Exodus 23:10
New International Version
“For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops,

New Living Translation
“Plant and harvest your crops for six years,

English Standard Version
“For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield,

Berean Standard Bible
For six years you are to sow your land and gather its produce,

King James Bible
And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof:

New King James Version
“Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce,

New American Standard Bible
“Now you shall sow your land for six years and gather in its yield,

NASB 1995
“You shall sow your land for six years and gather in its yield,

NASB 1977
“And you shall sow your land for six years and gather in its yield,

Legacy Standard Bible
“Now you shall sow your land for six years and gather in its produce,

Amplified Bible
“You shall sow your land six years and harvest its yield,

Christian Standard Bible
“Sow your land for six years and gather its produce.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
Sow your land for six years and gather its produce.

American Standard Version
And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the increase thereof:

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
Six years you shall sow your land and you shall gather in its harvests:

Brenton Septuagint Translation
Six years thou shalt sow thy land, and gather in the fruits of it.

Contemporary English Version
Plant and harvest your crops for six years,

Douay-Rheims Bible
Six years thou shalt sow thy ground, and shalt gather the corn thereof.

English Revised Version
And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the increase thereof:

GOD'S WORD® Translation
"For six years you may plant crops in your fields and harvest them,

Good News Translation
"For six years plant your land and gather in what it produces.

International Standard Version
"You are to sow your land and gather its crops for six years,

JPS Tanakh 1917
And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and gather in the increase thereof;

Literal Standard Version
And [for] six years you sow your land and have gathered its increase;

Majority Standard Bible
For six years you are to sow your land and gather its produce,

New American Bible
For six years you may sow your land and gather in its produce.

NET Bible
"For six years you are to sow your land and gather in its produce.

New Revised Standard Version
For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield;

New Heart English Bible
"For six years you shall sow your land, and shall gather in its increase,

Webster's Bible Translation
And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof:

World English Bible
“For six years you shall sow your land, and shall gather in its increase,

Young's Literal Translation
'And six years thou dost sow thy land, and hast gathered its increase;

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
Sabbath Laws
10For six years you are to sow your land and gather its produce, 11but in the seventh year you must let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor among your people may eat from the field and the wild animals may consume what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and olive grove.…

Cross References
Exodus 23:11
but in the seventh year you must let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor among your people may eat from the field and the wild animals may consume what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and olive grove.

Leviticus 25:1
Then the LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai,

Leviticus 25:3
For six years you may sow your field and prune your vineyard and gather its crops.

Numbers 16:14
Moreover, you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Will you gouge out the eyes of these men? No, we will not come!"

Nehemiah 10:31
When the people of the land bring merchandise or any kind of grain to sell on the Sabbath day, we will not buy from them on a Sabbath or holy day. Every seventh year we will let the fields lie fallow, and will cancel every debt.


Treasury of Scripture

And six years you shall sow your land, and shall gather in the fruits thereof:

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Exodus 23
1. Of slander, false witness, and partiality
4. Of charitableness
6. Of justice in judgment
8. Of taking bribes
9. Of oppressing a stranger
10. Of the year of rest
12. Of the Sabbath
13. Of idolatry
14. Of the three feasts
18. Of the blood and the fat of the sacrifice
20. An angel is promised, with a blessing, if they obey him














CEREMONIAL LAWS.

(10, 11) Six years . . . the seventh year.--The Sabbatical year which is here commanded was an institution wholly unknown to any nation but the Hebrews. It is most extraordinary that any legislator should have been able to induce a people to accept such a law. Prima facie, it seemed, by forbidding productive industry during one year in seven, to diminish the wealth of the nation by one-seventh. But it is questionable whether, under a primitive agricultural system, when rotation of crops was unknown, the lying of the land fallow during one year in seven would not have been an economical benefit. There was no prohibition on labour other than in cultivation. The clearing away of weeds and thorns and stones was allowed, and may have been practised. After an early harvest of the self-sown crop, the greater part of the year may have been spent in this kind of industry. Still the enactment was no doubt unpopular: it checked the regular course of agriculture, and seemed to rob landowners of one-seventh of their natural gains. Accordingly, we find that it was very irregularly observed. Between the Exodus and the Captivity it had apparently been neglected seventy times (2Chronicles 36:21), or more often than it had been kept. After the Captivity, however, the observance became regular, and classical writers notice the custom as one existing in their day (Tacit. Hist. v. 4). Julius Caesar permitted it, and excused the Jews from paying tribute in the seventh year on its account (Joseph., Ant Jud. xiv. 10, ? 6). The object of the law was threefold--(1) to test obedience; (2) to give an advantage to the poor and needy, to whom the crop of the seventh year belonged (Exodus 23:11); and (3) to allow an opportunity, once in seven years, for prolonged communion with God and increased religious observances. (See Deuteronomy 31:10-13.)

