Leviticus 26:7

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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וּרְדַפְתֶּ֖ם

râdaph

H7291

“and · to pursue”

Conjunction + Verb, Qal, Sequential Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural

Appears 144× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 14:14

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 2124

to be behind, follow after, pursue, persecute, run after - (Qal) - to pursue, put to flight, chase, dog, attend closely upon - to persecute, harass (figuratively) - to follow after, aim to secure (figuratively) - to run after (a bribe) (figuratively) - (Niphal) - to be pursued - one pursued (participle) - (Piel) to pursue ardently, aim eagerly to secure, pursue - (Pual) to be pursued, be chased away - (Hiphil) to pursue, chase

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

6: words
6: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
2 nouns
1 particle

Verb forms

וּרְדַפְתֶּ֖ם Qal · Sequential Perfect
אֹיְבֵיכֶ֑ם Qal · Participle Active
וְנָפְל֥וּ Qal · Sequential Perfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 14 words from the Hebrew and 14 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 6 Hebrew tokens and 10 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Leviticus 26:7 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וּרְדַפְתֶּ֖ם אֶת אֹיְבֵיכֶ֑ם וְנָפְל֥וּ לִפְנֵיכֶ֖ם לֶחָֽרֶב

You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Leviticus 26:7 Septuagint · lemma form

καί διώκω ὁ ἐχθρός σύ καί πίπτω ἐναντίον σύ φόνος

and you⌃ shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall before you with slaughter.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וְתִרְדְפוּן יָת בַּעֲלֵי דְבָבֵיכוֹן וְיִפְּלוּן קֳדָמֵיכוֹן לְחַרְבָּא

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וְתִרְדְפוּן יַת בַּעֲלֵי דְבָבֵיכוֹן וְיִפְּלוּן קָדָמֵיכוֹן תְּבִירֵי חָרֶב

And you shall chase your adversaries, and they will fall before you broken with the sword.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Leviticus 26:7 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

John Gill's Exposition

And five of you shall chase an hundred,.... One man chase twenty:

and an hundred of you put ten thousand to flight; which, had it been in proportion to the other number, should have been two thousand, as in Deu 32:30; where there is a proportion observed; and Abendana observes, there are some that give the sense of it thus, an hundred of you, an hundred times five, that is, five hundred, and so it comes up to a right computation; but here it seems to be a certain number for an uncertain, and only a proverbial expression, signifying that a very few, under the blessing of divine Providence, should get the advantage over a large number, and oblige them to retire, and pursue them closely: instances we have of large bodies of the enemy being defeated by a small number of Israelites, Jdg 7:21; and even many by a single person or two, Sa1 14:13,

and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword; See Gill on Lev 26:7.

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

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Lev 26:7 And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.

Ver. 7. And ye shall chase your enemies.] If foreigners invade you, you shall be able to quell and quiet them quickly.

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.

Tyndale Open Study Notes

Tyndale Open Resources

26:7 Success in warfare would result from obedience to God (cp. 26:17, 36-37; Deut 28:6, 19).

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(7) And ye shall chase your enemies.—If, covetous of their prosperity, the enemies should dare to attack them, God will inspire His people with marvellous courage, so that they will not only pursue them, but put them to the sword.

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

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

they will fall before you by the sword

Here "falling" represents dying, and "the sword" represents either attacking people with a sword or battle in general. AT: "they will die when you attack them with the sword" or "you will kill them in battle" (See: Active or Passive)

Five of you will chase away a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand

This means the Israelites will have victory against larger armies.

Five ... hundred ... ten thousand

"5 ... 100 ... 10,000" (See: Numbers)

translationWords

adversary

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

לפניכם לחרב [AND YE SHALL PURSUE YOUR ENEMIES AND THEY SHALL FALL] BEFORE YOU BY THE SWORD — one by the sword of the other (Sifra, Bechukotai, Chapter 2 3).

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.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Leviticus, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 6 words (6 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is râdaph (“to pursue”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “to pursue” (râdaph) shape what this verse is saying?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«וּרְדַפְתֶּ֖ם» is a Qal Sequential Perfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how John Gill's Exposition and Trapp's Complete Commentary read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 6 Hebrew ↔ 10 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 6 words in this verse.
6 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 6 words in this verse.