Bible Strands
Leviticus 19:10
You must not strip your vineyard bare or gather its fallen grapes. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the LORD your God.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God issues this command to Israel through Moses as part of a broader legislative block on communal holiness. The instruction addresses landowners during the active harvest season.
The words — The verbs תְעוֹלֵל (te‘ōlēl) and תְלַקֵּט (təlaqqēṭ) literally mean to glean and to gather. They prohibit stripping a vineyard completely or collecting every fallen grape.
The thread — The directive to leave crop margins for the vulnerable runs directly with Leviticus 19:9. Isaiah 17:6 and Isaiah 24:13 use gleaning as a metaphor for remaining yield, while Leviticus 25:6 addresses Sabbath year produce without describing the gleaning practice.
Why it lands — The text commands the preservation of unharvested vineyard yield for the poor and the foreigner. It establishes a fixed economic provision that requires landowners to forgo total extraction.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the Lord your God.
Cross-references
- Leviticus 25:6 Whatever the land yields during the Sabbath year shall be food for you—for yourself, your manservant and maidservant, the hired hand or foreigner who stays with you,
- Isaiah 17:6 Yet gleanings will remain, like an olive tree that has been beaten—two or three berries atop the tree, four or five on its fruitful branches,” declares the LORD, the God of Israel.
- Isaiah 24:13 So will it be on the earth and among the nations, like a harvested olive tree, like a gleaning after a grape harvest.
- Judges 8:2 But Gideon answered them, “Now what have I accomplished compared to you? Are not the gleanings of Ephraim better than the grape harvest of Abiezer?
- Jeremiah 49:9 If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave some gleanings? Were thieves to come in the night, would they not steal only what they wanted?
- Obadiah 1:5 “If thieves came to you, if robbers by night—oh, how you will be ruined—would they not steal only what they wanted? If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave some gleanings?
- Micah 7:1 Woe is me! For I am like one gathering summer fruit at the gleaning of the vineyard; there is no cluster to eat, no early fig that I crave.