Leviticus 25:18

Lev 25:18 Wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety.

Ver. 18. Ye shall do my statutes.] Ye shall do them, and do them: that is, ye shall do them diligently, {as Psa 119:4} and then ye shall dwell in the land in safety; yea, ye shall dwell there in safety: that is, ye shall assuredly; take my word for it.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

ADDITIONAL LEGISLATION RESPECTING THE SABBATICAL YEAR, Lev_25:18-22.

These verses should be read in connexion with vers. 1-7, since they chiefly relate to the same topic. They seem to be misplaced in their present position, amid precepts relating to the jubilee, though they are not in reality. The purport of Lev_25:18-19 is, that safety and temporal prosperity in the land of promise hinge on obedience to the declared will of Jehovah.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Or, boldly without fear.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

(18) Wherefore ye shall do my statutes.—Better, And ye shall do . . . that is, the above named statutes and ordinances respecting the sabbatical year and the jubile, which required great sacrifices.

Ye shall dwell in the land in safety.—As God is Israel’s strong tower and wall of defence, it is by keeping His commandments that the Israelites will enjoy the security which other nations endeavour to obtain by great labour and mighty armies.

And the land . . . her fruit.—He, moreover, who has given Israel these statutes, also controls the operations of nature. Hence, though the observance of His laws would necessitate the abstention from cultivating the soil, the Lord will cause the land to yield an abundant harvest which will richly supply all their wants, and they will safely and quietly dwell therein without being compelled to make raids upon their neighbours for food, or surrender themselves to their enemies for want of provision (1Ma_6:49; 1Ma_6:53; Josephus, Antt. xiv. 16, § 2; xv. :1, § 2).

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18–22. A hortatory addition, relating to the sabbatical year and interrupting the Jubile regulations. It is thus clearly out of place, and should properly follow Lev_25:7. Its tone is that of H, and is in accord with such hortatory passages as Lev_18:25 ff., Lev_20:22 f., Lev_26:3 ff. It may be conjectured that the redactor’s reason for placing it here out of its proper context was to indicate that it applies to the regulations for the Jubile as well as the sabbatical year.

The mention of the ninth year (Lev_25:22), combined with the words ‘three years’ (Lev_25:21), seems to point to the view (see introd. note to ch.) that the Jubile year was really the 50th, not the 49th, and that thus the land on such occasions was to have two years (the seventh and eighth) of rest. On the other hand, Lev_25:20 has ‘the seventh year’ (not the seventh and eighth), and Lev_25:22 ‘ye shall sow the eighth year’ (not the ninth). It is probable that the redactor, with the object mentioned above, introduced into Lev_25:22 mention of the ninth year. So Dillm. who further makes the ‘three years,’ originally meaning the sixth, seventh, and eighth (i.e. the produce of the sixth year was to last abnormally till the harvest time of that sowed in the earlier part of the eighth instead of the seventh year) to have been taken by the redactor to mean seventh, eighth, and ninth, so as to fall in with his view that the Jubile followed, instead of coinciding with, the last year of the cycle of seven sabbatical years.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them,.... These and all others he enjoined; by which tenure, even obedience to all his commands, moral, ritual, and judicial, they were to hold the land of Canaan, and their possessions in it, which is intended in the next clause:

and ye shall dwell in the land in safety; without any fear of enemies, or of the neighbouring nations about them seizing upon them, and distressing them; and Jarchi observes, that it was for transgressing the sabbatical year that Israel was carried captive, which he thinks is intimated in Ch2 36:21; and that the seventy years' captivity in Babylon were for the seventy sabbatical years that had been neglected.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

In safety - i. e., secure from famine, Lev 26:5; Deu 12:10.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Vers. 18-22. only the year of jubilee, but the sabbatical year also, commenced in the autumn, when the farmers first began to sow for the coming year; so that the sowing was suspended from the autumn of the sixth year till the autumn of the seventh, and even till the autumn of the eighth whenever the jubilee year came round, in which case both sowing and reaping were omitted for two years in succession, and consequently the produce of the sixth year, which was harvested in the seventh month of that year, must have sufficed for three years, not merely till the sowing in the autumn of the eighth or fiftieth year, but till the harvest of the ninth or fifty-first year, as the Talmud and rabbins of every age have understood the law" (Keil). The question, What shall we eat? would present itself with double force when the sabbatical and the jubilee years came together. It and the answer to it therefore properly follow on the institution of the jubilee, instead of preceding it, as Ewald, Knobcl, and others demand that it should do.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

obey my decrees, keep my laws, and carry them out

All of these phrases mean basically the same thing. They emphasize that the people must obey everything Yahweh says. (See: Parallelism)

you will eat your fill

This means that they would eat enough until their stomach was full. AT: "you will eat till you are full" or "you will eat plenty" (See: Idiom)

translationWords

obey

decree

law

life

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

וישבתם על הארץ לבטח [WHEREFORE YE SHALL DO MY ORDINANCES] AND YE SHALL ABIDE IN THE LAND IN SAFETY — It states this because as a punishment for the sin of neglecting the laws of ”Shemittah” Israel becomes exiled, as it is said (Leviticus 26:33, 34) “(And I will disperse you among the nations…] Then shall the land makeup for the Sabbatical years… even then make up for her Sabbatical years that she has not observed” (Shabbat 33a). The seventy years of the Babylonian exile were indeed a punishment corresponding to the seventy Sabbatical years which they had neglected (cf. Rashi on Leviticus 26:35).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

AND YE SHALL DO MY STATUTES, AND KEEP MINE ORDINANCES. He warned [here] concerning [all] the statutes on account of the Sabbatical year and the Jubilee mentioned [above], because these [commandments] are in the category of “statutes” [for which no explicit reason is given], and [He warned concerning all] the ordinances on account of the law of the return of sales and servants in the Jubilee, and [the law of] overcharging [which are “ordinances” for which the reasons are obvious]. He said, and ye shall dwell in the Land in safety, because it is for the sin of [transgressing the laws of] the Sabbatical year and the Jubilee that Israel goes into exile. He then said again, And the Land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat until ye have enough, and dwell therein in safety, meaning that you will not have to go out of the Land in the Sabbatical year in order to live in another land on account of lack of food [because the Land shall yield enough fruit].

Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

My statutes. The matters of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years. And My laws. In the matters of selling and buying for the years of the jubilee, and the rest. There should not be any cheating in those matters.

And you will then live in the land in security. You will not be exiles from it, the opposite of (26:34): “The land will then be appeased for its Shabbosos all the days of its desolation,” and also the opposite of (Yeshayahu 57:17): “For the iniquity of his thievery I became wroth”.

Sforno on the Tanakh — English translation: “Yalkut, Sifsei Chachomim Chumash, Metsudah Publications, 2009” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.