What Does Leviticus 25:50 Mean in the King James?
And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him unto the year of jubile: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years, according to the time of an hired servant shall it be with him.
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 sale is priced by a countdown to release: its measure is the years remaining until Jubilee.
THE MEANING
The years left until Jubilee determine the price of the sale. The man’s service is measured by the term of a hired worker, giving the arrangement a stated horizon. The verse names the fact that he is bought while placing a limit on how his service is priced.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A sale gives the buyer an unlimited claim over a person.
THE ROOT
וְחִשַּׁב
veḥishav
GROWS FROM
חשב
to think, reckon, calculate, or account for something
“reckon” in this verse is veḥishav. This root can mean considered thought as well as calculation. Here the years until Jubilee are made to count in the price, so the release date shapes the accounting.
ALSO GROWS
maḥashavah: thought, plan
מַחְשָׁבָה
The same root carries the sense of forming a considered plan, showing that reckoning involves weighing what is due.
ḥeshbon: account, calculation
חֶשְׁבּוֹן
This branch names an account or calculation, illuminating how the remaining years determine the amount.
שָׂכִיר
sākîr
GROWS FROM
שכר
to hire or engage for wages
“hired servant” in this verse is sākîr. The verse uses hired service as its measure for the time of a man who has been sold. The shared root joins service to payment, making the years of labor, not an unmeasured lifetime, the basis of the price.
ALSO GROWS
śāḵar: to hire, employ for wages
שָׂכַר
The verb names the engagement of service for payment, echoing the verse’s comparison to a hired worker’s term.
śāḵār: wages, payment, reward
שָׂכָר
This branch names payment for service and clarifies why hired time supplies a measure for the sale price.
THE PATTERN
A term of service is counted toward an appointed release, so its limit belongs inside the arrangement.
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.And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.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
Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates:The phrase “hired servant” uses the same Hebrew word, שָׂכִיר (sākîr), as Leviticus 25:50. There, hired service measures the years in the sale’s price; here, the hired worker’s vulnerability is named directly.
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