What Does Leviticus 25:11 Mean in the King James?
A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Jubilee is a year when even the land’s spontaneous yield is left outside the claim to harvest.
THE MEANING
This verse sets a boundary around extraction: no seed is planted, no self-grown crop is reaped, and the grapes are left unpicked. What grows without human sowing does not automatically become something to claim. Rest reaches beyond the worker to the harvest itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that whatever the land produces is automatically available to be taken.
THE ROOT
יוֹבֵל
yovel
GROWS FROM
יבל
To bring or lead forth.
“jubile” in this verse is yovel. Yovel names the year of release, and its root is linked with bringing forth. Its branches hold together the Jubilee and the land’s yield: the year interrupts the usual claim on what the land brings forth.
ALSO GROWS
yovel: Ram’s horn; Jubilee year
יוֹבֵל
The year is announced as a distinct time, set apart from ordinary sowing and harvest.
yevul: Produce, yield
יְבוּל
The shared root connects the year of release with what the land brings forth.
נְזִירֶיהָ
nezirêhā
GROWS FROM
נזר
To separate or set apart.
The word rendered “undressed” describes vines left untrimmed, outside ordinary tending. The same root appears in words for a person set apart and a crown, revealing that the vine’s untouched state is a kind of separation from routine cultivation.
ALSO GROWS
nazir: One set apart or dedicated
נָזִיר
Like the untrimmed vine, the nazir is marked by separation from ordinary use.
nezer: Crown or diadem; something set apart
נֵזֶר
The crown carries the same sense of being distinguished from the ordinary.
תִּזְרָעוּ
tizreʿu
GROWS FROM
זרע
To sow or seed.
“sow” in this verse is tizreʿu. The root links the act of sowing with seed and offspring. The verse suspends the field’s ordinary cycle at its starting point: no new seed goes in, and the existing yield is not gathered.
ALSO GROWS
zāraʿ: To sow
זָרַע
This is the planting activity the verse suspends.
zeraʿ: Seed; offspring
זֶרַע
The shared word connects a crop’s beginning with the continuation of a family line.
THE PATTERN
Release interrupts the ordinary claim to extract yield, giving land and people room to return.
But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard.At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release.The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,THE THREAD
And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.The same word, yovel, names both years. Verse 10 says the year proclaims liberty and returns people to their land and family; this verse shows that release taking material form as the land’s growth is left unharvested.
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