What Does Leviticus 25:8 Mean in the King James?
And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years.
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 years are counted as sabbaths because time itself is measured in cycles of cessation, leading toward the release that follows.
THE MEANING
Your time is not an unbroken claim on productivity or possession: its cycles include cessation and release. Here, seven cycles of seven years are counted out to forty-nine, making the approach to Jubilee part of time’s structure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that every year must be used for gain and that what is accumulated can be held indefinitely is undone by a calendar that counts toward release.
THE ROOT
וְסָפַרְתָּ
vesafarta
GROWS FROM
ס־פ־ר
s-p-r
To count, recount, or tell as an account.
The verb carries more than the idea of a bare tally: its root also forms words for a number, a written record, and an account or story. The years become legible as seven complete cycles, with the count giving shape to what lies ahead.
ALSO GROWS
mispar: A number or counted amount.
מִסְפָּר
It makes explicit the tally carried by the verb in this verse.
sefer: A written record or book.
סֵפֶר
The shared root links counting with keeping an account: the span of years can be read as an ordered record.
sippur: A recounting or narrative.
סִפּוּר
This branch shows how counting and telling can belong to the same root, giving the measured years a sequence with a destination.
שַׁבְּתֹת
shabbatot
GROWS FROM
ש־ב־ת
sh-b-t
To cease or stop.
“sabbaths” in this verse is shabbatot. A sabbath is rooted in cessation. Here, cessation is built into the measure of years: rest is not an interruption of the calendar but a repeating rhythm within it, opening the way toward release.
ALSO GROWS
shavat: To cease or come to a stop.
שָׁבַת
This verb brings the root’s basic action into view: sabbatical time is marked by stopping.
shabbat: A Sabbath or day of cessation.
שַׁבָּת
It is the familiar form repeated in the verse’s count of sabbaths.
shabbaton: A solemn or complete rest.
שַׁבָּתוֹן
This related form deepens the sense of a recurring period set aside for cessation.
THE PATTERN
Time is structured by recurring pauses that keep land, labor, and debt from being held without limit.
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.And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother; because it is called the LORD’s 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 he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.The same root, ס־פ־ר (s-p-r), meaning to count or recount, is rendered first as “tell” and then as “number” in Genesis 15:5. In Leviticus it gives a stretch of years a countable shape; in Genesis the count opens onto an abundance no tally can finish.
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