What Does Leviticus 25:5 Mean in the King James?

That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land.

Leviticus 25:5 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The land’s rest is measured by what you stop taking, even while life keeps growing.

THE MEANING

The ground that feeds you has a claim on your taking: its yield does not become yours simply because it appears in your field. Growth continues while the harvest is left uncollected and the vine unpruned. Rest here places a boundary on what you can gather from the living land.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The verse undoes the belief that whatever your land can produce is yours to take without limit.

THE ROOT

שַׁבָּתוֹן

shabbaton

GROWS FROM

שבת

sh-b-t

Cease; stop working.

The word is built from the root of ceasing, so the land’s rest means an actual pause in human work upon it. The field can still produce; what changes is that people stop harvesting and tending it for a season.

ALSO GROWS

shabbat: Sabbath, a day set apart from work.

שַׁבָּת

The weekly Sabbath and the land’s sabbatical year share the same root of cessation.

shavat: To cease or stop.

שָׁבַת

This verb makes the verse’s rest concrete: activity upon the land comes to a halt.

נְזִירֶךָ

nezircha

GROWS FROM

נזר

n-z-r

Separate; set apart.

The KJV’s “undressed” describes a vine left unpruned; the Hebrew calls it a nezir, a vine set apart from ordinary tending. Its consonants also appear in words for a person or thing set apart, so even the vine’s condition belongs to the language of separation.

ALSO GROWS

nazir: A person set apart by a vow.

נָזִיר

The shared root links the vine left untended with a person set apart from ordinary practice.

nezer: A consecration or crown, something set apart.

נֵזֶר

This branch echoes the vine’s separation from pruning and human management.

THE PATTERN

Created life continues beyond human management, and periods of restraint give it room to stand.

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.

Exodus 23:11 · KJVThe field is left uncultivated, yet its growth feeds people who are poor and the beasts of the field.

And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.

Mark 4:27 · KJVThe seed grows through its own hidden process, beyond the planter’s understanding or control.

There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

Hebrews 4:9 · KJVRest remains as part of the life available to God’s people, not an absence of life.

THE THREAD

And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

Genesis 2:2 · KJV

The Hebrew word translated “rested” is ⁨וַיִּשְׁבֹּת⁩ (vayishbot), from the same root ⁨שבת⁩ as shabbaton in this verse. The same cessation names both God’s pause from making and the land’s pause from being worked.

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