What Does Leviticus 25:15 Mean?
According to the count of years since the ram's horn year you shall buy from your neighbor, and according to the count of what it brings in he shall sell to you.
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
According to the number of years after the jubile thou shalt buy of thy neighbour, and according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee:THE KEY
The sale is measured by the harvest-years still remaining, so the Jubilee places a limit inside the exchange itself.
THE MEANING
The measure of this exchange is the span of harvest still ahead after the Jubilee. More fruit-bearing years mean greater value; fewer mean less, because the claim between you and your neighbor has a horizon built into it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that acquiring something gives you an unlimited claim whose value is independent of the time and yield left.
THE ROOT
שְׁנֵי
shenei
GROWS FROM
שנה
Repeat; do again.
The Hebrew word for “years” is linked to repetition: the seasons come round again. The price is tied to how many fruit-bearing cycles remain before the Jubilee, so time here is measured in recurring harvests with a known endpoint.
ALSO GROWS
sheni: Second; following another in sequence.
שֵׁנִי
It shares the root’s sense of what comes again, echoing the repeated cycles that determine the value of the sale.
mishneh: A second or doubled portion; something repeated.
מִשְׁנֶה
Its sense of a second portion brings the year-root’s repetition into view: the exchange is valued by the cycles still to come.
תְּבוּאֹת
tevu'ot
GROWS FROM
בוא
Come; enter.
“what it brings in” in this verse is tevu'ot. The word translated “fruits” refers to produce or crop yield and is linked to the root meaning “come in.” The verse measures the sale by the yield expected across the remaining years, keeping the exchange connected to what the land brings in.
ALSO GROWS
bo': To come or enter.
בּוֹא
This is the verb behind the yield-word: produce is what comes in from the land over the years being counted.
mavo: An entrance or way in.
מָבוֹא
It shares the idea of coming in, helping reveal the harvest as an incoming yield that gives the remaining years their value.
THE PATTERN
A claim over land and its yield is limited by time, and its value moves with the harvest-years remaining.
According to the abundance of years you shall make its price multiply, and according to the fewness of years you shall make its price shrink, for by the count of harvests he shall sell to you.The land shall not be sold for good, for the land is mine; for you are sojourners and those who settle beside me.And those who use this world as those who do not use it up, for the shape of this world is passing by.THE THREAD
And you shall count for yourself seven stopping-years, seven years seven times, and the span of the seven stopping-years shall be for you forty-nine years.The same Hebrew word for “years” frames the Jubilee count here. This verse shows the repeated years being counted toward the cycle; Leviticus 25:15 measures the sale by how many fruit-bearing years remain within it.
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