What Does Leviticus 25:50 Mean?
And he shall count with the one who bought him, from the year he was sold to him until the ram's horn year, and the silver of his sale shall be by the count of years; as the days of a hired hand shall it be with him.
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
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 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
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 hand” 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 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.And if your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall send him out from you unbound.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
You shall not press a hired hand who is bowed down and needy, whether he is of your brothers or of your sojourners who are in your land within your 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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