^25:8“ ‘You must count off⁹ seven weeks of years, seven times seven years,¹⁰ and the days of the seven weeks of years will amount to forty-nine years.¹¹^25:9You must sound loud horn blasts¹²—in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, on the Day of Atonement—you must sound the horn in your entire land. ^25:10So you must consecrate the fiftieth year,¹³ and you must proclaim a release¹⁴ in the land for all its inhabitants. That year will be your jubilee;¹⁵ each one of you must return¹⁶ to his property and each one of you must return to his clan. ^25:11That fiftieth year will be your jubilee; you must not sow the land, harvest its aftergrowth, or pick the grapes of its unpruned vines.¹⁷^25:12Because that year is a jubilee, it will be holy to you—you may eat its produce¹⁸ from the field.

Release of Landed Property

^25:13“ ‘In this year of jubilee you must each return¹⁹ to your property. ^25:14If you make a sale²⁰ to your fellow citizen²¹ or buy²² from your fellow citizen, no one is to wrong his brother.²³^25:15You may buy it from your fellow citizen according to the number of years since²⁴ the last jubilee; he may sell it to you according to the years of produce that are left.²⁵

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Footnotes

9 Heb “And you shall count off for yourself.”
10 Heb “seven years seven times.”
11 Heb “and they shall be for you, the days of the seven Sabbaths of years, forty-nine years.”
12 On the “loud horn blasts” see the note on , but unlike the language there, the Hebrew term for “horn” (שׁוֹפָר, shofar) actually appears here in this verse (twice).
13 Heb “the year of the fifty years,” or perhaps “the year, fifty years” ( §134.o, note 2).
14 Cf. , , , , “liberty”; , “freedom.” The characteristics of this “release” are detailed in the following verses. For substantial summaries and bibliography on the biblical and ancient Near Eastern material regarding such a “release” see J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (), , and B. A. Levine, Leviticus (), .
15 Heb “A jubilee that shall be to you.” Although there has been some significant debate about the original meaning of the Hebrew word translated “jubilee” (יוֹבֵל, yovel; see the summary in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [], ), the term most likely means “ram” and can refer also to a “ram’s horn.” The fiftieth year would, therefore, be called the “jubilee” because of the associated sounding of the “ram’s horn” (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [], , and the literature cited there).
16 Heb “you [plural] shall return, a man.”
17 Heb “you shall not sow and you shall not … and you shall not.…” See v. 5 above and the notes there.
18 That is, the produce of the land (fem.; cf. v. 7 above).
19 Heb “you [plural] shall return, a man.”
20 Heb “sell a sale.”
21 Or “to one of your countrymen” (); “to your friend.”
22 The Hebrew infinitive absolute קָנֹה (qanoh, “buying”) substitutes for the finite verb here in sequence with the previous finite verb “sell” at the beginning of the verse (see §113.z).
23 Heb “do not oppress a man his brother.” Here “brother” does not refer only to a sibling, but to a fellow Israelite.
24 Heb “in the number of years after.”
25 The words “that are left” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied. The purchaser is actually buying only the crops that the land will produce until the next jubilee, since the land will revert to the original owner at that time. The purchaser, therefore, is not actually buying the land itself.