Leviticus 25:8
Thou shalt also number to thee seven weeks of years, that is to say, seven times seven, which together make forty-nine years:
Open Leviticus 25:8 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Numerabis quoque tibi septem hebdomadas annorum, id est, septies septem, quæ simul faciunt annos quadraginta novem :
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Καὶ ἐξαριθμήσεις σεαυτῷ ἑπτὰ ἀναπαύσεις ἐτῶν, ἑπτὰ ἔτη ἑπτάκις· καὶ ἔσονταί σοι ἑπτὰ ἑβδομάδες ἐτῶν ἐννέα καὶ τεσσεράκοντα ἔτη.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וְסָפַרְתָּ֣ לְךָ֗ שֶׁ֚בַע שַׁבְּתֹ֣ת שָׁנִ֔ים שֶׁ֥בַע שָׁנִ֖ים שֶׁ֣בַע פְּעָמִ֑ים וְהָי֣וּ לְךָ֗ יְמֵי֙ שֶׁ֚בַע שַׁבְּתֹ֣ת הַשָּׁנִ֔ים תֵּ֥שַׁע וְאַרְבָּעִ֖ים שָׁנָֽה
Haydock's commentary
Years. It is dubious whether the 49th or the 50th year was appointed for the jubilee. The former year is fixed upon by many able chronologers, who remark, that if two years of rest had occurred together, it would have been a serious inconvenience; and Moses might have said the 50th year for a round number, or comprise therein the year of the former jubilee, as we give five years to the olympiad, and eight days to the week, though the former consists only of four years, and the latter of seven days. (Rader; Scaliger; &c.) But others decide for the fiftieth year, ver. 10. (Philo; Josephus, [Antiquities] iii. 10.; St. Augustine, q. 92.; Salien; &c.) (Calmet)
On the feast of expiation of the 49th year, they promulgated the following to be the year of jubilee. (Menochius)
Usher places the first in the year of the world 2609, 49 years after the partition of the land by Josue in 2560: Salien dates 50 years from the entrance (ver. 2,) of the Hebrews into Chanaan, in the year of the world 2583, six years sooner; and places the first jubilee [in] 2633, immediately after the sabbatic year, which fell in the 32nd year of Othoniel. He supposes that both were proclaimed at the same time, on the 1st of Tisri, Ros Hassana, "the head of the year;" though the heralds went about the country only on the 10th. The writers both of the Synagogue and of the Church generally adopt the 50th for the year of jubilee; and the pretended inconvenience of two years' rest is nugatory, since God promised a three years' crop, ver. 21. (Haydock)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Demetrius
10. After you have paid the most careful attention to your thoughts, you must then put on the armour of fasting and sing with David: “I chastened my soul with fasting,” and “I have eaten ashes like bread,” and “as for me when they troubled me my clothing was sackcloth.” Eve was expelled from paradise because she had eaten of the forbidden fruit. Elijah on the other hand after forty days of fasting was carried in a fiery chariot into heaven. For forty days and forty nights Moses lived by the intimate converse which he had with God, thus proving in his own case the complete truth of the saying, “man doth not live by bread only but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.” The Saviour of the world, who in His virtues and His mode of life has left us an example to follow, was, immediately after His baptism, taken up by the spirit that He might contend with the devil, and a …