, and defend themselves but be obliged to surrender their cities, themselves, their families and goods, into the hand of the enemy.

(z) "vir in fratrem suum", Vatablus, Drusius, Piscator. (a) Torat Cohanim apud Yalkut, par. 1. fol. 197. 2.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Fear. Septuagint, "timidity, or slavishness." Hebrew morec, "softness and inactivity." (Calmet) --- Their haughty temper shall be broken; and though they have dared to rebel against their God, the fall of a leaf shall now terrify them. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Faintness: the word notes a tenderness and softness of mind, whereby they are disenabled from bearing the present miseries, and are in continual dread of further and sorer miseries.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

36. The sound of a shaken leaf — The Hebrew is more poetical, the voice of a driven leaf. “So wrong doing is never blessed. Even when men appear to succeed and to save themselves alive, their success is partial, and may only create an opportunity for further divine judgment. Do not suppose that men are successful simply because they are living. A man may have escaped the sea only to die a more terrible death on land. Marvellous are the judicial resources of God. We have an indication here of a law to whose subtle force many men can testify. Fear takes away all power, and turns the most dauntless soldier into a coward.” — Joseph Parker. No expression could more vividly portray the perpetual terror, the distressing alarm, of the poor captives.

In the lands of their enemies — In the Orient, outside of the Hebrew theocracy, slaves had no civil rights. Even under Roman law the master with impunity could chop up his slaves into mince meat for his fish ponds if he should choose. After the return from Babylon four different dynasties obtained the supremacy of the land of Canaan. The dominion of Persia was from 536 to 333 B.C.; of Greece, from 333 to 167 B.C.; of the Asmoneans, from 167 to 63 B.C.; of the Herods under Rome, from 40 B.C., to 70 A.D.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 36-39. The final punishment.

Upon them that are left, that is, the surviving captives and exiles, I will send a faintness into their hearts, so Eze_21:7, "And every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water ... and the sound of a shaken (or driven) leaf shall chase them; ... and they shall fall,... and ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies" lands. This is the concluding threat. It is conditional in its nature, and the condition having been fulfilled, we may say with reverence that it has been accomplished. Those of the ten tribes who did not find their way to Babylon, and so became absorbed in the body which returned to Jerusalem, have been eaten up by the land of their enemies, and have pined away in their enemies" lands. Neither they nor their descendants are to be found in any part of the globe, however much investigation may employ itself in searching for them. They have been absorbed by the populations among which they were scattered.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

So far as the nation was concerned, those who were left when the kingdom was overthrown would find no rest in the land of their enemies, but would perish among the heathen for their own and their fathers' iniquities, till they confessed their sins and bent their uncircumcised hearts under the righteousness of the divine punishments. בּכם הנּשׁארים (nominative abs.): "as for those who are left in (as in Lev 5:9), i.e., of, you," who have not perished in the destruction of the kingdom and dispersion of the people, God will bring despair into their heart in the lands of your enemies, that the sound ("voice") of a moving leaf will hunt them to flee as before the sword, so that they will fall in their anxious flight, and stumble one over another, though no one is pursuing. The ἁπ. λεγ. מרך from מרך, related to מרח and מרק to rub, rub to pieces, signifies that inward anguish, fear, and despair, which rend the heart and destroy the life, δειλία, pavor (lxx, Vulg.), what is described in Deu 28:65 in even stronger terms as "a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind." There should not be to them תּקוּמה, standi et resistendi facultas (Rosenmller), standing before the enemy; but they should perish among the nations. "The land of their enemies will eat them up," sc., by their falling under the pressure of the circumstances in which they were placed (cf. Num 13:32; Eze 36:13).

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

והבאתי מרך AND I WILL SEND A FAINTNESS [INTO THEIR HEART] — מרך‎ means timidity and faint-heartedness. The מ is an essential letter of the noun, which, however, is omitted in the root; as is the case with the מ in the nouns מועד and ומוקש.

ונסו מנוסת חרב AND THEY SHALL RUN AWAY AS RUNNING AWAY FROM THE SWORD — as though pursuers were about to kill them.

עלה נדף A RUSTLING LEAF — i. e. a leaf which the wind pushes along and beats it against another leaf, so that, in tapping it, it produces a sound. This, too, is its translation in the Targum: the sound of a leaf דשקיף — a term that signifies beating. The words (Genesis 41:6): שדופות קדים are rendered in the Targum by שקיפן קידום, beaten by the east wind, the first word being of the same meaning as משקוף, a lintel, that being the place against which the door beats. Similarly the Targum translation of חבורה, a wound, (Exodus 21:25), is משקופי (a spot that has been beaten).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.