Leviticus 25

The sabbatical year

1 The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai,
2 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.
3 You will plant your fields for six years, and prune your vineyards and gather their crops for six years.
4 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.
5 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.
6 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,
7 as well as for your livestock and for the wild animals in your land. All of the land's produce can be eaten.

The Jubilee year

8 Count off seven weeks of years—that is, seven times seven—so that the seven weeks of years totals forty-nine years.
9 Then have the trumpet blown on the tenth day of the seventh month. Have the trumpet blown throughout your land on the Day of Reconciliation.
10 You will make the fiftieth year holy, proclaiming freedom throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It will be a Jubilee year for you: each of you must return to your family property and to your extended family.
11 The fiftieth year will be a Jubilee year for you. Do not plant, do not harvest the secondary growth, and do not gather from the freely growing vines
12 because it is a Jubilee: it will be holy to you. You can eat only the produce directly out of the field.
13 Each of you must return to your family property in this year of Jubilee.
14 When you sell something to or buy something from your fellow citizen, you must not cheat each other.
15 You will buy from your fellow citizen according to the number of years since the Jubilee; he will sell to you according to the number of years left for harvests.
16 You will raise the price if there are more years, or lower the price if there are less years because it is the number of harvests that are being sold to you.
17 You must not cheat each other but fear your God because I am the LORD your God.
18 You will observe my rules, and you will keep my regulations and do them so that you can live securely on the land.

Food during fallow years

19 The land will give its fruit so that you can eat your fill and live securely on it.
20 Suppose you ask, "What will we eat in the seventh year if we don't plant or gather our crops then?"
21 I will send my blessing on you in the sixth year so that it will make enough produce for three years.
22 You can plant again in the eighth year and eat food from the previous year's produce until the ninth year. Until its produce comes, you will eat the food from the previous year.

Buying back family property

23 The land must not be permanently sold because the land is mine. You are just immigrants and foreign guests of mine.
24 Throughout the whole land that you possess, you must allow for the land to be bought back.
25 When one of your fellow Israelites faces financial difficulty and must sell part of their family property, the closest relative will come and buy back what their fellow Israelite has sold.
26 If the person doesn't have someone to buy it back, but then manages to afford buying it back,
27 they must calculate the years since its sale and refund the balance to the person to whom they sold it. Then it will go back to the family property.
28 If they cannot afford to make a refund to the buyer, whatever was sold will remain in the possession of the buyer until the Jubilee year. It will be released in the Jubilee year, at which point it will return to the family property.
29 When a person sells a home in a walled city, it may be bought back until a year after its sale. The period for buying it back will be one year.
30 If it is not bought back before a full year has passed, the house in the walled city will belong to the buyer permanently and their descendants forever. It will not be released at the Jubilee.
31 But houses in settlements that are unwalled will be considered as if they were country fields. They can be bought back, and they must be released at the Jubilee.
32 Levites will always have the right to buy back homes in the levitical cities that are part of their family property.
33 Levite property that can be bought back—houses sold in a city that is their family property—must be released at the Jubilee, because homes in levitical cities are the Levites' family property among the Israelites.
34 But the pastureland around their cities cannot be sold, because that is their permanent family property.

Poor Israelites and slavery

35 If one of your fellow Israelites faces financial difficulty and is in a shaky situation with you, you must assist them as you would an immigrant or foreign guest so that they can survive among you.
36 Do not take interest from them, or any kind of profit from interest, but fear your God so that your fellow Israelite can survive among you.
37 Do not lend a poor Israelite money with interest or lend food at a profit.
38 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt to give you Canaan's land and to be your God.
39 If one of your fellow Israelites faces financial difficulty with you and sells themselves to you, you must not make him work as a slave.
40 Instead, they will be like a hired laborer or foreign guest to you. They will work for you until the Jubilee year,
41 at which point the poor Israelite along with their children will be released from you. They can return to their extended family and to their family property.
42 You must do this because these people are my servants—I brought them out of Egypt's land. They must not be sold as slaves.
43 You will not harshly rule over them but must fear your God.
44 Regarding male or female slaves that you are allowed to have: You can buy a male or a female slave from the nations that are around you.
45 You can also buy them from the foreign guests who live with you and from their extended families that are with you, who were born in your land. These can belong to you as property.
46 You can pass them on to your children as inheritance that they can own as permanent property. You can make these people work as slaves, but you must not rule harshly over your own people, the Israelites.
47 If an immigrant or foreign guest prospers financially among you, but your fellow Israelite faces financial difficulty and so sells themselves to the immigrant or foreign guest, or to a descendant of a foreigner,
48 the Israelite will have the right to be bought back after they sold themselves. One of their relatives can buy them back:
49 their uncle or cousin can buy them back; one of their blood relatives from their family can buy them back; or they may be able to afford their own purchase.
50 The Israelite will calculate with their owner the time from the year they were sold until the Jubilee year. The price of their release will be based on the number of years they were with the owner, as in the case of a hired laborer.
51 If there are many years left before the Jubilee, the Israelite will pay for their purchase in proportion to their purchase price.
52 If only a few years are left, they will calculate that and pay for their purchase according to the years of service.
53 Regardless, the Israelite will be to the buyer like a yearly laborer; the buyer must not harshly rule over them in your sight.
54 If the Israelite is not bought back in one of these ways, they and their children must be released in the Jubilee year
55 because the Israelites belong to me as servants. They are my servants—I brought them out of Egypt's land; I am the LORD your God.

