Leviticus 25:21

Lev 25:21 Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years.

Ver. 21. Command my blessing.] Now if God send his mandamus, who shall gainstand 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.

Lev 25:21. For three years — Not completely, but in great part; namely, for that part of the sixth year which was between the beginning of the harvest and the beginning of the seventh year, for the whole seventh year, and for that part of the eighth year which was before the harvest, which reached almost until the beginning of the ninth year. This is added to show the equity of this command. As God would hereby try their faith and obedience, so he gave them an evident proof of his own exact providence and tender care over them in making provisions suitable to their necessities.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Hebrew, I will command.

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

I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years, &c.--A provision was made, by the special interposition of God, to supply the deficiency of food which would otherwise have resulted from the suspension of all labor during the sabbatic year. The sixth year was to yield a miraculous supply for three continuous years. And the remark is applicable to the year of Jubilee as well as the sabbatic year. (See allusions to this extraordinary provision in Kg2 19:29; Isa 37:30). None but a legislator who was conscious of acting under divine authority would have staked his character on so singular an enactment as that of the sabbatic year; and none but a people who had witnessed the fulfilment of the divine promise would have been induced to suspend their agricultural preparations on a recurrence of a periodical Jubilee.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(21) Then I will command my blessing. That is, He will send out His Divine command to the soil in the sixth year that it should be a blessing to them, and it shall be done. (See Deu_28:8; Psa_42:8; Psa_44:4; Psa_68:29.)

It shall bring forth fruit for three years.—Better, it shall bring forth produce. This special blessing will be manifested in the abundant crop of the harvest preceding the sabbatical year. Just as at the institution of the weekly Sabbath, when God enjoined abstention from labour, He sent down a double portion of manna every sixth day to make up for the day of rest (Exo_16:22-27), so He will exercise a special providence every sixth year by blessing the soil with a treble crop to compensate for giving the land a septennial sabbath. As the sabbatical year began the civil year, viz., 1 Tishri, which was in the autumn or in September, the three years here spoken of are to be distributed as follows: (1) the remainder of the sixth year after the harvest; (2) the whole of the seventh year; and (3) the period of the eighth year till the harvest is gathered in from the seeds sown in the eighth year. It will thus be seen that the question anticipated in Lev_25:29, viz., “What shall we eat the seventh year?” properly applies to the eighth year, since the requirements for the seventh year are supplied by the regular harvest of the sixth year, and it is the eighth year for which the harvest of the seventh is wanted. To meet this difficulty, one of the most distinguished Jewish expositors of the Middle Ages translates Lev_25:20 : “And if ye shall say in the seventh year ‘What shall we eat’” i.e., in the eighth year. It may, however, be that the question expresses the anxiety which the people might feel in eating their ordinary share in the seventh year, lest there should be nothing left for the eighth year, since in all other years the harvest is ripening for the next year whilst the fruits of the past year are being consumed.

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

Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year,.... Upon their fields, vineyards, and oliveyards, and make them exceeding fruitful, more than in other years; all fruitfulness at any time depends upon the blessing of God, and follows upon it, but is more visible and observable when there is an exceeding great plenty:

and it shall bring forth fruit for three years; and thus God blessed the sixth year with such a plentiful increase as was sufficient for time to come, until a new crop was gathered in; as he had blessed the sixth day with a double portion of manna, for the supply of the seventh.

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

Three years. After the harvest of the sixth year was gotten in, the land rested from September to September, the beginning of the 8th year, when it was tilled again. Nothing would be ripe till about March; yet the harvest of the 6th year would suffice to furnish food till that time, or even for a year longer, as it would be requisite, when the year of jubilee succeeded that of rest, ver. 8. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

i.e. Give

my blessing. Commanding is oft used in Scripture either for the performance of promised blessings, as Deu 28:8 Psa 111:9; 133:3, or for the execution of threatened judgments, as Isa 5:6; Amo 9:4; both being acts of God’s providential will, as the command is of his legislative will.

For three years; not completely, but in great part, to wit, for that part of the sixth year which was between the beginning of harvest and the beginning of the seventh year, for the whole seventh year, and for that part of the eighth year which was before the harvest, which reached almost until the beginning of the ninth year. And by this expression we may understand the meaning of that eminent passage of Christ’s being three days and three nights in the grave, to wit, one whole day, and part of two days; of which more, if God please, in its proper place. This is added to show the equity of this command. As God would hereby try their faith, and exercise obedience, so he gave them an eminent proof of his own exact providence and tender care over them, in making provisions suitable to their necessities. Albeit it be also probable that divers of them, especially such as were more solicitous or distrustful of God’s providence, did lay up something of the fruits of former years against this time.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

21. Fruit for three years — The fact that three years are here provided for instead of two, which the sabbath year required, is evidence that the jubilee succeeds the seventh sabbath year and is not identical with it, as some suppose. No merely human legislator would have ventured to enact a law forbidding seed sowing from the sixth to the eighth year, and harvesting from the sixth to the ninth year, omitting two successive harvests and thereby sinking two sevenths of the entire national wealth. Nor would any people have received such a law except on an unwavering faith in its divine origin. We regard obedience to this law the highest proof of Moses’s divine legation. The evident provision here made for the year of jubilee accounts for the apparent but not real displacement of this paragraph. We have only two passages of Scripture where this promise is alluded to, namely, 2Ki_19:29, Isa_37:30.

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

For three years - Not compleatly, but in great part, namely, for that part of the 6th year which was between the beginning of harvest and the beginning of the 7th year, for the whole 7th year, and for that part of the 8th year which was before the harvest, which reached almost until the beginning of the ninth year. This is added to shew the equity of this command. As God would hereby try their faith and obedience, so he gave them an eminent proof of his own exact providence and tender care over them in making provisions suitable to their necessities.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

לשלש השנים [IT SHALL BRING FORTH INCREASE] FOR THE THREE YEARS — i. e. for a part of the sixth year — from Nisan till the New Year of the seventh — for the whole seventh year and for part of the eighth year, for in the eighth year they will sow in Marcheshvan but will harvest only in Nisan (so that they will have to depend on the harvest of the sixth year in the eighth too).

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.