Leviticus 19:23-25

The Produce of Fruit Trees

19:23 “‘When you enter the land and plant any fruit tree, ¹  you must consider its fruit to be forbidden. ²  Three years it will be forbidden to you; ³  it must not be eaten. 19:24 In the fourth year all its fruit will be holy, praise offerings ⁴  to the Lord. 19:25 Then in the fifth year you may eat its fruit to add its produce to your harvest. ⁵  I am the Lord your God.

Deuteronomy 20:6

20:6 Or who among you has planted a vineyard and not benefited from it? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else benefit from it.

Deuteronomy 28:30

28:30 You will be engaged to a woman and another man will rape ⁶  her. You will build a house but not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but not even begin to use it.

Deuteronomy 28:1

The Covenant Blessings

28:1 “If you indeed ⁷  obey the Lord your God and are careful to observe all his commandments I am giving ⁸  you today, the Lord your God will elevate you above all the nations of the earth.

Deuteronomy 21:5

21:5 Then the Levitical priests ⁹  will approach (for the Lord your God has chosen them to serve him and to pronounce blessings in his name, ¹⁰  and to decide ¹¹  every judicial verdict ¹² )

[19:23]  ¹ tn Heb “tree of food”; KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV “trees for food.”

[19:23]  ² tn Heb “you shall circumcise its fruit [as] its foreskin,” taking the fruit to be that which is to be removed and, therefore, forbidden. Since the fruit is uncircumcised it is forbidden (see J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 306, and esp. B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 131-32).

[19:23]  ³ tn Heb “it shall be to you uncircumcised.”

[19:24]  ⁴ tn See B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 132, where the translation reads “set aside for jubilation”; a special celebration before the Lord.

[19:25]  ⁵ tn Heb “to add to you its produce.” The rendering here assumes that the point of this clause is simply that finally being allowed to eat the fruit in the fifth year adds the fruit of the tree to their harvest. Some take the verb to be from אָסַף (’asaf, “to gather”) rather than יָסַף (yasaf, “to add; to increase”), rendering the verse, “to gather to you the produce” (E. S. Gerstenberger, Leviticus [OTL], 260, and see the versions referenced in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 306). Others take it to mean that by following the regulations given previously they will honor the Lord so that the Lord will cause the trees to increase the amount of fruit they would normally produce (Hartley, 303, 306; cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[28:30]  ⁶ tc For MT reading שָׁגַל (shagal, “ravish; violate”), the Syriac, Targum, and Vulgate presume the less violent שָׁכַב (shakhav, “lie with”). The unexpected counterpart to betrothal here favors the originality of the MT.

[28:1]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates with “indeed.”

[28:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today” (likewise in v. 15).

[21:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “the priests, the sons of Levi.”

[21:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “in the name of the Lord.” See note on Deut 10:8. The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[21:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “by their mouth.”

[21:5]  ¹² tn Heb “every controversy and every blow.”