What Does Leviticus 25:20 Mean in the King James?
And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase:
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 fear is that when sowing and gathering stop, nothing can come in.
THE MEANING
This question lives wherever the familiar way of providing food pauses: if no seed goes in and no harvest is gathered, what is left to eat? The verse gives that fear concrete form, naming the work that stops and the yield that seems unable to arrive. “Increase” carries the sense of what comes in, so the worry is whether provision can still reach the reader when the familiar work pauses.
THE ROOT
תְּבוּאָה
tevu’ah
GROWS FROM
בוא
bo
to come, enter
The word rendered “increase” is תְּבוּאָה (tevu’ah), meaning crop or yield, formed from בוא (bo), “to come, enter.” It frames harvest as what comes in; the anxiety appears when the reader assumes it can come only through what they sow and gather.
ALSO GROWS
bo: to come, enter
בּוֹא
The yield word grows from this movement of coming in, so “increase” carries the sense of arrival as well as crop.
mavo: entrance, entry
מָבוֹא
The same root describes a point of arrival, sharpening the sense of increase as what enters the household.
tevu’ah: produce, crop, yield
תְּבוּאָה
This is the verse’s “increase”: food understood as that which comes in from the field.
THE PATTERN
Fear treats a pause in sowing and gathering as a pause in provision, while scripture shows food arriving beyond ordinary production.
Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years.And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?THE THREAD
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?This verse names the same interruption: sowing stops, gathering stops, and yet feeding continues. The question in Leviticus feels like its unanswered edge; here, the pause in human work is not a pause in provision.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us