What Does Leviticus 25:22 Mean?

(22) **And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit.**—Better, *And when ye shall sow in the eighth year, ye shall yet eat of the old produce, *that is, when at the termination of the sabbatical year the Israelites resume the cultivation of the soil in the eighth year, the abundant crop of the sixth year—the year preceding the sabbatical year—will not only suffice for this year, but will reach till that part of the ninth year when the crops sown in the eighth are ripe and gathered in. Accordingly, the sixth year’s harvest will suffice till the Feast of Tabernacles, or till Tishri 1 of the ninth year. **Until her fruits come in.—**Better, *until its produce come in, *that is, the produce of the eighth **year **which was gathered in the ninth. Leviticus 25:20, therefore, which states the anticipated question, and Leviticus 25:21-22, which contain the reply, ought properly to follow immediately after Leviticus 25:7, since they meet the difficulty arising from the rest of the land during the sabbatical year. The redactor of Leviticus may, however, have inserted Leviticus 25:20-22 here because the difficulty raised in them, and the reply given to the anticipated question, apply equally to the jubile year. The special Divine interposition which is here promised to meet the requirements of one year’s cessation from cultivating the land will, as a matter of course, be all the more readily vouchsafed when the Israelites will have to exercise greater obedience and faith in the jubile, and abstain two successive years from tilling the ground.