Leviticus 25:2-7

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.

Leviticus 25:11-12

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.

Leviticus 25:20

25:20 If you say, ‘What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not sow and gather our produce?’

Leviticus 25:22

25:22 and you may sow the eighth year and eat from that sixth year’s produce ¹¹  – old produce. Until you bring in the ninth year’s produce, ¹²  you may eat old produce.

---

¹ tn Heb “the land shall rest a Sabbath.”

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).

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.”

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

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.

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

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.

⁸ tn The words “for you” are implied.

⁹ tn Heb “you shall not sow and you shall not…and you shall not….”

sn See v. 5 above and the notes there.

¹⁰ tn That is, the produce of the land (fem.; cf. v. 7 above).

¹¹ tn Heb “the produce,” referring to “the produce” of the sixth year of v. 21. The words “sixth year” are supplied for clarity.

¹² tn Heb “until the ninth year, until bringing [in] its produce.”