Imamat 25:1-7

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.

Imamat 25:18-24

25:18 You must obey my statutes and my regulations; you must be sure to keep them ⁹  so that you may live securely in the land. ¹⁰ 

25:19 “‘The land will give its fruit and you may eat until you are satisfied, ¹¹  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 ¹²  the produce ¹³  for three years, 25:22 and you may sow the eighth year and eat from that sixth year’s produce ¹⁴  – old produce. Until you bring in the ninth year’s produce, ¹⁵  you may eat old produce. 25:23 The land must not be sold without reclaim ¹⁶  because the land belongs to me, for you are foreigners and residents with me. ¹⁷  25:24 In all your landed property ¹⁸  you must provide for the right of redemption of the land. ¹⁹ 

[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.

[25:18]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and you shall dwell on the land to security.”

[25:19]  ¹¹ tn Heb “eat to satisfaction”; KJV, ASV “ye shall eat your fill.”

[25:21]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ tn Smr and LXX have “its produce” (cf. 25:3, 7, etc.) rather than “the produce.”

[25:22]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “until the ninth year, until bringing [in] its produce.”

[25:23]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “And in all the land of your property.”

[25:24]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “right of redemption you shall give to the land”; NAB “you must permit the land to be redeemed.”