Mildew

Mildew (yerakon in Hebrew, literally paleness or yellowness) is paired with blight (shiddaphon) throughout the Old Testament as one of the agricultural curses threatened for covenant disobedience. Deuteronomy 28:22 lists mildew among the disasters God will send upon disobedient Israel, and the pairing recurs in Amos 4:9, Haggai 2:17, and in Solomon's dedicatory prayer at the temple (1 Kings 8:37; 2 Chronicles 6:28). Mildew represents the fungal or climatic blight that destroys grain crops, turning them yellow and hollow rather than ripe and full.

The same Hebrew word can also refer to the pale greenish discoloration of human faces from illness or terror (Jeremiah 30:6), linking the agricultural and human applications of the concept. Both uses point to the same theological reality: the withering of life and fruitfulness under divine judgment.