Imamat 26:39-42

Restoration through Confession and Repentance

26:39 “‘As for the ones who remain among you, they will rot away because of ¹  their iniquity in the lands of your enemies, and they will also rot away because of their ancestors’ ²  iniquities which are with them. 26:40 However, when ³  they confess their iniquity and their ancestors’ iniquity which they committed by trespassing against me, ⁴  by which they also walked ⁵  in hostility against me ⁶  26:41 (and I myself will walk in hostility against them and bring them into the land of their enemies), and ⁷  then their uncircumcised hearts become humbled and they make up for ⁸  their iniquity, 26:42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, ⁹  and I will remember the land.

[26:39]  ¹ tn Heb “in” (so KJV, ASV; also later in this verse).

[26:39]  ² tn Heb “fathers’” (also in the following verse).

[26:40]  ³ tn Heb “And.” Many English versions take this to be a conditional clause (“if…”) though there is no conditional particle (see, e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV; but see the very different rendering in B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 190). The temporal translation offered here (“when”) takes into account the particle אָז (’az, “then”), which occurs twice in v. 41. The obvious contextual contrast between vv. 39 and 40 is expressed by “however” in the translation.

[26:40]  ⁴ tn Heb “in their trespassing which they trespassed in me.” See the note on Lev 5:15, although the term is used in a more technical sense there in relation to the “guilt offering.”

[26:40]  ⁵ tn Heb “and also which they walked.”

[26:40]  ⁶ tn Heb “with me.”

[26:41]  ⁷ tn Heb “or then,” although the LXX has “then” and the Syriac “and then.”

[26:41]  ⁸ tn Heb “and then they make up for.” On the verb “make up for” see the note on v. 34 above.

[26:42]  ⁹ tn Heb “my covenant with Abraham I will remember.” The phrase “I will remember” has not been repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.