Leviticus26:14–39

The twin catalog of curses — Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 verbal / quotation — confirmed

The diseases of v.16, šaḥepet (wasting) and qaddaḥat (fever), are each among the rarest words in the Hebrew Bible: the Verifier finds them in exactly two verses apiece — here and Deuteronomy 28:22. Ellicott noted the same fact unaided: "These two diseases also occur together in Deuteronomy 28:22, the only passage in the Bible where they occur again." The shared rare pair, plus the parallel structure both Cambridge ("Cp. Deuteronomy 28:15 ff.") and Deuteronomy itself attest, make this the firmest verbal link in the unit: two covenant curse-catalogs, one Sinaitic and one Moabite, sharing a clinical vocabulary found nowhere else.

Leviticus 26:16 · Deuteronomy 28:22

basis: rare shared lexemes H7829 šaḥepet (in 2 vv) and H6920 qaddaḥat (in 2 vv) — each occurs in only these two verses in the whole Hebrew Bible (râdaph H7291 is also shared but common)

Qerî — the chapter's own keyword binds it to its hopeful coda verbal / quotation — confirmed

The defiance-word qerî ("hostile encounter," or in the older reading "by chance") is unique to this chapter: the Verifier records it in only 7 verses, all in Leviticus 26 — vv.21, 23, 24, 27, 28, 40, 41. Keil mapped the same distribution. The thread that binds the curses (v.21) to the confession (vv.40–41) is therefore lexical, not merely thematic: the same word that names Israel's defiance names what they must confess. With ’ap̄ ("yea/even," the wrath-particle) also shared, the link to v.41 is a genuine verbal one within the chapter.

Leviticus 26:21 · Leviticus 26:40 · Leviticus 26:41

basis: rare shared lexeme H7147 qᵉrîy (in 7 vv, all within Leviticus 26) joins the curse-cycles to the confession; also shared H637 ʼaph, H5973 ʻim, H1980 hâlak

The land's sabbaths and the seventy years — Leviticus 26 read by Chronicles structural / thematic — confirmed

The land's enforced rest (vv.34–35) is explicitly cited as fulfilled by 2 Chronicles 36:21, which says the captivity lasted "until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths... to fulfill threescore and ten years." The Pulpit Commentary, JFB, and Benson all anchor the seventy-year exile to this verse. The Verifier shows the shared verbal core — rāṣāh (enjoy/accept), šābat (rest), šāmam (lie desolate), shabbāt (sabbath) — so the link is both an explicit later citation and a genuine vocabulary overlap. The tie to Lev 26:43 (within the chapter) rests on the same sabbath-and-acceptance lexemes.

Leviticus 26:34 · Leviticus 26:35 · 2 Chronicles 36:21 · Leviticus 26:43

basis: shared lexemes H7521 râtsâh, H7673 shâbath, H8074 shâmêm, H7676 shabbâth; 2 Chronicles 36:21 names this prophecy as fulfilled (explicit later citation), though it adds the seventy-year figure not stated in Leviticus

Carcasses on the idols — Ezekiel re-preaches Leviticus 26:30 verbal / quotation — confirmed

Ezekiel 6:4 is the most direct verbal echo of any curse in this unit, as Ellicott, Keil, Barnes, and the Pulpit Commentary all observe ("For the further execution of this threat, see Ezekiel 6:4" — Keil). The Verifier confirms a verbal basis: the two verses share the rare ḥammān (sun-pillar, in 8 vv) and gillûl (idol). Ezekiel takes up Leviticus' own contemptuous vocabulary for false worship and its image of corpses heaped on the wreckage of the gods — a prophet consciously re-applying the Holiness Code's threat to his own generation.

Leviticus 26:30 · Ezekiel 6:4

basis: shared rare lexemes H2553 ḥammân (sun-pillars, in 8 vv) and H1544 gillûl (idols); Ezekiel re-uses the distinctive idol-vocabulary and the corpse-on-carcass image of Lev 26:30

No retreat from the foe — Leviticus 26:36 and Isaiah 52:12 structural / thematic — confirmed

The flight of the terror-struck remnant (v.36) and Isaiah's promise of an unhurried departure from Babylon ("you will not go out in haste, nor go in flight") share the rare word mĕnûsāh ("flight/retreat"), which the Verifier finds in only 2 verses. The link is real but it is not a quotation: there is no claim that Isaiah cites Leviticus, and the relation is in fact one of contrast — the curse's panicked rout ("they will flee as one flees the sword") is answered, in the comfort of Isaiah, by a redeemed people who need not flee at all. Because a single shared word carrying an antithetical motif is a thematic echo rather than a verbal quotation, the badge is tiered down to structural/thematic; the pointed reversal across the curse-and-restoration arc is the substance of the link.