Verses 10, 11. - Law of the Sabbatical year. Days of rest, at regular or irregular intervals, were well known to the ancients and some regulations of the kind existed in most countries But entire years of rest were wholly unknown to any nation except the Israelites. and exposed them to the reproach of idleness. (See Tacit. Hist. 5:4: - "Septimo die otium placuisse ferunt, quia is finem laborum dedit; dein, blandiente inertia, septimum quoque annum ignaviae datum"). In a primitive condition of agriculture, when rotation of crops was unknown, artificial manure unemployed, and the need of letting even the best land sometimes lie fallow unrecognised, it may not have been an uneconomical arrangement to require an entire suspension of cultivation once in seven years. But great difficulty was probably experienced in enforcing the law. Just as there were persons who wished to gather manna on the seventh day (Exodus 16:27), so there would be many anxious to obtain in the seventh year something more from their fields than Nature would give them if left to herself. If the "seventy years" of the captivity were intended exactly to make up for omissions of the due observance of the sabbatical year, we must suppose that between the time of the exodus and the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, the ordinance had been as often neglected as observed. (See 2 Chronicles 36:21.) The primary object of the requirement was, as stated in ver. 11, that the poor of thy people may eat, what the land brought forth of its own accord in the Sabbatical year being shared by them (Leviticus 25:6.). But no doubt it was also intended that the Sabbatical year should be one of increased religious observance, whereof the solemn reading of the law in the ears of the people at the Feast of Tabernacles "in the year of release" (Deuteronomy 31:10) was an indication and a part. That reading was properly preceded by a time of religious preparation (Nehemiah 8:1-15), and would naturally lead on to further acts of a religious character, which might occupy a considerable period (ibid. chs. 9. and 10.). Altogether, the year was a most solemn period, calling men to religious self-examination, to repentance, to the formation of holy habits, and tending to a general elevation among the people of the standard of holiness. What they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. There was to be no regular ingathering. The proprietor, his servants, the poor, and the stranger were to take what they needed; and the residue was to be for the cattle and for the beasts that were in the land (Deuteronomy 25:6, 7). Thy vineyard - thy oliveyard. Corn, wine, and oil were the only important products of Palestine; and this mention of the vineyard and the oliveyard shows that one and the same law was to hold good of all the lands in the country, however they might be cultivated. The whole land was to rest.

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
For six
וְשֵׁ֥שׁ (wə·šêš)
Conjunctive waw | Number - feminine singular
Strong's 8337: Six (a cardinal number)

years
שָׁנִ֖ים (šā·nîm)
Noun - feminine plural
Strong's 8141: A year

you are to sow
תִּזְרַ֣ע (tiz·ra‘)
Verb - Qal - Imperfect - second person masculine singular
Strong's 2232: To sow, to disseminate, plant, fructify

your land
אַרְצֶ֑ךָ (’ar·ṣe·ḵā)
Noun - feminine singular construct | second person masculine singular
Strong's 776: Earth, land

and gather
וְאָסַפְתָּ֖ (wə·’ā·sap̄·tā)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Qal - Conjunctive perfect - second person masculine singular
Strong's 622: To gather for, any purpose, to receive, take away, remove

its produce,
תְּבוּאָתָֽהּ׃ (tə·ḇū·’ā·ṯāh)
Noun - feminine singular construct | third person feminine singular
Strong's 8393: Product, revenue


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OT Law: Exodus 23:10 For six years you shall sow your (Exo. Ex)
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