Imamat 25:10-11

25:10 So you must consecrate the fiftieth year, ¹  and you must proclaim a release ²  in the land for all its inhabitants. That year will be your jubilee; ³  each one of you must return ⁴  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. ⁵ 

Imamat 25:50

25:50 He must calculate with the one who bought him the number of years ⁶  from the year he sold himself to him until the jubilee year, and the cost of his sale must correspond to the number of years, according to the rate of wages a hired worker would have earned while with him. ⁷ 

[25:10]  ¹ tn Heb “the year of the fifty years,” or perhaps “the year, fifty years” (GKC 435 §134.o, note 2).

[25:10]  ² 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]  ³ 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]  ⁴ tn Heb “you [plural] shall return, a man.”

[25:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “you shall not sow and you shall not…and you shall not….”

[25:11]  sn See v. 5 above and the notes there.

[25:50]  ⁶ tn Heb “the years.”

[25:50]  ⁷ tn Heb “as days of a hired worker he shall be with him.” For this and the following verses see the explanation in P. J. Budd, Leviticus (NCBC), 358-59.