Leviticus 25

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1The Lord said to Moses on Mount Sinai,

2“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the Lord.

3For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops.

4But in the seventh year the land is to have a sabbath of rest, a sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards.

5Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest.

6Whatever the land yields during the sabbath year will be food for you–for yourself, your manservant and maidservant, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you,

7as well as for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. Whatever the land produces may be eaten.

8“ ‘Count off seven sabbaths of years–seven times seven years–so that the seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years.

9Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land.

10Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan.

11The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines.

12For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields.

13“ ‘In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to his own property.

14“ ‘If you sell land to one of your countrymen or buy any from him, do not take advantage of each other.

15You are to buy from your countryman on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee. And he is to sell to you on the basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops.

16When the years are many, you are to increase the price, and when the years are few, you are to decrease the price, because what he is really selling you is the number of crops.

17Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the Lord your God.

18“ ‘Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land.

19Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety.

20You may ask, “What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?”

21I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years.

22While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in.

23“ ‘The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants.

24Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.

25“ ‘If one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells some of his property, his nearest relative is to come and redeem what his countryman has sold.

26If, however, a man has no one to redeem it for him but he himself prospers and acquires sufficient means to redeem it,

27he is to determine the value for the years since he sold it and refund the balance to the man to whom he sold it; he can then go back to his own property.

28But if he does not acquire the means to repay him, what he sold will remain in the possession of the buyer until the Year of Jubilee. It will be returned in the Jubilee, and he can then go back to his property.

29“ ‘If a man sells a house in a walled city, he retains the right of redemption a full year after its sale. During that time he may redeem it.

30If it is not redeemed before a full year has passed, the house in the walled city shall belong permanently to the buyer and his descendants. It is not to be returned in the Jubilee.

31But houses in villages without walls around them are to be considered as open country. They can be redeemed, and they are to be returned in the Jubilee.

32“ ‘The Levites always have the right to redeem their houses in the Levitical towns, which they possess.

33So the property of the Levites is redeemable–that is, a house sold in any town they hold–and is to be returned in the Jubilee, because the houses in the towns of the Levites are their property among the Israelites.

34But the pastureland belonging to their towns must not be sold; it is their permanent possession.

35“ ‘If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you.

36Do not take interest of any kind from him, but fear your God, so that your countryman may continue to live among you.

37You must not lend him money at interest or sell him food at a profit.

38I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.

39“ ‘If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you, do not make him work as a slave.

40He is to be treated as a hired worker or a temporary resident among you; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee.

41Then he and his children are to be released, and he will go back to his own clan and to the property of his forefathers.

42Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves.

43Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God.

44“ ‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves.

45You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property.

46You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

47“ ‘If an alien or a temporary resident among you becomes rich and one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells himself to the alien living among you or to a member of the alien's clan,

48he retains the right of redemption after he has sold himself. One of his relatives may redeem him:

49An uncle or a cousin or any blood relative in his clan may redeem him. Or if he prospers, he may redeem himself.

50He and his buyer are to count the time from the year he sold himself up to the Year of Jubilee. The price for his release is to be based on the rate paid to a hired man for that number of years.

51If many years remain, he must pay for his redemption a larger share of the price paid for him.

52If only a few years remain until the Year of Jubilee, he is to compute that and pay for his redemption accordingly.

53He is to be treated as a man hired from year to year; you must see to it that his owner does not rule over him ruthlessly.

54“ ‘Even if he is not redeemed in any of these ways, he and his children are to be released in the Year of Jubilee,

55for the Israelites belong to me as servants. They are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

Commentary

25:1-7 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.

