Leviticus 25:1-28

Regulations for the Sabbatical Year

25:1 The Lord spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai: 25:2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land must observe a Sabbath ¹  to the Lord. 25:3 Six years you may sow your field, and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather the produce, ²  25:4 but in the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath of complete rest ³  – a Sabbath to the Lord. You must not sow your field or ⁴  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 ⁵  vines; the land must have a year of complete rest. 25:6 You may have the Sabbath produce ⁶  of the land to eat – you, your male servant, your female servant, your hired worker, the resident foreigner who stays with you, ⁷  25:7 your cattle, and the wild animals that are in your land – all its produce will be for you ⁸  to eat.

Regulations for the Jubilee Year of Release

25:8 “‘You must count off ⁹  seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, ¹⁰  and the days of the seven weeks of years will amount to forty-nine years. ¹¹  25:9 You must sound loud horn blasts ¹²  – in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, on the Day of Atonement – you must sound the horn in your entire land. 25:10 So you must consecrate the fiftieth year, ¹³  and you must proclaim a release ¹⁴  in the land for all its inhabitants. That year will be your jubilee; ¹⁵  each one of you must return ¹⁶  to his property and each one of you must return to his clan. 25:11 That fiftieth year will be your jubilee; you must not sow the land, harvest its aftergrowth, or pick the grapes of its unpruned vines. ¹⁷  25:12 Because that year is a jubilee, it will be holy to you – you may eat its produce ¹⁸  from the field.

Release of Landed Property

25:13 “‘In this year of jubilee you must each return ¹⁹  to your property. 25:14 If you make a sale ²⁰  to your fellow citizen ²¹  or buy ²²  from your fellow citizen, no one is to wrong his brother. ²³  25:15 You may buy it from your fellow citizen according to the number of years since ²⁴  the last jubilee; he may sell it to you according to the years of produce that are left. ²⁵  25:16 The more years there are, ²⁶  the more you may make its purchase price, and the fewer years there are, ²⁷  the less you must make its purchase price, because he is only selling to you a number of years of ²⁸  produce. 25:17 No one is to oppress his fellow citizen, ²⁹  but you must fear your God, because I am the Lord your God. 25:18 You must obey my statutes and my regulations; you must be sure to keep them ³⁰  so that you may live securely in the land. ³¹ 

25:19 “‘The land will give its fruit and you may eat until you are satisfied, ³²  and you may live securely in the land. 25:20 If you say, ‘What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not sow and gather our produce?’ 25:21 I will command my blessing for you in the sixth year so that it may yield ³³  the produce ³⁴  for three years, 25:22 and you may sow the eighth year and eat from that sixth year’s produce ³⁵  – old produce. Until you bring in the ninth year’s produce, ³⁶  you may eat old produce. 25:23 The land must not be sold without reclaim ³⁷  because the land belongs to me, for you are foreigners and residents with me. ³⁸  25:24 In all your landed property ³⁹  you must provide for the right of redemption of the land. ⁴⁰ 

25:25 “‘If your brother becomes impoverished and sells some of his property, his near redeemer is to come to you and redeem what his brother sold. ⁴¹  25:26 If a man has no redeemer, but he prospers ⁴²  and gains enough for its redemption, ⁴³  25:27 he is to calculate the value of the years it was sold, ⁴⁴  refund the balance ⁴⁵  to the man to whom he had sold it, and return to his property. 25:28 If he has not prospered enough to refund ⁴⁶  a balance to him, then what he sold ⁴⁷  will belong to ⁴⁸  the one who bought it until the jubilee year, but it must revert ⁴⁹  in the jubilee and the original owner ⁵⁰  may return to his property.

[25:2]  ¹ tn Heb “the land shall rest a Sabbath.”

[25:3]  ² tn Heb “its produce,” but the feminine pronoun “its” probably refers to the “land” (a feminine noun in Hebrew; cf. v. 2), not the “field” or the “vineyard,” both of which are normally masculine nouns (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 170).

[25:4]  ³ 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.”

[25:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “and.” Here the Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) has an alternative sense (“or”).

[25:5]  ⁵ 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.

[25:6]  ⁶ tn The word “produce” is not in the Hebrew text but is implied; cf. NASB “the sabbath products.”

[25:6]  ⁷ 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.

[25:7]  ⁸ tn The words “for you” are implied.

[25:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “And you shall count off for yourself.”

[25:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “seven years seven times.”

[25:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and they shall be for you, the days of the seven Sabbaths of years, forty-nine years.”

[25:9]  ¹² sn On the “loud horn blasts” see the note on Lev 23:24, but unlike the language there, the Hebrew term for “horn” (שׁוֹפָר, shofar) actually appears here in this verse (twice).

[25:10]  ¹³ tn Heb “the year of the fifty years,” or perhaps “the year, fifty years” (GKC 435 §134.o, note 2).

