Discovery BoxLeviticus 25:4 
Context25:4 but in the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath of complete rest 1 – a Sabbath to the Lord. You must not sow your field or 2 prune your vineyard.
Leviticus 25:8-11
Context25:8 “‘You must count off 3 seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, 4 and the days of the seven weeks of years will amount to forty-nine years. 5 25:9 You must sound loud horn blasts 6 – 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, 7 and you must proclaim a release 8 in the land for all its inhabitants. That year will be your jubilee; 9 each one of you must return 10 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. 11
1 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.”
2 tn Heb “and.” Here the Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) has an alternative sense (“or”).
3 tn Heb “And you shall count off for yourself.”
4 tn Heb “seven years seven times.”
5 tn Heb “and they shall be for you, the days of the seven Sabbaths of years, forty-nine years.”
6 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).
7 tn Heb “the year of the fifty years,” or perhaps “the year, fifty years” (GKC 435 §134.o, note 2).
8 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.
9 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).
10 tn Heb “you [plural] shall return, a man.”
11 tn Heb “you shall not sow and you shall not…and you shall not….”
sn See v. 5 above and the notes there.
