Add parallel Print Page Options

Regulations for the Sabbatical Year

25 The Lord spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai: “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land must observe a Sabbath[a] to the Lord. Six years you may sow your field, and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather the produce,[b] but in the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath of complete rest[c]—a Sabbath to the Lord. You must not sow your field or[d] prune your vineyard. You must not gather in the aftergrowth of your harvest and you must not pick the grapes of your unpruned vines;[e] the land must have a year of complete rest. You may have the Sabbath produce[f] of the land to eat—you, your male servant, your female servant, your hired worker, the resident foreigner who stays with you,[g] your cattle, and the wild animals that are in your land—all its produce will be for you[h] to eat.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. Leviticus 25:2 tn Heb “the land shall rest a Sabbath.”
  2. Leviticus 25:3 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. Leviticus 25:4 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. Leviticus 25:4 tn Heb “and.” Here the Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) has an alternative sense (“or”).
  5. Leviticus 25:5 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. Leviticus 25:6 tn The word “produce” is not in the Hebrew text but is implied; cf. NASB “the sabbath products.”
  7. Leviticus 25:6 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. Leviticus 25:7 tn The words “for you” are implied.

The sabbatical year

25 The Lord said to Moses on Mount Sinai, Speak to the Israelites and say to them: Once you enter the land that I am giving you, the land must celebrate a sabbath rest to the Lord. You will plant your fields for six years, and prune your vineyards and gather their crops for six years. But in the seventh year the land will have a special sabbath rest, a Sabbath to the Lord: You must not plant your fields or prune your vineyards. You must not harvest the secondary growth of your produce or gather the grapes of your freely growing vines. It will be a year of special rest for the land. Whatever the land produces during its sabbath will be your food—for you, for your male and female servants, and for your hired laborers and foreign guests who live with you, as well as for your livestock and for the wild animals in your land. All of the land’s produce can be eaten.

Read full chapter