Leviticus 25 Commentary

Chapter 25

The sabbath of rest for the land in the seventh year. (1-7) The jubilee of the fiftieth year, Oppression forbidden. (8-22) Redemption of the land and houses. (23-34) Compassion towards the poor. (35-38) Laws respecting bondmen, Oppression forbidden. (39-55)

Verses 1-7 All labour was to cease in the seventh year, as much as daily labour on the seventh day. These statues tell us to beware of covetousness, for a man's life consists not in the abundance of his possessions. We are to exercise willing dependence on God's providence for our support; to consider ourselves the Lord's tenants or stewards, and to use our possessions accordingly. This year of rest typified the spiritual rest which all believers enter into through Christ. Through Him we are eased of the burden of wordly care and labour, both being sanctified and sweetened to us; and we are enabled and encouraged to live by faith.

Verses 8-22 The word "jubilee" signifies a peculiarly animated sound of the silver trumpets. This sound was to be made on the evening of the great day of atonement; for the proclamation of gospel liberty and salvation results from the sacrifice of the Redeemer. It was provided that the lands should not be sold away from their families. They could only be disposed of, as it were, by leases till the year of jubilee, and then returned to the owner or his heir. This tended to preserve their tribes and families distinct, till the coming of the Messiah. The liberty every man was born to, if sold or forfeited, should return at the year of jubilee. This was typical of redemption by Christ from the slavery of sin and Satan, and of being brought again to the liberty of the children of God. All bargains ought to be made by this rule, "Ye shall not oppress one another," not take advantage of one another's ignorance or necessity, "but thou shalt fear thy God." The fear of God reigning in the heart, would restrain from doing wrong to our neighbour in word or deed. Assurance was given that they should be great gainers, by observing these years of rest. If we are careful to do our duty, we may trust God with our comfort. This was a miracle for an encouragement to all neither sowed or reaped. This was a miracle for an encouragement to all God's people, in all ages, to trust him in the way of duty. There is nothing lost by faith and self-denial in obedience. Some asked, What shall we eat the seventh year? Thus many Christians anticipate evils, questioning what they shall do, and fearing to proceed in the way of duty. But we have no right to anticipate evils, so as to distress ourselves about them. To carnal minds we may appear to act absurdly, but the path of duty is ever the path of safety.

Verses 23-34 If the land were not redeemed before the year of jubilee, it then returned to him that sold or mortgaged it. This was a figure of the free grace of God in Christ; by which, and not by any price or merit of our own, we are restored to the favour of God. Houses in walled cities were more the fruits of their own industry than land in the country, which was the direct gift of God's bounty; therefore if a man sold a house in a city, he might redeem it only within a year after the sale. This encouraged strangers and proselytes to come and settle among them.

Verses 35-38 Poverty and decay are great grievances, and very common; the poor ye have always with you. Thou shalt relieve him; by sympathy, pitying the poor; by service, doing for them; and by supply, giving to them according to their necessity, and thine ability. Poor debtors must not be oppressed. Observe the arguments here used against extortion: "Fear thy God." Relieve the poor, "that they may live with thee;" for they may be serviceable to thee. The rich can as ill spare the poor, as the poor can the rich. It becomes those that have received mercy to show mercy.

Verses 39-55 A native Israelite, if sold for debt, or for a crime, was to serve but six years, and to go out the seventh. If he sold himself, through poverty, both his work and his usage must be such as were fitting for a son of Abraham. Masters are required to give to their servants that which is just and equal, Col. 4:1 . At the year of jubilee the servant should go out free, he and his children, and should return to his own family. This typified redemption from the service of sin and Satan, by the grace of God in Christ, whose truth makes us free, ( John 8:32 ) . We cannot ransom our fellow-sinners, but we may point out Christ to them; while by his grace our lives may adorn his gospel, express our love, show our gratitude, and glorify his holy name.

Footnotes 6

  • [a]. Heb shofar
  • [b]. September–October, Tishrei
  • [c]. Heb yobel
  • [d]. Or next of kin; traditionally redeemer
  • [e]. Or they will go back to their family property; also in 25:28.
  • [f]. Heb uncertain

Chapter Summary

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.

Leviticus 25 Commentaries

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