What Does Leviticus 25:22 Mean in the King James?
And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store.
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 harvest already gathered keeps feeding you while the next harvest is still on its way.
THE MEANING
You can be sowing now and still be nourished by what has already come in. The waiting between planting and fresh fruit does not mean provision has vanished; what is gathered continues to serve the present as new yield approaches.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that nourishment must come only from what is growing right now: what is already gathered remains real provision while new fruit is still coming.
THE ROOT
וּזְרַעְתֶּם
ûzeraʿtem and you
GROWS FROM
זרע
z-r-ʿ
to sow or scatter seed
“sow” in this verse is ûzeraʿtem and you. Hebrew keeps sowing beside זֶרַע (zeraʿ), the word for both seed and offspring: planting carries life forward. Here, sowing begins while the previous yield still feeds the present, joining two harvest cycles in one moment.
ALSO GROWS
zeraʿ: seed; offspring
זֶרַע
The same root links the seed put into the ground with the life that grows from it.
zoreaʿ: one who sows; a sower
זֹרֵעַ
The sower gives the next cycle its beginning while relying on the provision already gathered.
יָשָׁן
yashan old or
GROWS FROM
ישן
y-sh-n
to grow old; to sleep or lie dormant
The root carries both the sense of being old and the sense of sleeping. The old store is provision that has remained through the interval, sustaining the present before new yield arrives.
ALSO GROWS
yashen: to sleep; be asleep
יָשֵׁן
This shared root brings a sense of what rests or remains in reserve into the word translated “old.”
shenah: sleep
שֵׁנָה
The related noun preserves the root’s sleeping sense alongside the verse’s aged store.
תְּבוּאָה
tevuʾah produce or
GROWS FROM
בוא
b-w-ʾ
to come or enter
Tevuʾah, produce or yield, comes from בוא (bo), “to come” or “enter”: it is what comes in. The verse places sowing and stored provision in the interval before the next yield arrives.
ALSO GROWS
bo: to come; enter
בּוֹא
This root gives the verse’s waiting for the produce to come in a concrete sense of arrival.
mavo: entrance; entry
מָבוֹא
This related word for an entrance echoes the movement of yield coming in.
THE PATTERN
Provision can remain present across the interval between sowing and the next harvest.
While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.For thus saith the LORD God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the LORD sendeth rain upon the earth.Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;)THE THREAD
While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.Leviticus’s verb for sowing comes from זרע (z-r-ʿ), the root also present in Genesis’s “seedtime.” Genesis names the recurring rhythm; Leviticus shows how its gathered yield feeds the present while the next planting is already underway.
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