John Calvin on Leviticus 25:20-22

20. And if ye shall say. Men will never be obedient to God’s precepts, unless their distrust of Him is corrected, and will be always ingenious in laying hold of pretexts for disobedience. The difficulty, however, in this matter was a specious excuse for the Jews; for famine might have destroyed them in these two years, since in the seventh year they neither sowed nor reaped; and for reaping they were obliged to wait till the end of the eighth year. Now, whence were they to get seed enough to sow after the land had rested for a whole year? It is not without reason, then, that God delivers them from this doubt, promising them that He will give such abundance in the sixth year as shall suffice for the two following ones. The phrase must be observed, that God would “command His blessing” in an especial manner, and beyond the usual course, so that the land should be twice or thrice more fertile. Hence is suggested to us no ordinary ground of confidence in asking for our daily bread. But this was a special promise, that food should not fail the Jews on account of the Sabbatical year; a manifestation of which God had already given in the desert, when supplied a double portion of manna to those who gathered it on the day before the Sabbath. Now-a-days this inconvenience is avoided by the industry of farmers, who so divide their acres that the land should never lie fallow altogether, but that one part should supply the deficiency of another. This distribution did not obtain with the Jews. Therefore God relieved them from the fear of famine down to the harvest of the eighth year; although He seems at the same time to accustom them to frugality, lest they should waste in intemperance and luxury what He afforded in sufficient abundance to last for two years. To this precept He alludes, when He declares by the Prophets that the land “enjoyed her Sabbaths,” when it had vomited forth its inhabitants, (2 Chronicles 36:21;) for since they had polluted it by violating the Sabbath, so that it groaned as if under a heavy burden, He says that it shall rest for a long continuous period, so as to compensate for the labor of many years.

The Year of Jubilee

Leviticus 25

Leviticus 25:8-13

8. And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years.

8. Numerabis quoque tibi septem hebdomadas armorum, id est septem annos septem vicibus; qui quidem dies septem Sabbathorum annorum efficient tibi quadraginta novem annos.

9. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.

9. Tunc transire facies tubam jubilationis mense septimo die mensis, id est die expiationum: transire inquam, facietis tubam per universam terrain vestram.

10. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.

10. Sanctificabitisque annum quinquagesimum, et proclamabitis libertatem in terra cunctis habitatoribus ejus: Jobel ipse erit vobis: et revertemini quisque ad possessionem suam, et quisque ad familiam suam revertemini.

11. 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.

11. Jobel ipse annus quinquaginta annorum erit vobis: non seretis, neque metetis quae sponte produxerit terra: neque vindemiabitis separationes ejus.

12. For it is the jubile; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field.

12. Quia Jobel est, sanctus erit vobis, agri comedetis fructum.

13. In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession.

13. Anno Jobel isto revertemini singuli ad possessionem suam.