Leviticus 25:8-12

Regulations for the Jubilee Year of Release

25:8 “‘You must count off ¹  seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, ²  and the days of the seven weeks of years will amount to forty-nine years. ³  25:9 You must sound loud horn blasts ⁴  – 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, ⁵  and you must proclaim a release ⁶  in the land for all its inhabitants. That year will be your jubilee; ⁷  each one of you must return ⁸  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. ⁹  25:12 Because that year is a jubilee, it will be holy to you – you may eat its produce ¹⁰  from the field.

[25:8]  ¹ tn Heb “And you shall count off for yourself.”

[25:8]  ² tn Heb “seven years seven times.”

[25:8]  ³ tn Heb “and they shall be for you, the days of the seven Sabbaths of years, forty-nine years.”

[25:9]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn Heb “the year of the fifty years,” or perhaps “the year, fifty years” (GKC 435 §134.o, note 2).

[25:10]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ tn Heb “you [plural] shall return, a man.”

[25:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “you shall not sow and you shall not…and you shall not….”

[25:12]  ¹⁰ tn That is, the produce of the land (fem.; cf. v. 7 above).