Leviticus 25:4-6

25:4 but in the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath of complete rest ¹  – a Sabbath to the Lord. You must not sow your field or ²  prune your vineyard. 25:5 You must not gather in the aftergrowth of your harvest and you must not pick the grapes of your unpruned ³  vines; the land must have a year of complete rest. 25:6 You may have the Sabbath produce ⁴  of the land to eat – you, your male servant, your female servant, your hired worker, the resident foreigner who stays with you, ⁵ 

Leviticus 26:34-35

26:34 “‘Then the land will make up for ⁶  its Sabbaths all the days it lies desolate while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land will rest and make up its Sabbaths. 26:35 All the days of the desolation it will have the rest it did not have ⁷  on your Sabbaths when you lived on it.

Leviticus 26:43

26:43 The land will be abandoned by them ⁸  in order that it may make up for ⁹  its Sabbaths while it is made desolate ¹⁰  without them, ¹¹  and they will make up for their iniquity because ¹²  they have rejected my regulations and have abhorred ¹³  my statutes.

Zechariah 1:12

1:12 The angel of the Lord then asked, “Lord who rules over all, ¹⁴  how long before you have compassion on Jerusalem ¹⁵  and the other cities of Judah which you have been so angry with for these seventy years?” ¹⁶ 

¹ tn Heb “and in the seventh year a Sabbath of complete rest shall be to the land.” The expression “a Sabbath of complete rest” is superlative, emphasizing the full and all inclusive rest of the seventh year of the sabbatical cycle. Cf. ASV “a sabbath of solemn rest”; NAB “a complete rest.”

² tn Heb “and.” Here the Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) has an alternative sense (“or”).

³ tn Heb “consecrated, devoted, forbidden” (נָזִיר, nazir). The same term is used for the “consecration” of the “Nazirite” (and his hair, Num 6:2, 18, etc.), a designation which, in turn, derives from the very same root.

⁴ tn The word “produce” is not in the Hebrew text but is implied; cf. NASB “the sabbath products.”

⁵ tn A “resident who stays” would be a foreign person who was probably residing as another kind of laborer in the household of a landowner (B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 170-71). See v. 35 below.

⁶ tn There are two Hebrew roots רָצָה (ratsah), one meaning “to be pleased with; to take pleasure” (HALOT 1280-81 s.v. רצה; cf. “enjoy” in NASB, NIV, NRSV, and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 452), and the other meaning “to restore” (HALOT 1281-82 s.v. II רצה; cf. NAB “retrieve” and B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 189).

⁷ tn Heb “it shall rest which it did not rest.”

⁸ tn Heb “from them.” The preposition “from” refers here to the agent of the action (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 455).

⁹ tn The jussive form of the verb with the simple vav (ו) here calls for a translation that expresses purpose.

¹⁰ tn The verb is the Hophal infinitive construct with the third feminine singular suffix (GKC 182 §67.y; cf. v. 34).

¹¹ tn Heb “from them.”

¹² tn Heb “because and in because,” a double expression, which is used only here and in Ezek 13:10 (without the vav) for emphasis (GKC 492 §158.b).

¹³ tn Heb “and their soul has abhorred.”

¹⁴ sn Note that here the angel of the Lord is clearly distinct from the Lord who rules over all himself.

¹⁵ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

¹⁶ sn The seventy years refers to the predicted period of Babylonian exile, a period with flexible beginning and ending points depending on the particular circumstances in view (cf. Jer 25:1; 28:1; 29:10; Dan 9:2). Here the end of the seventy years appears to be marked by the completion of the temple in 516 b.c., exactly seventy years after its destruction in 586.