ספר ויקרא

Leviticus 26,16. “I will wreak misery upon you;” the ‎root ‎פקד‎ usually refers to the lack of something, something being ‎missing that should have been there. We find it in this sense ‎when David’s seat near King Sha-ul was empty. (Samuel I 20,25) ‎G’d says that He will remove certain plagues from us, seeing that ‎the fact that we will sow and not reap but our enemies are ‎reaping the fruit of our labours, this is sufficient punishment. ‎According to the predictions of our sages (Shabbat 30) in the ‎future the soil of the land of Israel will bring forth ready made ‎buns and scones so that the Israeli farmer does not need to ‎plough, sow, and harvest. At that time these labours will be ‎performed for us by the gentiles. Our verses describe the very ‎opposite occurring as G’d’s retribution for neglecting the Torah, ‎so much so that even when we perform these labours ourselves, ‎they will serve only others, as we will not benefit from our ‎labours.‎