The eighth year: that is, the year after the Rest Year or the first year in the new cycle of seven years. Sowing was permitted at the beginning of this year (in the fall), and the harvest took place in the following spring. In the meantime the people were fed by the previously harvested crop.

Old produce … the old: the use of the word old may convey the idea of staleness in some languages. But since the grain was well preserved, this idea should be avoided. Good News Translation does so by translating “what you harvested during the sixth year.” It should not be necessary to repeat this a second time as in Revised Standard Version.

Until the ninth year: or “until the crops you planted (in the eighth year) are harvested.”

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 .