Matthew Henry on Leviticus 25:8-22
Here is, I. The general institution of the jubilee, Lev 25:8. etc.
1. When it was to be observed: after seven sabbaths of years (Lev 25:8), whether the forty-ninth or fiftieth is a great question among learned men: that it should be the seventh sabbatical year, that is, the forty-ninth (which by a very common form of speech is called the fiftieth), seems to me most probable, and is, I think, made pretty clear and the objections removed by that learned chronologer Calvisius; but this is not a place for arguing the question. Seven sabbaths of weeks were reckoned from the passover to the feast of pentecost (or fiftieth day, for so pentecost signifies), and so seven sabbaths of years from one ju…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Leviticus 25:21
I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years, &c.--A provision was made, by the special interposition of God, to supply the deficiency of food which would otherwise have resulted from the suspension of all labor during the sabbatic year. The sixth year was to yield a miraculous supply for three continuous years. And the remark is applicable to the year of Jubilee as well as the sabbatic year. (See allusions to this extraordinary provision in Kg2 19:29; Isa 37:30). None but a legislator who was conscious of acting under divine authority would have staked his character on so singular an enactment as that of the sabbatic year; and none bu…
Read the whole note in the consoleAdam Clarke on Leviticus 25:20
What shall we eat the seventh year? - A very natural question, which could only be laid at rest by the sovereign promise in the next verse:
I will Command my Blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for Three Years. See on Lev 25:2 (note).
John Gill on Leviticus 25:21
Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year,.... Upon their fields, vineyards, and oliveyards, and make them exceeding fruitful, more than in other years; all fruitfulness at any time depends upon the blessing of God, and follows upon it, but is more visible and observable when there is an exceeding great plenty:
and it shall bring forth fruit for three years; and thus God blessed the sixth year with such a plentiful increase as was sufficient for time to come, until a new crop was gathered in; as he had blessed the sixth day with a double portion of manna, for the supply of the seventh.
