Leviticus 25:8

Summary

Leviticus 25:8 instructs the counting of seven cycles of "sabbaths of years," clarified as seven times seven years, which together total forty-nine years. This calculation establishes the time span leading up to the Jubilee year.

Key words

• sa.far.Ta ("you will count", H5608A) — qal sequential perfect, second person masculine singular, continuing the narrative sequence begun with a vav; the form indicates an action the addressee is instructed to perform going forward.
• sha.be.Tot ("sabbaths of", H7676) — feminine plural construct noun, grammatically bound to the following word sha.Nim ("years", H8141); the construct chain produces the phrase "sabbaths of years," i.e., cycles of years rather than a single sabbath.
• She.va' ("seven", H7651) — cardinal number, common gender singular, repeated three times in the verse (positions 5, 8, 10) to build the multiplicative expression "seven sabbaths of years, seven years, seven times."
• pe.'a.Mim ("times", H6471) — masculine plural noun, following the third She.va', forming the idiom "seven times," which multiplies the prior "seven years" to yield the total count.
• ye.Mei ("days of", H3117G) — masculine plural construct noun, introducing a second construct chain, "days of seven sabbaths of the years," which restates the same seven-cycle count before the final numeral is given.

What the text says

The verse is built on two parallel constructions joined by narrative vav-forms (ve.sa.far.Ta, "and you will count"; ve.ha.Yu, "and they will be"). The first half sets up the counting: She.va' sha.be.Tot sha.Nim ("seven sabbaths of years") is immediately followed by an appositional multiplication, She.va' sha.Nim She.va' pe.'a.Mim ("seven years, seven times"), which spells out that the "sabbaths of years" unit consists of seven years each, repeated seven times. This repetition of She.va' three times within a few words gives the Hebrew a cumulative, almost incantatory structure that reinforces the multiplication 7×7 before any sum is stated numerically.

The second half repeats the same construct phrase — now with the article, ha.sha.Nim ("the years") — using ye.Mei ("days of") to introduce it, producing "the days of seven sabbaths of the years." This restatement functions as the subject of ha.Yu ("they will be"), leading into the final numeral: Te.sha' ve.'ar.ba.'Im sha.Nah, literally "nine and forty year," i.e., forty-nine, using the singular sha.Nah despite the plural quantity, a common Hebrew numerical construction.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders sha.be.Tot ("sabbaths of") as ἀναπαύσεις ("restings/rests") in its first occurrence but as ἑβδομάδες ("weeks/sevens") in the second occurrence within the same verse, where the Hebrew uses the same word sha.be.Tot (H7676) both times. The Vulgate renders the same term as hebdomadas ("weeks") consistently, aligning more closely with the second Greek rendering than the first.