Imamat 26:16

26:16 I for my part ¹  will do this to you: I will inflict horror on you, consumption and fever, which diminish eyesight and drain away the vitality of life. ²  You will sow your seed in vain because ³  your enemies will eat it. ⁴ 

Hakim-hakim 6:3-6

6:3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, ⁵  the Midianites, Amalekites, and the people from the east would attack them. ⁶  6:4 They invaded the land ⁷  and devoured ⁸  its crops ⁹  all the way to Gaza. They left nothing for the Israelites to eat, ¹⁰  and they took away ¹¹  the sheep, oxen, and donkeys. 6:5 When they invaded ¹²  with their cattle and tents, they were as thick ¹³  as locusts. Neither they nor their camels could be counted. ¹⁴  They came to devour ¹⁵  the land. 6:6 Israel was so severely weakened by Midian that the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help.

Yesaya 62:8

62:8 The Lord swears an oath by his right hand,

by his strong arm: ¹⁶ 

“I will never again give your grain

to your enemies as food,

and foreigners will not drink your wine,

which you worked hard to produce.

Yeremia 5:17

5:17 They will eat up your crops and your food.

They will kill off ¹⁷  your sons and your daughters.

They will eat up your sheep and your cattle.

They will destroy your vines and your fig trees. ¹⁸ 

Their weapons will batter down ¹⁹ 

the fortified cities you trust in.

¹ tn Or “I also” (see HALOT 76 s.v. אַף 6.b).

² tn Heb “soul.” These expressions may refer either to the physical effects of consumption and fever as the rendering in the text suggests (e.g., J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 452, 454, “diminishing eyesight and loss of appetite”), or perhaps the more psychological effects, “which exhausts the eyes” because of anxious hope “and causes depression” (Heb “causes soul [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh] to pine away”), e.g., B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 185.

³ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have causal force here.

⁴ tn That is, “your enemies will eat” the produce that grows from the sown seed.

⁵ tn Heb “Whenever Israel sowed seed.”

⁶ tn Heb “Midian, Amalek, and the sons of the east would go up, they would go up against him.” The translation assumes that וְעָלוּ (vÿ’alu) is dittographic (note the following עָלָיו, ’alayv).

⁷ tn Heb “They encamped against them.”

⁸ tn Heb “destroyed.”

⁹ tn Heb “the crops of the land.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “They left no sustenance in Israel.”

¹¹ tn The words “they took away” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

¹² tn Heb “came up.”

¹³ tn Heb “numerous.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “To them and to their camels there was no number.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “destroy.” The translation “devour” carries through the imagery of a locust plague earlier in this verse.

¹⁶ tn The Lord’s right hand and strong arm here symbolize his power and remind the audience that his might guarantees the fulfillment of the following promise.

¹⁷ tn Heb “eat up.”

¹⁸ tn Or “eat up your grapes and figs”; Heb “eat up your vines and your fig trees.”

sn It was typical for an army in time of war in the ancient Near East not only to eat up the crops but to destroy the means of further production.

¹⁹ tn Heb “They will beat down with the sword.” The term “sword” is a figure of speech (synecdoche) for military weapons in general. Siege ramps, not swords, beat down city walls; swords kill people, not city walls.