What Does Leviticus 25:11 Mean?
That fiftieth year shall be the ram's horn year for you. You shall not sow, nor reap what springs up on its own, nor gather the grapes of your uncut vine.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed.THE KEY
The Jubilee is a year when even the land’s spontaneous yield is left outside the claim to harvest.
THE MEANING
This verse sets a boundary around extraction: no seed is planted, no self-grown crop is reaped, and the grapes are left unpicked. What grows without human sowing does not automatically become something to claim. Rest reaches beyond the worker to the harvest itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that whatever the land produces is automatically available to be taken.
THE ROOT
יוֹבֵל
yovel
GROWS FROM
יבל
To bring or lead forth.
“ram's horn year” in this verse is yovel. Yovel names the year of release, and its root is linked with bringing forth. Its branches hold together the Jubilee and the land’s yield: the year interrupts the usual claim on what the land brings forth.
ALSO GROWS
yovel: Ram’s horn; Jubilee year
יוֹבֵל
The year is announced as a distinct time, set apart from ordinary sowing and harvest.
yevul: Produce, yield
יְבוּל
The shared root connects the year of release with what the land brings forth.
נְזִירֶיהָ
nezirêhā
GROWS FROM
נזר
To separate or set apart.
“uncut” in this verse is nezirêhā. The word rendered “undressed” describes vines left untrimmed, outside ordinary tending. The same root appears in words for a person set apart and a crown, revealing that the vine’s untouched state is a kind of separation from routine cultivation.
ALSO GROWS
nazir: One set apart or dedicated
נָזִיר
Like the untrimmed vine, the nazir is marked by separation from ordinary use.
nezer: Crown or diadem; something set apart
נֵזֶר
The crown carries the same sense of being distinguished from the ordinary.
תִּזְרָעוּ
tizreʿu
GROWS FROM
זרע
To sow or seed.
“sow” in this verse is tizreʿu. The root links the act of sowing with seed and offspring. The verse suspends the field’s ordinary cycle at its starting point: no new seed goes in, and the existing yield is not gathered.
ALSO GROWS
zāraʿ: To sow
זָרַע
This is the planting activity the verse suspends.
zeraʿ: Seed; offspring
זֶרַע
The shared word connects a crop’s beginning with the continuation of a family line.
THE PATTERN
Release interrupts the ordinary claim to extract yield, giving land and people room to return.
But in the seventh year you shall let it drop and leave it, that the poor of your people may eat, and what is left over the beasts of the field shall eat. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.At the end of every seven years you shall make a release.The breath of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the emptied. He has sent me to heal the shattered in heart, to herald release to the captives, and the return of sight for the blind, to send the crushed away into release.THE THREAD
And you shall set apart the fiftieth year, and proclaim a free flowing through all the land to all who settle in it. It shall be a ram's horn year for you, and you shall turn back each to his holding, and each to his family you shall turn back.The same word, yovel, names both years. Verse 10 says the year proclaims liberty and returns people to their land and family; this verse shows that release taking material form as the land’s growth is left unharvested.
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