Kommentar zu Bava Metzia 9:3

המקבל שדה – for a half, a third or a quarter [of the produce].

Introduction Mishnah three deals with a sharecropper who receives a field and subsequently decides that he doesn’t want to work the field. Mishnah four deals with a sharecropper who doesn’t want to weed the field.

והובירה – that he did not plough it or sow it.

If one leased a field from his fellow and he let it lie fallow, they assess how much it was likely to have yielded and he must pay the owner accordingly, since he wrote [in the leasing agreement]: “If I suffer the land to lie fallow and do not till it, I will pay thee at the rate of its highest yield.” This mishnah contains in it a clause that was considered to be standard in sharecropping agreements written in the time of the mishnah. The sharecropper would write to the landowner that if he did not work the land and instead allowed it to lie fallow, the sharecropper would be penalized by having to pay the owner as if the land had produced at the rate of its highest yield. This agreement was meant to allay the fears of the landowner that he would rent the field to the sharecropper and the sharecropper would subsequently decide that it was not worthwhile to work the field for whatever reason. After having written this clause a sharecropper would be forced to work the land or suffer a severe economic loss. Note that this clause was only necessary in agreements where the sharecropper had agreed to pay a percentage of the crops. If he had agreed on a fixed amount he would be obligated for that amount even if he did not work the land.

אם אוביר – I will make it fallow ground.

ולא אעביד – and I will not perform any appropriate work on it.

אשלם במיטבא – according to what it would be appropriate to make had it been ploughed and sown as is worthy.