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Leviticus 25

Leviticus 25 places Israel’s landholding and treatment of poor neighbors under the authority of the God who redeemed them.

YHWH speaks to Moses on Mount Sinai, giving Israel laws for life in the land he will give them. Fields must rest every seventh year, and the fiftieth year brings Jubilee, when ancestral land returns and Israelites in debt service go free. Rules govern sales, redemption, and support for poor neighbors. God grounds these commands in his ownership of the land and his rescue of Israel from Egypt. The laws distinguish Israelite servants from foreign slaves.

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1The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai,
2“Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a Sabbath to the LORD.
4but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the LORD. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard.
6The Sabbath of the land shall be for food for you; for yourself, for your servant, for your maid, for your hired servant, and for your stranger, who lives as a foreigner with you.
8“‘You shall count off seven Sabbaths of years, seven times seven years; and there shall be to you the days of seven Sabbaths of years, even forty-nine years.
9Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land.
10You shall make the fiftieth year holy, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee to you; and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family.
13“‘In this Year of Jubilee each of you shall return to his property.
14“‘If you sell anything to your neighbor, or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another.
15According to the number of years after the Jubilee you shall buy from your neighbor. According to the number of years of the crops he shall sell to you.
17You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the LORD your God.
18“‘Therefore you shall do my statutes, and keep my ordinances and do them; and you shall dwell in the land in safety.
19The land shall yield its fruit, and you shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety.
20If you said, “What shall we eat the seventh year? Behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase;”
21then I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, and it shall bear fruit for the three years.
22You shall sow the eighth year, and eat of the fruits from the old store until the ninth year. Until its fruits come in, you shall eat the old store.
23“‘The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and live as foreigners with me.
24In all the land of your possession you shall grant a redemption for the land.
25“‘If your brother becomes poor, and sells some of his possessions, then his kinsman who is next to him shall come, and redeem that which his brother has sold.
26If a man has no one to redeem it, and he becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it,
27then let him reckon the years since its sale, and restore the surplus to the man to whom he sold it; and he shall return to his property.
28But if he isn’t able to get it back for himself, then what he has sold shall remain in the hand of him who has bought it until the Year of Jubilee. In the Jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his property.
31But the houses of the villages which have no wall around them shall be accounted for with the fields of the country: they may be redeemed, and they shall be released in the Jubilee.
34But the field of the pasture lands of their cities may not be sold, for it is their perpetual possession.
35“‘If your brother has become poor, and his hand can’t support himself among you, then you shall uphold him. He shall live with you like an alien and a temporary resident.
36Take no interest from him or profit; but fear your God, that your brother may live among you.
38I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.
39“‘If your brother has grown poor among you, and sells himself to you, you shall not make him to serve as a slave.
40As a hired servant, and as a temporary resident, he shall be with you; he shall serve with you until the Year of Jubilee.
41Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and shall return to his own family, and to the possession of his fathers.
42For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. They shall not be sold as slaves.
43You shall not rule over him with harshness, but shall fear your God.
44“‘As for your male and your female slaves, whom you may have from the nations that are around you, from them you may buy male and female slaves.
46You may make them an inheritance for your children after you, to hold for a possession. Of them you may take your slaves forever, but over your brothers the children of Israel you shall not rule, one over another, with harshness.
47“‘If an alien or temporary resident with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him has grown poor, and sells himself to the stranger or foreigner living among you, or to a member of the stranger’s family,
48after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him;
49or his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, or any who is a close relative to him of his family may redeem him; or if he has grown rich, he may redeem himself.
50He shall reckon with him who bought him from the year that he sold himself to him to the Year of Jubilee. The price of his sale shall be according to the number of years; he shall be with him according to the time of a hired servant.
53As a servant hired year by year shall he be with him. He shall not rule with harshness over him in your sight.
54If he isn’t redeemed by these means, then he shall be released in the Year of Jubilee: he and his children with him.
55For to me the children of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.
World English BibleRead in NIV in Psalmlog →Highlighted verses are the most connected.
Key verses
Leviticus 25:20The anticipated question about food exposes the practical cost of Sabbath rest and introduces God’s promise of provision.
Leviticus 25:23God’s ownership of the land explains why Israel’s ancestral holdings cannot be sold away forever.
Leviticus 25:35The command to uphold an impoverished neighbor makes preserving that person’s place in the community a shared responsibility.
Where this chapter reaches

Exodus shares the commands for seventh-year land rest and the account of deliverance from Egypt that grounds Israel’s obligations here. Jeremiah shares the practice of redeeming family land and the concern for releasing enslaved Israelites, while Isaiah shares the language of proclaimed liberty.

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Notice

After reading the whole chapter

What stands out about God’s answer to Israel’s question about food during the Sabbath year?

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How does God’s ownership of the land shape your understanding of the commands about poor neighbors?

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Questions people ask about Leviticus 25

What is the Year of Jubilee in Leviticus 25?

Jubilee is the fiftieth year, proclaimed by trumpet on the Day of Atonement after seven cycles of seven years. The land rests, ancestral holdings return, and Israelites serving because of poverty are released with their children. The chapter includes exceptions for certain houses and different rules for foreign slaves.

Does Leviticus 25 allow slavery?

Yes. Verses 44–46 permit Israelites to buy foreign slaves and pass them to their children as inherited property. Israelites who sell themselves because of poverty receive different protections: treatment as hired servants, redemption rights, and release at Jubilee. The chapter does not extend those same release provisions to foreign slaves.

How would Israel eat during the Sabbath year?

God promises a sixth-year crop sufficient for three years, allowing Israel to eat stored food until the harvest following resumed sowing. The land’s spontaneous growth is also available for food. This promise addresses Israel’s commanded agricultural rest in the land; the passage does not promise every reader a comparable financial increase.

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Leviticus · 27 chapters

Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).