Chapter 25 The law of this chapter concerns the lands and estates of the Israelites in Canaan, the occupying and transferring of which were to be under the divine direction, as well as the management of religious worship; for, as the tabernacle was a holy house, so Canaan was a holy land; and upon that account, as much as any thing, it was the glory of all lands. In token of a peculiar title which God had to this land, and a right to dispose of it, he appointed, I. That every seventh year should be a year of rest from occupying the land, a sabbatical year (v. 1-7). In this God expected from them extraordinary instances of faith and obedience, and they might expect from God extraordinary instances of power and goodness in providing for them (v. 18–22). II. That every fiftieth year should be a year of jubilee, that is, 1. A year of release of debts and mortgages, and return to the possession of their alienated lands (v. 8–17). Particular directions are given, (1.) Concerning the sale and redemption of lands (v. 23–28). (2.) Of houses in cities and villages, with a proviso for Levite-cities (v. 29–34). 2. A year of release of servants and bond-slaves. (1.) Here is inserted a law for the kind usage of poor debtors (v. 35–38). (2). Then comes the law for the discharge of all Israelites that were sold for servants, in the year of jubilee, if they were not redeemed before. [1.] If they were sold to Israelites (v. 39–46). And, [2.] If sold to proselytes (v. 47–55). All these appointments have something moral and of perpetual obligation in them, though in the letter of them they were not only peculiar to the Jews, but to them only while they were in Canaan.Verses 1-7 The law of Moses laid a great deal of stress upon the sabbath, the sanctification of which was the earliest and most ancient of all divine institutions, designed for the keeping up of the knowledge and worship of the Creator among men; that law not only revived the observance of the weekly sabbath, but, for the further advancement of the honour of them, added the institution of a sabbatical year: In the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, v. 4. And hence the Jews collect that vulgar tradition that after the world has stood six thousand years (a thousand years being to God as one day) it shall cease, and the eternal sabbath shall succeed—a weak foundation on which to build the fixing of that day and hour which it is God’s prerogative to know. This sabbatical year began in September, at the end of harvest, the seventh month of their ecclesiastical year: and the law was, 1. That at the seed-time, which immediately followed the end of their in-gathering, they should sow no corn in their land, and that they should not in the spring dress their vineyards, and consequently that they should not expect either harvest or vintage the next year. 2. That what their ground did produce of itself they should not claim any property or use in, otherwise than from hand to mouth, but leave it for the poor, servants, strangers, and cattle, v. 5-7. It must be a sabbath of rest to the land; they must neither do any work about it, nor expect any fruit from it; all annual labours must be intermitted in the seventh year, as much as daily labours on the seventh day. The Jews say they "began not to reckon for the sabbatical year till they had completed the conquest of Canaan, which was in the eighth year of Joshua; the seventh year after that was the first sabbatical year, and so the fiftieth year was the jubilee." This year there was to be a general release of debts (Deu. 15:1, 2), and a public reading of the law in the feast (Deu. 31:10, 11), to make it the more solemn. Now, (1.) God would hereby show them that he was their landlord, and that they were tenants at will under him. Landlords are wont to stipulate with their tenants when they shall break up their ground, how long they shall till it, and when they shall let it rest: God would thus give, grant, and convey, that good land to them, under such provisos and limitations as should let them know that they were not proprietors, but dependents on their Lord. (2.) It was a kindness to their land to let it rest sometimes, and would keep it in heart (as our husbandmen express it) for posterity, whose satisfaction God would have them to consult, and not to use the ground as if it were designed only for one age. (3.) When they were thus for a whole year taken off from all country business, they would have the more leisure to attend the exercises of religion, and to get the knowledge of God and his law. (4.) They were hereby taught to be charitable and generous, and not to engross all to themselves, but to be willing that others should share with them in the gifts of God’s bounty, which the earth brought forth of itself. (5.) They were brought to live in a constant dependence upon the divine providence, finding that, as man lives not by bread alone, so he has bread, not by his own industry alone, but, if God pleases, by the word of blessing from the mouth of God, without any care or pains of man, Mt. 4:4. (6.) They were reminded of the easy life man lived in paradise, when he ate of every good thing, not, as since, in the sweat of his face. Labour and toil came in with sin. (7.

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Translations8 · 5

AMHEVG እግዚአብሔርም ሙሴን በሲና ተራራ ላይ እንዲህ ብሎ ተናገረው፦ አማርኛ BCV እግዚኣብሄር ንሙሴ ኣብ ደብረ ሲና ኸምዙይ ኢሉ ተዛረቦ፦ ትግርኛ GAZBIB Waaqayyo tulluu Siinaa irratti Museetti in dubbate. Afaan Oromoo BCV GIZ ወነበቦ እግዚአብሔር ለሙሴ በደብረ ሲና ወይቤሎ፦ giz GAZGAZ Waaqayyo tulluu Siinaa irratti Museetti in dubbate. Afaan Oromoo BCV aksum እግዚኣብሄር ንሙሴ ኣብ ደብረ ሲና ኸምዙይ ኢሉ ተዛረቦ፦ ትግርኛ AMHNIV እግዚአብሔር (ያህዌ) ሙሴን በሲና ተራራ ላይ እንዲህ አለው፤ አማርኛ SWAHSUV Kisha Bwana akanena na Musa katika mlima wa Sinai, na kumwambia, Kiswahili