Leviticus 25:50

Summary

The verse describes a calculation between an Israelite who sold himself into servitude and the one who bought him: they reckon the time from the year of sale to the Year of Jubilee, and the price of the sale is to be assessed according to that number of years, following the rate of a hired laborer.

Key words

• chi.Shav ("he will calculate", H2803H) — piel sequential perfect; the intensive stem marks a deliberate, careful reckoning, not a casual count.
• ko.Ne.hu ("the one who bought him", H7069) — qal participle construct with suffix "him"; a participle describes the buyer by the ongoing role/action of "owning," not merely as a completed past act.
• hi.Ma.khe.rov ("he sold himself", H4376) — niphal infinitive construct with suffix; the niphal stem gives a passive/reflexive sense, "to be sold" or "to sell oneself," consistent with the subject acting upon himself rather than being purely acted upon by another.
• ke.sef mi.ka.Ro ("the silver/price of his sale", H3701H + H4465) — two nouns in construct chain, "silver of his sale," meaning the monetary value attached to the transaction.
• ki.mei sa.Khir ("according to the days of a hired laborer", H3117G + H7916) — construct chain comparing the calculation to the standard rate of a hired worker's days.

What the text says

The sentence opens with a sequential vav on chi.Shav ("he will calculate"), continuing a narrative chain from the preceding legal instructions. The subject of the verb is unstated but implied as the person who sold himself, acting "with" ('im, H5973A) "the one who bought him" (ko.Ne.hu) — the participle form of ko.Ne.hu frames the buyer by his role as possessor. The time span to be calculated runs "from the year of his selling himself" (mi.sh.nat hi.Ma.khe.rov, using the niphal infinitive to express the reflexive/passive act of self-sale) "to the year of the jubilee" ('ad sh.nat hai.yo.Vel).

The second clause, joined again by a sequential vav on ha.Yah ("it will be"), states that "the silver of his sale" (Ke.sef mi.ka.Ro, a construct chain literally "silver of sale-his") is to be reckoned "by the number of years" (be.mis.Par sha.Nim). The comparison "according to the days of a hired laborer" (ki.mei sa.Khir) uses the adjective sa.Khir ("hired laborer") to set the standard rate for the valuation — the price is not fixed independently but scaled against the wages a hired worker would earn over the same span of years.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders sa.Khir ("hired laborer") with the phrase ὡς μισθίου ("as of a hired one") followed by a separate clause ἔτος ἐξ ἔτους ἔσται μετ' αὐτοῦ ("year by year it will be with him"), splitting the Hebrew's single comparative clause into two Greek clauses and adding a temporal repetition ("year from year") not explicit in the Hebrew construct chain ki.mei sa.Khir yih.Yeh 'i.Mo. The Vulgate's rationem mercenarii supputata ("the account of the hired worker having been reckoned") compresses the Hebrew's two-part structure (silver reckoned by years; reckoning per hired-laborer days) into a single computed sum, and shifts chi.Shav ("he will calculate") into a passive participial construction (supputatis... supputata, "having been reckoned") rather than preserving the active verb form found in the Hebrew.