Leviticus 25:11

Summary

Leviticus 25:11 declares the fiftieth year to be a yovel ("jubilee", H3104) year, during which the people are prohibited from sowing, harvesting self-sown grain, or gathering grapes from untrimmed vines. The verse restates the agricultural restrictions already associated with the sabbatical pattern, applying them specifically to this fiftieth year.

Key words

• yo.Vel ("a jubilee", H3104) — masculine singular noun, functioning as the predicate identifying the nature of this year, placed at the head of the sentence for emphasis.
• cha.mi.Shim ("fifty", H2572) — cardinal number in construct relation with she.Nat ("year of", H8141), forming the phrase "the year of the fifty," i.e., the fiftieth year.
• tih.Yeh ("it will be", H1961) — qal imperfect, third person feminine singular, agreeing with sha.Nah ("year", H8141); expresses the year's ongoing status as jubilee "for you" (la.Khem, H9005+H9036).
• tiz.Ra.'u ("you will sow", H2232) — qal imperfect, second person masculine plural, negated by lo' ("not", H3808); a prohibitive future used to express command.
• se.fi.Chei.ha ("self-sown grain of it", H5599B) — masculine plural noun in construct with the pronominal suffix ha ("its", H9024), referring back to the land or the year producing growth without cultivation.
• ne.zi.Rei.ha ("untrimmed vines of it", H5139) — masculine plural noun in construct with the same suffix ha ("its", H9024), describing vines left unpruned during the jubilee year.

What the text says

The sentence opens with yo.Vel ("a jubilee", H3104) followed by the pronoun hi' ("it", H1931), forming a nominal clause: "a jubilee is it." This is followed by the construct phrase she.Nat ha.cha.mi.Shim sha.Nah ("the year of the fifty, a year"), which redundantly specifies "the fiftieth year" using both the construct chain and the counted noun sha.Nah ("year", H8141) again. The verb tih.Yeh ("it will be", H1961) then confirms this status "for you" (la.Khem).

The three prohibitions that follow — sowing (tiz.Ra.'u), harvesting self-sown grain (tik.tze.Ru... se.fi.Chei.ha), and gathering grapes from untrimmed vines (tiv.tze.Ru... ne.zi.Rei.ha) — each use the qal imperfect with the negation lo' ("not", H3808), a common construction for prohibitive commands in Biblical Hebrew. The direct object marker 'et (H0853) appears before both se.fi.Chei.ha and ne.zi.Rei.ha, marking these nouns as the direct objects of their respective verbs, though the marker itself carries no independent gloss. The suffix ha ("its", H9024) attached to both se.fi.Chei.ha and ne.zi.Rei.ha refers back to the feminine noun sha.Nah ("year"), linking the untended growth explicitly to the jubilee year itself.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders yo.Vel with ἀφέσεως σημασία ("a sign/mark of release"), introducing the concept of "release" (ἄφεσις) not explicit in the Hebrew noun yo.Vel itself. The Vulgate uses jubilaeus, a transliteration-based term, paired with quinquagesimus annus ("fiftieth year"), closely following the Hebrew construct phrase. For ne.zi.Rei.ha ("untrimmed vines of it", H5139), the LXX has τὰ ἡγιασμένα αὐτῆς ("the things sanctified/consecrated of it"), a rendering that shifts the sense from untended vegetation to consecration, differing from the Hebrew's agricultural description of unpruned vines.