Verses 23-25 describe the situation of a sedentary people involved in the cultivation of the land. Since Israel was still on the way to the promised land, it may be necessary in some languages to use the future tense in this paragraph in order to distinguish it from the rest of the chapter (where the imperative may have been used).

The land: it will be wise in many languages to make this more explicit by naming “the land of Canaan,” as in Good News Translation and Bible en français courant.

Trees for food: one should be careful not to give the impression that the trees themselves are eaten for food. It is rather the fruit of the trees that will be eaten. Some may prefer to translate “trees which will bear fruit to be eaten” or something similar.

Three years: many trees require a period of several years before they begin to bear fruit. The three-year prohibition against eating their fruit began at the time that they started to produce, not from the time that they had been planted.

Forbidden: literally “uncircumcised” (compare King James Version). This is a rather curious use of the term normally used to describe non-Israelite people. But it serves here as a strong way of emphasizing that the fruit is to be completely avoided by the people of God for a period of three years. It is very unlikely that any modern language can use the same image to communicate the intended meaning naturally. It will be much wiser to translate forbidden as in Revised Standard Version, or “ritually unclean” as in Good News Translation.

It must not be eaten: this further clarifies the meaning of the above. But it will have to be transformed from a passive to an active sentence in many languages. The simplest way to do this is probably to say “You [Israelites] must not eat it.”

Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René and Ellington, John. A Handbook on Leviticus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1990. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .