What Does Leviticus 25:16 Mean?
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.
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 multitude of years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price of it: for according to the number of the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee.THE KEY
The price follows the harvests still able to come in, so the years of future yield are part of what is being bought.
THE MEANING
Value here follows the yield that can still come in. More years of produce raise the price; fewer years lower it. What is measured is a finite span of future harvests, with each year changing the value.
THE ROOT
תְּבוּאֹת
tevu'ot
GROWS FROM
בוא
b-w-ʾ
Come, enter.
The word translated “fruits” is tevu’ot, produce or yield, from the root בוא (b-w-ʾ), “come, enter.” The price follows what can still come in through the remaining years: the verse counts time by its harvests.
ALSO GROWS
bo': To come or enter.
בּוֹא
It shows the movement contained in the produce word: the harvest is what comes in.
mavo: Entrance or coming in.
מָבוֹא
This related form makes the shared image concrete: yield is the incoming result of the land’s remaining seasons.
THE PATTERN
Value follows the fruit that can still come through the seasons remaining.
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.Six years you shall sow your land, and you shall gather in what comes in from it. 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.Be slow to heat therefore, brethren, until the arrival of the LORD. Look, the one who works the soil waits for the costly fruit of the earth, and is slow to heat over it until he takes in the early and late rain.THE THREAD
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.This verse names the measure of the transaction: years after the jubilee and years of produce. Its word for produce is תְּבוּאֹת (tevu’ot), from בוא (b-w-ʾ), “come in,” so the price follows how many harvests can still come in.
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