Leviticus 25:8-22

The Year of Jubilee

8 "You shall count seven weeks[a] of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years.
9 Then you shall sound 1the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. 2On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land.
10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and 3proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of 4you shall return to his clan.
11 That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it 5you shall neither sow nor reap 6what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines.
12 For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. 7You may eat the produce of the field.[b]
13 8"In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property.
14 And if you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, 9you shall not wrong one another.
15 10You shall pay your neighbor according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of years for crops.
16 If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you.
17 11You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the LORD your God.
18 12"Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then 13you will dwell in the land securely.
19 14The land will yield its fruit, and 15you will eat your fill 16and dwell in it securely.
20 And if you say, 17'What shall we eat in the seventh year, if 18we may not sow or gather in our crop?'
21 I will 19command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years.
22 20When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of 21the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives.

Leviticus 25:8-22 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO LEVITICUS 25

In this chapter the Israelites are directed, when come into the land of Canaan, to observe every seventh year as a sabbatical year, in which there was to be no tillage of the land, and yet there would be a sufficiency for man and beast, Le 25:1-7; and every fiftieth year as a year of jubilee, in which also there was to be no tillage of the land, and every man was to return to his possession or estate, which had been sold to another any time before this, Le 25:8-17; and a promise of safety and plenty in the seventh year is made to encourage the observance of it, Le 25:18-22; and several laws and rules are delivered out concerning the sale of lands, the redemption of them, and their return to their original owner in the year of jubilee, Le 25:23-28; and the sale of houses, and the redemption of them, and the difference between those in walled cities and those in villages, with respect thereunto, Le 25:29-31; and also concerning the houses of the cities of the Levites, and the fields of the suburbs of them, Le 25:32-34; to which are added some instructions about relieving decayed, persons, and lending and giving to them, without taking usury of them, Le 25:34-38; and other laws concerning the release of such Israelites as had sold themselves for servants to the Israelites, in the year of jubilee, since none but Heathens were to be bondmen and bondmaids for ever, Le 25:39-46; and of such who were sold to proselytes, Le 25:47-55.

Cross References 21

  • 1. [Leviticus 23:24; Isaiah 27:13]
  • 2. Leviticus 23:24, 27
  • 3. Isaiah 61:1; Jer. 34:8, 13, 15, 17; Ezekiel 46:17; [Isaiah 61:2; Isaiah 63:4; Luke 4:19]
  • 4. Leviticus 27:24; Numbers 36:4
  • 5. ver. 4, 5
  • 6. [See ver. 5 above]
  • 7. ver. 6, 7
  • 8. [See ver. 10 above]
  • 9. [Leviticus 19:33]
  • 10. Leviticus 27:18, 23
  • 11. ver. 36, 43; Leviticus 19:14, 32
  • 12. See Leviticus 18:4, 5
  • 13. Leviticus 26:5, 6; Deuteronomy 12:10; [Proverbs 1:33; Jeremiah 23:6; Ezekiel 34:25, 28]
  • 14. Psalms 85:12; Ezekiel 34:26, 27
  • 15. Leviticus 26:5; Deuteronomy 11:15; [Joel 2:19, 26]
  • 16. [See ver. 18 above]
  • 17. [Matthew 6:25, 31; Luke 12:22, 29]
  • 18. ver. 4, 5
  • 19. Deuteronomy 28:8
  • 20. [2 Kings 19:29]
  • 21. Leviticus 26:10

Footnotes 2

The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.