Leviticus 25:52

Summary

The verse addresses the case where only a few years remain before the Year of Jubilee for a Hebrew servant sold to a foreign owner. It states that a calculation will be made, and the servant's redemption price will be repaid according to the years remaining.

Key words

• nish'ar ("it remains", H7604) — niphal perfect, passive form: the years "are left remaining," not that someone actively leaves them behind.
• chishav ("he will calculate", H2803H) — piel perfect with sequential vav: an intensive form indicating a deliberate, precise reckoning, continuing the narrative sequence from the previous clause.
• yashiv ("he will repay", H7725K) — hiphil imperfect: a causative form, literally "he will cause to return," used here for repayment of a sum.
• ge'ulato ("his redemption", H1353) — feminine singular noun in construct with a pronominal suffix, meaning "the redemption-price belonging to him."
• shanav ("his years", H8141) — construct plural with suffix, tying the calculation directly to the specific number of years remaining for that individual.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a conditional clause (ve'im, "and if") followed by a chain of verbs describing a sequence of actions. The condition is stated first: "if me'at ('few', H4592) nish'ar ('it remains', H7604) in the years until the year of the jubilee." The niphal form of nish'ar frames the remaining time as a passive, existing quantity rather than an action performed by any grammatical agent — the years simply "are left."

The verb chishav then introduces the calculation, marked with a sequential vav (ve-chishav) that continues the action from what was stated conditionally. The piel stem intensifies the sense of reckoning, contrasted with a simple verb form. The grammatical subject of chishav, yashiv, and the earlier nish'ar is not explicitly named in this clause — it is carried by third-person singular verb morphology alone, leaving the identity of "he" (the servant, the owner, or another party) to be inferred from surrounding verses rather than stated in this verse itself. The final verb, yashiv (hiphil imperfect), governs the direct object marker 'et before ge'ulato ("his redemption," a construct noun with pronominal suffix), specifying that what is repaid is the redemption-price itself, calculated ke-fi shanav ("according to the mouth/proportion of his years").

Differences between versions

The LXX adds ὡς μισθωτός ("as a hired worker") at the end of the verse, a phrase with no corresponding element in the Hebrew text. The Vulgate renders the final clause as "reddet emptori quod reliquum est annorum" ("he will return to the buyer what remains of years"), shifting the object of repayment from the Hebrew's ge'ulato ("his redemption-price") to "what remains of years," and explicitly naming the buyer (emptori) as recipient, where the Hebrew leaves the recipient unstated. The SBLIBRE Spanish rendering translates chishav with a plural verb ("harán el cálculo," "they will calculate"), differing from the singular verb form in the Hebrew text.