Leviticus 26:36 · Isaiah 52:12

basis: one rare shared lexeme H4499 mᵉnûwçâh (flight, in only 2 vv) plus common H622 ʼâçaph; no quotation claim and the relation is antithetical (Leviticus' panic-flight vs. Isaiah's unhurried exodus) — a shared-motif echo, deliberately NOT tiered verbal

Sow in vain, terror, emptiness — Leviticus 26:16 and Isaiah 65:23 structural / thematic — confirmed

Isaiah's new-creation oracle promises the reversal of this very curse: "They will not labor in vain (rîq) or bear children doomed to terror (behālāh)." The Verifier confirms the shared rare words behālāh (terror, in 4 vv) and rîq (emptiness/vain, in 12 vv), plus the common zera‘ (seed). Barnes already linked the "terror" of v.16 to Isaiah 65:23. But the relation is restorative contrast, not citation: Isaiah does not quote Leviticus, he undoes it, lifting in the age to come the very futility (sowing seed for the enemy, dread over offspring) that the curse imposes. Two genuinely rare shared words make the motif-link strong, yet because there is no quotation and the sense runs the opposite direction, this is honestly tiered structural/thematic rather than verbal.

Leviticus 26:16 · Isaiah 65:23

basis: two rare shared lexemes H928 behâlâh (terror, in 4 vv) and H7385 rîyq (vain, in 12 vv), plus common H2233 zeraʻ (seed); Isaiah 65:23 reverses rather than quotes the curse's futile sowing and dread — a shared-motif contrast, not a verbal quotation

The law curses all who do not keep it — Leviticus 26:14 and Galatians 3:10 (flagged) flagged — verify source

John Gill reads Leviticus 26:14 through Paul's "for the law curses everyone that does not do all things it requires, Galatians 3:10." The connection is theologically venerable but must be flagged: Galatians 3:10 quotes Deuteronomy 27:26, not Leviticus 26, and the link is cross-Testament (Greek New Testament to Hebrew). The Verifier returns no shared original-language lexeme — "connection, if any, is thematic/structural and must be argued, not asserted." A Greek-to-Hebrew link can never be "verbal" on shared Strong's numbers; the curse-for-disobedience theology is real and ancient, but the specific citation belongs to Deuteronomy, so this is recorded as a contested-provenance thread.

Leviticus 26:14 · Galatians 3:10 · Deuteronomy 27:26

basis: no shared original-language lexeme (cross-Testament Greek↔Hebrew); Galatians 3:10 cites Deuteronomy 27:26, not Leviticus 26 — Gill's link is thematic (the law's curse on disobedience), not a quotation of this verse

The curse borne — from 'cut off from the land' to 'a curse for us' widely-held

Leviticus 26 lays out the covenant curse in full: defeat, famine, sword, exile — and, at the head of it, the divine face turned away (v.17, wĕnātattî pānay, the inversion of the priestly blessing's shining face). The New Testament reads the whole Mosaic curse-economy as resolved at the cross: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us" (Gal 3:13), citing the hanged-and-cursed of Deuteronomy 21:23. The same Paul whom Gill invokes on v.14 ("the law curses everyone that does not do all things") sees in Christ the One who absorbs the catalog of vv.14–39 on behalf of covenant-breakers. The specific note of v.17 — God's face set against rather than toward — is what the Gospels record falling on the crucified: "My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matt 27:46), the turned face borne by the only one who never earned it. The link is theological and canonical, not a verbal quotation of this Hebrew passage — but it is the ancient and widely-held Christian reading of the Levitical curse: the curse fell, and fell on Him.

Leviticus 26:14 · Leviticus 26:17 · Galatians 3:13

The true Sabbath-rest — the land's rest and the rest that remains widely-held

The strangest mercy in the chapter is that the land's desolation is reckoned as sabbath (vv.34–35) — the rest withheld is at last paid. Keil hears in it "participation in the blessed rest of the whole creation." Hebrews 4 takes up the sabbath-rest theme of Genesis 2 and the wilderness generation and declares "there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God" (Heb 4:9), entered by faith in Christ, who is greater than the rest Joshua could give. Leviticus 26's land-sabbath — rest enforced by judgment, anticipating restoration — points beyond itself to the rest no curse can revoke. The connection is typological, drawn from the canon's wider sabbath-theology rather than a shared lexeme (the Septuagint and Hebrews use Greek; Leviticus, Hebrew), so it is offered as a figural reading.

Leviticus 26:34 · Leviticus 26:35 · Hebrews 4:9

The remnant that does not perish — Israel preserved for the Seed widely-held

The unit ends not in annihilation but in a remnant who "rot" in their iniquity yet survive (vv.36, 39); Ellicott insists "utter destruction is not meant here. The very next verse speaks of a remnant." Verses 40–45 (just beyond this unit) turn that remnant's confession into God's remembrance of His covenant with the patriarchs "for their sake." Paul reads the preserved remnant as the thread by which the promise to Abraham reaches Christ and is opened to the nations: "so too at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace" (Rom 11:5). The curse cannot consume the people through whom the Seed (Gal 3:16) must come. A canonical-typological reading of the remnant motif, not a verbal claim on this text.

Leviticus 26:38 · Leviticus 26:39 · Romans 11:5