Discovery BoxLeviticus 19:23-24 
Context19:23 “‘When you enter the land and plant any fruit tree, 1 you must consider its fruit to be forbidden. 2 Three years it will be forbidden to you; 3 it must not be eaten. 19:24 In the fourth year all its fruit will be holy, praise offerings 4 to the Lord.
1 tn Heb “tree of food”; KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV “trees for food.”
2 tn Heb “you shall circumcise its fruit [as] its foreskin,” taking the fruit to be that which is to be removed and, therefore, forbidden. Since the fruit is uncircumcised it is forbidden (see J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 306, and esp. B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 131-32).
3 tn Heb “it shall be to you uncircumcised.”
4 tn See B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 132, where the translation reads “set aside for jubilation”; a special celebration before the