[25:10]  ¹⁴ tn Cf. KJV, ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV “liberty”; TEV, CEV “freedom.” The characteristics of this “release” are detailed in the following verses. For substantial summaries and bibliography on the biblical and ancient Near Eastern material regarding such a “release” see J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 427-34, and B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 270-74.

[25:10]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “A jubilee that shall be to you.” Although there has been some significant debate about the original meaning of the Hebrew word translated “jubilee” (יוֹבֵל, yovel; see the summary in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 434), the term most likely means “ram” and can refer also to a “ram’s horn.” The fiftieth year would, therefore, be called the “jubilee” because of the associated sounding of the “ram’s horn” (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 172, and the literature cited there).

[25:10]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “you [plural] shall return, a man.”

[25:11]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “you shall not sow and you shall not…and you shall not….”

[25:12]  ¹⁸ tn That is, the produce of the land (fem.; cf. v. 7 above).

[25:13]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “you [plural] shall return, a man.”

[25:14]  ²⁰ tn Heb “sell a sale.”

[25:14]  ²¹ tn Or “to one of your countrymen” (NIV); NASB “to your friend.”

[25:14]  ²² tn The Hebrew infinitive absolute קָנֹה (qanoh, “buying”) substitutes for the finite verb here in sequence with the previous finite verb “sell” at the beginning of the verse (see GKC 345 §113.z).

[25:14]  ²³ tn Heb “do not oppress a man his brother.” Here “brother” does not refer only to a sibling, but to a fellow Israelite.

[25:15]  ²⁴ tn Heb “in the number of years after.”

[25:15]  ²⁵ tn The words “that are left” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied.

[25:16]  ²⁶ tn Heb “To the mouth of the many years.”

[25:16]  ²⁷ tn Heb “to the mouth of the few years.”

[25:16]  ²⁸ tn Heb “a number of produce”; the words “years of” are implied. As an alternative this could be translated “a number of harvests” (cf. NRSV, NLT).

[25:17]  ²⁹ tn Heb “And you shall not oppress a man his fellow citizen.”

[25:18]  ³⁰ tn Heb “And you shall keep and do them.” This appears to be a kind of verbal hendiadys, where the first verb is a modifier of the action of the second verb (see GKC 386 §120.d, although שָׁמַר [shamar, “to keep”] is not cited there; cf. Lev 20:8, etc.).

[25:18]  ³¹ tn Heb “and you shall dwell on the land to security.”

[25:19]  ³² tn Heb “eat to satisfaction”; KJV, ASV “ye shall eat your fill.”

[25:21]  ³³ tn Heb “and it [i.e., the land] shall make the produce.” The Hebrew term וְעָשָׂת (vÿ’asat, “and it shall make”) is probably an older third feminine singular form of the verb (GKC 210 §75.m). Smr has the normal form.

[25:21]  ³⁴ tn Smr and LXX have “its produce” (cf. 25:3, 7, etc.) rather than “the produce.”

[25:22]  ³⁵ tn Heb “the produce,” referring to “the produce” of the sixth year of v. 21. The words “sixth year” are supplied for clarity.

[25:22]  ³⁶ tn Heb “until the ninth year, until bringing [in] its produce.”

[25:23]  ³⁷ tn The term rendered “without reclaim” means that the land has been bought for the full price and is, therefore, not subject to reclaim under any circumstances. This was not to be done with land in ancient Israel (contrast the final full sale of houses in v. 30; see the evidence cited in B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 174).

[25:23]  ³⁸ tn That is, the Israelites were strangers and residents who were attached to the Lord’s household. They did not own the land. Note the parallel to the “priest’s lodger” in Lev 22:10.

[25:24]  ³⁹ tn Heb “And in all the land of your property.”

[25:24]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “right of redemption you shall give to the land”; NAB “you must permit the land to be redeemed.”

[25:25]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “the sale of his brother.”

[25:26]  ⁴² tn Heb “and his hand reaches.”

[25:26]  ⁴³ tn Heb “and he finds as sufficiency of its redemption.”

[25:27]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “and he shall calculate its years of sale.”

[25:27]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “and return the excess.”

[25:28]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “And if his hand has not found sufficiency of returning.” Although some versions take this to mean that he has not made enough to regain the land (e.g., NASB, NRSV; see also B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 176), the combination of terms in Hebrew corresponds to the portion of v. 27 that refers specifically to refunding the money (cf. v. 27; see NIV and G. J. Wenham, Leviticus [NICOT], 315).

[25:28]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “his sale.”

[25:28]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “will be in the hand of.” This refers to the temporary control of the one who purchased its produce until the next year of jubilee, at which time it would revert to the original owner.

[25:28]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “it shall go out” (so KJV, ASV; see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 176).

[25:28]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the original owner of the land) has been specified in the translation for clarity.