Leviticus 25:5-15

5 Do not even harvest the grain that grows by itself without being planted, and do not gather the grapes from your unpruned vines; it is a year of complete rest for the land.

6 Although the land has not been cultivated during that year, it will provide food for you, your slaves, your hired men, the foreigners living with you,

7 your domestic animals, and the wild animals in your fields. Everything that it produces may be eaten.

8 Count seven times seven years, a total of forty-nine years.

9 Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement, send someone to blow a trumpet throughout the whole land.

10 In this way you shall set the fiftieth year apart and proclaim freedom to all the inhabitants of the land. During this year all property that has been sold shall be restored to the original owner or the descendants, and any who have been sold as slaves shall return to their families.

11 You shall not plant your fields or harvest the grain that grows by itself or gather the grapes in your unpruned vineyards.

12 The whole year shall be sacred for you; you shall eat only what the fields produce of themselves.

13 In this year all property that has been sold shall be restored to its original owner.

14 So when you sell land to an Israelite or buy land, do not deal unfairly.

15 The price is to be set according to the number of years the land can produce crops before the next Year of Restoration.

Leviticus 25:5-15 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.