Imamat 26:3-4

The Benefits of Obedience

26:3 “‘If you walk in my statutes and are sure to obey my commandments, ¹  26:4 I will give you your rains in their time so that ²  the land will give its yield and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. ³ 

Ulangan 7:14

7:14 You will be blessed beyond all peoples; there will be no barrenness ⁴  among you or your livestock.

[26:3]  ¹ tn Heb “and my commandments you shall keep and do them.” This appears to be a kind of verbal hendiadys, where the first verb is a modifier of the action of the second verb (see GKC 386 §120.d, although שָׁמַר [shamar, “to keep”] is not cited there; cf. Lev 20:8; 25:18, etc.).

[26:4]  ² tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[26:4]  ³ tn Heb “the tree of the field will give its fruit.” As a collective singular this has been translated as plural.

[7:14]  ⁴ sn One of the ironies about the promises to the patriarchs concerning offspring was the characteristic barrenness of the wives of the men to whom these pledges were made (cf. Gen 11:30; 25:21; 29:31). Their affliction is in each case described by the very Hebrew word used here (עֲקָרָה, ’aqarah), an affliction that will no longer prevail in Canaan.