Leviticus 25:4

Lev 25:4 But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard.

Ver. 4. A Sabbath of rest unto the land.] This and the jubilee year shadowed our eternal rest. {Col 2:16-17 Heb 4:9} (l.) Every seventh day they rested from their labours. (2.) Every seventh year the ground rested. (3.) Every seventh seventh (as some reckon it) was the jubilean Sabbath: at which time all debts were remitted, prisoners released, mortgages restored to the right inheritors. The great and eternal Sabbath comprehends all these. How then should we breathe after it, and even go forth to meet it, as the Jews do their weekly Sabbath, beginning it an hour sooner than the law required? and this they called their Sabbatulum, or little Sabbath.

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 25:4-5. A sabbath of rest to the land — They were neither to do any work about it, nor expect any harvest from it. All yearly labours were to be intermitted in the seventh year, as much as daily labours on the seventh day. Of its own accord — From the grains that fell out of the ears the last reaping time. Thou shalt not reap — That is, as thy own peculiarly, but only so as others may reap it with thee, for present food. Undressed — Not cut off by thee, but suffered to grow for the use of the poor. Proselytes and servants, rich and poor, had all an equal privilege: one man’s beast was to graze as freely as another’s; all were to live at rest and enjoy the comforts of this law, the merciful appointment of Heaven. It is a year of rest unto the land — This seems to have been one purpose of the institution, that the land might lie fallow, in order to recruit its strength.

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

25:4 land must have a Sabbath year: The principle behind the Sabbath (see study note on 19:30) was that God rested and therefore man rests. Here the principle was extended to the land.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(4) The seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest.—Literally, the seventh year shall be a rest of solemn resting, or a sabbath of sabbaths. For the import of this phrase see Note on Lev_16:31. Like the weekly sabbath, the seventh year is to be the Lord’s sabbath. The soil is therefore to have a perfect rest.

Thou shalt neither sow thy field.—What constitutes cultivation, and how much of labour was regarded as transgressing this law, may be seen from the following canons which obtained during the second Temple. No one was allowed to plant trees in the sabbatical year, nor to cut off dried-up branches, to break off withered leaves, to smoke under the plants in order to kill the insects, nor to besmear the unripe fruit with any kind of soil in order to protect them, &c. Any one who committed one of these things received the prescribed number of stripes. As much land, however, might be cultivated as was required for the payment of taxes as well as for growing the barley required for the omer or wave sheaf at the Passover, and wheat for the two wave-loaves at Pentecost.

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

But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land,.... From all tillage of it, from planting and cultivating any sort of trees in it; and even from digging pits, ditches; and caves, as say the Jewish writers (m): and this was typical of that rest which believers enter into under the Gospel dispensation, and of the rest in the new Jerusalem state, and especially in the ultimate glory; not only from the labours of the body, but of the mind, through sin, Satan, doubts and fears, and through conflicts with various enemies, and when even all spiritual labours and services will be at an end but that of praise:

a sabbath for the Lord; for his honour and glory, to ascertain his property in the land, to show the power of his providence, and display his goodness in his care of all creatures, without any means used by them:

thou shalt neither sow thy field nor prune thy vineyard; under which are comprehended all acts of agriculture, which respect the cultivation of vines, olives, figs, and, according to the Misnah (n), there were some instruments which it was not lawful to sell to an artificer in the seventh year, such as a plough, with all belonging to it, a yoke, a fan, a spade, but he may sell him a scythe, or a sickle, or a cart, and all its instruments; and which the commentators (o) interpret of one that is suspected of working in that year; the house of Shammai say, an heifer that ploughed might not be sold that year.

(m) Torat Cohenim apud Yalkut, ut supra. (par. 1. fol. 191. 1.) (n) Sheviith, c. 5. sect. 6. (o) Maimon. & Bartenora in ib.

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

A sabbath of rest - See Lev 23:3 note. The express prohibition of sowing and reaping, and of pruning and gathering, affords a presumption in favor of the sabbatical year beginning, like the year of Jubilee Lev 25:9, in the first month of the civil year Lev 23:24, the seventh of the sacred year, when the land was cleared of the crops of the preceding year.

The great material advantage of the institution must have been the increased fertility of the soil from its lying fallow one year out of seven, at a time when neither the rotation of crops nor the art of manuring were understood. It must also have kept up a salutary habit of economy in the storing of grain. Compare Gen 41:48-56. Its great spiritual lesson was that there was no such thing as absolute ownership in the land vested in any man, that the soil was the property of Yahweh, that it was to be held in trust for Him, and not to be abused by overworking, but to be made the most of for the good of every creature which dwelt upon it.

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

4. A sabbath for the Lord — This was Jehovah’s sabbath, because it rested solely on his authority, and not because it was to be devoted to acts of worship, sacrifices, and holy convocations. The ground of this requirement is not revealed. It may have been for the benefit of the soil, which uninterrupted cultivation with little manuring would have exhausted, or it may have had regard to moral ends only.

Neither sow thy field — It is evident that the sabbatical year must have been conterminous with the civil year, when the land was cleared of the crops. The sacred year, beginning seven months earlier, would have been inconvenient to observe as a sabbatical year, inasmuch as there must have been either sowing or reaping, else there would be a loss of the crops of two years.

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

A sabbath of rest to the land - They were neither to do any work about it, nor expect any harvest from it. All yearly labours were to be intermitted in the seventh year, as much as daily labours on the seventh day.

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

יהיה לארץ [A SABBATH OF STRICT REST] SHALL BE UNTO THE LAND [or SOIL] — unto the fields and vineyards.

לא תזמר — The word is a denominative verb from זמורה, a branch, and denotes: to do something to the branches: it is used here because one lops off its (the vineyard’s) branches. Its translation in the Targum is thus: לא תכסח, “thou shall not cut off”, and this root has a similar meaning in the Hebrew (Isaiah 33:12) “as thorns cut off (כסוחים)”; (Psalms 80:17) “it is burnt with fire, it is cut down (כסוחה).

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.