Leviticus 25:28

_THE LAND SHALL NOT BE SOLD FOR EVER: FOR THE LAND IS MINE; FOR YE ARE STRANGERS AND SOJOURNERS WITH ME._ The land shall not be sold for ever - or, 'be quite cut off,' as the margin better renders it. The land was God's, who had dispossessed the former inhabitants, and, in prosecution of an important design, gave it to the people of His choice, dividing it among their tribes and families. They, however, held it of Him merely as tenants at will, and had no right or power of disposing of it to strangers. In necessitous circumstances individuals might effect a temporary sale. But they possessed the right of redeeming it, at any time, on payment of an adequate compensation to the present holder and by the enactments of the Jubilee they recovered it free-so that the land was rendered inalienable. (See an exception to this law, Leviticus 27:20)....

23-34 If the land were not redeemed before the year of jubilee, it then returned to him that sold or mortgaged it. This was a figure of the free grace of God in Christ; by which, and not by any price or merit of our own, we are restored to the favour of God. Houses in walled cities were more the fruits of their own industry than land in the country, which was the direct gift of God's bounty; therefore if a man sold a house in a city, he might redeem it only within a year after the sale. This encouraged strangers and proselytes to come and settle among them....

IT SHALL GO OUT - i. e. it shall be set free....

EXPOSITION The subject of the sacred seasons is taken up again in this chapter, after the parenthetical insertion of Leviticus 24:1. There remain the septennial festive season and that of the half-century—the sabbatical year and the jubilee. The sabbatical year was instituted not for any supposed physical benefit accruing from it to the land, but, first, as serving for a link between the sabbath and the jubilee by means of the sacred number seven—the sabbatical year being the seventh year, and the jubilee being the year following the seven-times-seventh year; and secondly, and chiefly, as enforcing the lesson of the weekly sabbath in a manner that could not be overlooked, and symbolically, teaching the universal application of the sabbatical law, even where physical needs were not concerned, and in that way suggesting the expectation of a rest to be hereafter attain

BUT IF HE BE NOT ABLE TO RESTORE IT TO HIM,.... The overplus, or give him what is in proportion to the time he has had it, and yet to come: THEN THAT WHICH IS SOLD SHALL REMAIN IN THE HAND OF HIM THAT BOUGHT IT UNTIL THE YEAR OF THE JUBILEE; continue in his possession, and he shall enjoy all the benefit of it till that year comes: AND IN THE JUBILEE IT SHALL GO OUT: out of his hands or possession; or "he shall go out" g, the purchaser shall go out of what he has bought, and shall have no more possession of it, but it shall come into the hands of the seller, and that without money, as the Targum of Jonathan adds: AND HE SHALL RETURN UNTO HIS POSSESSION; the seller, and enter upon it and enjoy it as his own property, as before he sold it. g ויצא "discedet emptor", Junius Tremellius....

4. THE SABBATIC YEAR AND THE YEAR OF JUBILEE CHAPTER 25 _ 1. The Sabbatic year (Leviticus 25:1)_ 2. The jubilee (Leviticus 25:8) 3. The jubilee and the land (Leviticus 25:13) 4. The jubilee and the dwelling houses (Leviticus 25:29) 5. The jubilee, the poor and the bondmen (Leviticus 25:35) This is the great restoration chapter in Leviticus. All is connected preeminently with Israel's land. The application, which has been made, that this chapter foreshadows a universal res

THE YEAR OF JUBILE. This law contains two large provisions, the return of estates to their original owners, and the liberation of Hebrew slaves, both in the fiftieth year. It also contains a section which refers to the sabbatical year (Leviticus 25:17) and a law against the exploitation of poor Israelites (Leviticus 25:35). Of these the second at least (as perhaps the first) belongs to H. With the law of Jubile the case is different (see p. 102). A right of redemption certainly did exist (_cf._ Ruth 3 and Jeremiah 32:7, and the reference to the year of liberty, Ezekiel 46:17); but where we should have expected a re

RETURN. The twelve loaves of Leviticus 2. were. witness as to the People; the jubilee (Leviticus 25) as to the Land....

_Law in respect to the redemption of land_(H and P mixed)...

THE LAW OF REDEMPTION 25:23-34 TEXT 25:23-34 23 And the land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is mine: for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. 24 And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land. 25 If thy brother be waxed poor, and sell some of his possession, then shall his kinsman that is next unto him come, and shall redeem that which his brother hath sold. 26 And if a man have no one to redeem it, and he be waxed rich and find sufficient to redeem it; 27 then let him reckon the years of the sale thereof, and restore the over-plus unto the man to whom he sold it; and he shall return unto his possession. 28 But if he be not able to get it back for himself, then that which he hath sold shall remain in the hand of him that hath bought it until the year of jubilee: and in the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return unto hi...