perhaps properly · verb, piel imperative, 2nd person masculine singular
children
בְּנֵ֤יbe.Nei
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine plural construct
Israel
יִשְׂרָאֵל֙Yis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
say
וְאָמַרְתָּ֣ve.'a.mar.Ta
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine singular
come
תָבֹ֙אוּ֙ta.Vo.'u
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural
land
הָאָ֔רֶץha.'A.retz
H776
the earth (at large · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
give
נֹתֵ֣ןno.Ten
H5414
to give · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
land
הָאָ֔רֶץha.'A.retz
H776
the earth (at large · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
keep
וְשָׁבְתָ֣הve.shav.Tah
H7673
to repose · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person feminine singular
sabbath
שַׁבָּ֖תsha.Bat
H7676
intermission · noun, common feminine singular absolute
LORD
לַיהוָֽהla.Yah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · preposition + proper noun, a title
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
2 Chronicles 36:21 To fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept s…
Exodus 23:10 And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof:
Leviticus 26:34-35 Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and en…
Isaiah 8:8 And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall f…
Leviticus 14:34 When ye be come into the land of Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, and I put the plague of leprosy in a house of the land of you…
Leviticus 23:32 It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall y…
Deuteronomy 32:8 When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according t…
Deuteronomy 32:49 Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and behold the land of C…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Leviticus 25:1-7
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, Lev 25:4. 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…
The land keep a Sabbath - See this ordinance explained, Exo 23:11 (note). It may be asked here: if it required all the annual produce of the field to support the inhabitants, how could the people be nourished the seventh year, when no produce was received from the fields? To this it may be answered, that God sent his blessing in an especial manner on the sixth year, (see Lev 25:21, Lev 25:22), and it brought forth fruit for three years. How astonishing and convincing was this miracle! Could there possibly be any deception here? No! The miracle speaks for itself, proves the Divine authenticity of the law, and takes every prop and stay from the system that wishes to convict the Mosaic ordinanc…
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them,.... What follows, being what the whole body of the people would be under obligation to observe, and therefore must be delivered to them all, at least to the heads and elders of the people, and by them to the rest:
when ye come into the land which I give you; the land of Canaan, and until they came thither, the following law concerning the sabbatical year could not take place; and as Maimonides (i) says, it was only used in the land of Israel, and no where else, according to this text, and that both before and after the temple was built:
then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord; a rest from tillage, as it is afterwards explained;…
The Church Fathers
When you have entered the land that I am going to give you and the land that I am going to give you on the Lord's sabbaths has rested, six years you shall sow your field and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather its fruit; but the seventh year will be Saturday: the earth will have its rest, Saturday for the Lord. How should we understand the phrase: When you have entered the land that I am going to give you and the earth has rested, "six years will you sow your field," etc.? It seems as if they had been ordered to do that when the earth had rested, while the earth rests precisely because this is done. For the text refers to the rest of the earth in the seventh year, in which the Lord commanded that no one should work in it through agriculture. But, evidently, the long hyperbaton makes the meaning of the text obscure. It seems that the order of words would be as follows. When you have entered the land that I am going to give you and the land that I am going to give you has rested, it is the Sabbath of the Lord: you do not reap things that come from your field by yourself, and the grape of your sanctification does not you will harvest It will be the year of rest for the earth. And the Sabbath of the earth will be food for you and for your servant and your servant and for your hired servant and for your guest who resides with you. Also for your cattle and for your animals that are in your land, everything that springs from it will be eaten (Lv 25,5-7). To explain how the earth rests, he interposed the following words: Six years you will sow your field and six years you will prune your vineyard and gather its fruit; but the seventh year will be a sabbath: the earth will have its rest, the Sabbath of the Lord. You shall not sow your field and you shall not prune your vineyard. By saying: You will not prune, we must understand that all agriculture is prohibited that year. Because if you can not prune, you can not plow or hold with stakes or use anything else that serves agriculture. Now, as the part is usually taken for the whole, so also for the pruning all kinds of cultivation are indicated. And when mentioning the field and the vineyard, as it was forbidden to sow that field and prune this vineyard, we must understand that it is all sorts of fields. Because it is clear that you can not work in an olive grove or in any other field, which has not…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Agriculture — Tilling the ground (Gen. 2:15; 4:2, 3, 12) and rearing cattle were the chief employments in ancient times. The Egyptians excelled in agriculture. And after the Israelites entered into the possession…
Festivals, Religious — There were daily (Lev. 23), weekly, monthly, and yearly festivals, and great stress was laid on the regular observance of them in every particular (Num. 28:1-8; Ex. 29:38-42; Lev. 6:8-23; Ex. 30:7-9;…
Law of Moses — Is the whole body of the Mosaic legislation (1 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 23:25; Ezra 3:2). It is called by way of eminence simply “the Law” (Heb. Torah, Deut. 1:5; 4:8, 44; 17:18, 19; 27:3, 8). As a written…
Sabbatical year — Every seventh year, during which the land, according to the law of Moses, had to remain uncultivated (Lev. 25:2-7; comp. Ex. 23:10, 11, 12; Lev. 26:34, 35). Whatever grew of itself during that year…
Agriculture · LAWS CONCERNING — LAWS CONCERNING
Feast Of Sabbatical Year, The · A sabbath for the land — A sabbath for the land
Holiday · One year in seven — One year in seven
Holy Land · A sabbath of rest appointed for — A sabbath of rest appointed for
Sanitation · REST COMMAN — REST COMMAN
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Leviticus 25:1-7, 20-22
1. And the LORD spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying,
1. Loquntus est Jehova ad Mosen in monte Sinai, dicendo:
2. Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the LORD.
2. Alloquere filios Israel, et dic illis, Quum veneritis in terram quam ego do vobis, sabbathizet terra quiete Jehovae.
3. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof;
3. Sex annis seminabis agrum tuum, et sex annis putabis vineam tuam, et fructum ejus colliges.
4. But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a…
The Sabbatical Year. - When Israel had come into the land which the Lord gave to it, it was to sanctify it to the Lord by the observance of a Sabbath. As the nation at large, with its labourers and beasts of burden, was to keep a Sabbath or day of rest every seventh day of the week, so the land which they filled was to rest (to keep, שׁבּי שׁבת as in Lev 23:32) a Sabbath to the Lord. Six years they were to sow the field and cut the vineyard, i.e., cultivate the corn-fields, vineyards, and olive-yards (Exo 23:11 : see the remarks on cerem at Lev 19:10), and gather in their produce; but in the seventh year the land was to keep a Sabbath of rest (Sabbath sabbathon, Exo 31:15), a Sabbath consecr…
During the year of Sabbath rest, there was to be no formal cultivation or harvesting of the land; from what grew on its own the landowner could gather what he needed for his household day by day. Whatever remained uneaten was left for the poor and for foreigners (Exod 23:10-11), and what they left provided food for both wild and domestic animals. See also Exod 21:2; Deut 15:1-11.
Rashi on Leviticus 25:2
שבת לה׳ [THEN SHALL THE LAND KEEP) A REST 'לה — This means a rest in honor of the Lord (not a rest for the Lord, as in v. 4: שבת שבתון יהיה לארץ, “there shall be a strict Sabbath for the land”, i. e. for the land to rest) in the same sense as these words are used in the case of the weekly Sabbath (lit., the Sabbath of Creation) (Exodus 20:10) where 'שבת לה cannot mean “a day for God to rest” (Sifra, Behar, Chapter 1 2).
