1 And Jehovah speaketh unto Moses, in mount Sinai, saying,
2 `Speak unto the sons of Israel, and thou hast said unto them, When ye come in unto the land which I am giving to you, then hath the land kept a sabbath to Jehovah.
3 `Six years thou dost sow thy field, and six years thou dost prune thy vineyard, and hast gathered its increase,
4 and in the seventh year a sabbath of rest is to the land, a sabbath to Jehovah; thy field thou dost not sow, and thy vineyard thou dost not prune;
5 the spontaneous growth of thy harvest thou dost not reap, and the grapes of thy separated thing thou dost not gather, a year of rest it is to the land.
6 `And the sabbath of the land hath been to you for food, to thee, and to thy man-servant, and to thy handmaid, and to thy hireling, and to thy settler, who are sojourning with thee;
7 and to thy cattle, and to the beast which `is' in thy land, is all thine increase for food.
8 `And thou hast numbered to thee seven sabbaths of years, seven years seven times, and the days of the seven sabbaths of years have been to thee nine and forty years,
9 and thou hast caused a trumpet of shouting to pass over in the seventh month, in the tenth of the month; in the day of the atonements ye do cause a trumpet to pass over through all your land;
10 and ye have hallowed the year, the fiftieth year; and ye have proclaimed liberty in the land to all its inhabitants; a jubilee it is to you; and ye have turned back each unto his possession; yea, each unto his family ye do turn back.
11 `A jubilee it `is', the fiftieth year, a year it is to you; ye sow not, nor reap its spontaneous growth, nor gather its separated things;
12 for a jubilee it `is', holy it is to you; out of the field ye eat its increase;
13 in the year of this jubilee ye turn back each unto his possession.
14 `And when thou sellest anything to thy fellow, or buyest from the hand of thy fellow, ye do not oppress one another;
15 by the number of years after the jubilee thou dost buy from thy fellow; by the number of the years of increase he doth sell to thee;
16 according to the multitude of the years thou dost multiply its price, and according to the fewness of the years thou dost diminish its price; for a number of increases he is selling to thee;
17 and ye do not oppress one another, and thou hast been afraid of thy God; for I `am' Jehovah your God.
18 `And ye have done My statutes, and My judgments ye keep, and have done them, and ye have dwelt on the land confidently,
19 and the land hath given its fruit, and ye have eaten to satiety, and have dwelt confidently on it.
20 `And when ye say, What do we eat in the seventh year, lo, we do not sow, nor gather our increase?
21 then I have commanded My blessing on you in the sixth year, and it hath made the increase for three years;
22 and ye have sown the eighth year, and have eaten of the old increase; until the ninth year, until the coming in of its increase, ye do eat the old.
23 `And the land is not sold -- to extinction, for the land `is' Mine, for sojourners and settlers `are' ye with Me;
24 and in all the land of your possession a redemption ye do give to the land.
25 `When thy brother becometh poor, and hath sold his possession, then hath his redeemer who is near unto him come, and he hath redeemed the sold thing of his brother;
26 and when a man hath no redeemer, and his own hand hath attained, and he hath found as sufficient `for' its redemption,
27 then he hath reckoned the years of its sale, and hath given back that which is over to the man to whom he sold `it', and he hath returned to his possession.
28 `And if his hand hath not found sufficiency to give back to him, then hath his sold thing been in the hand of him who buyeth it till the year of jubilee; and it hath gone out in the jubilee, and he hath returned to his possession.
29 `And when a man selleth a dwelling-house `in' a walled city, then hath his right of redemption been until the completion of a year from its selling; days -- is his right of redemption;
30 and if it is not redeemed until the fulness to him of a perfect year, then hath the house which `is' in a walled city been established to extinction to the buyer of it, to his generations; it goeth not out in the jubilee;
31 and a house of the villages which have no wall round about, on the field of the country is reckoned; redemption is to it, and in the jubilee it goeth out.
32 `As to cities of the Levites -- houses of the cities of their possession -- redemption age-during is to the Levites;
33 as to him who redeemeth from the Levites, both the sale of a house and the city of his possession have gone out in the jubilee, for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession in the midst of the sons of Israel.
34 And a field, a suburb of their cities, is not sold; for a possession age-during it `is' to them.
35 `And when thy brother is become poor, and his hand hath failed with thee, then thou hast kept hold on him, sojourner and settler, and he hath lived with thee;
36 thou takest no usury from him, or increase; and thou hast been afraid of thy God; and thy brother hath lived with thee;
37 thy money thou givest not to him in usury, and for increase thou givest not thy food;
38 I `am' Jehovah your God, who hath brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give to you the land of Canaan, to become your God.
39 `And when thy brother becometh poor with thee, and he hath been sold to thee, thou dost not lay on him servile service;
40 as an hireling, as a settler, he is with thee, till the year of the jubilee he doth serve with thee, --
41 then he hath gone out from thee, he and his sons with him, and hath turned back unto his family; even unto the possession of his fathers he doth turn back.
42 `For they `are' My servants, whom I have brought out from the land of Egypt: they are not sold `with' the sale of a servant;
43 thou rulest not over him with rigour, and thou hast been afraid of thy God.
44 `And thy man-servant and thy handmaid whom thou hast `are' of the nations who `are' round about you; of them ye buy man-servant and handmaid,
45 and also of the sons of the settlers who are sojourning with you, of them ye buy, and of their families who `are' with you, which they have begotten in your land, and they have been to you for a possession;
46 and ye have taken them for inheritance to your sons after you, to occupy `for' a possession; to the age ye lay service upon them, but upon your brethren, the sons of Israel, one with another, thou dost not rule over him with rigour.
47 `And when the hand of a sojourner or settler with thee attaineth `riches', and thy brother with him hath become poor, and he hath been sold to a sojourner, a settler with thee, or to the root of the family of a sojourner,
48 after he hath been sold, there is a right of redemption to him; one of his brethren doth redeem him,
49 or his uncle, or a son of his uncle, doth redeem him, or any of the relations of his flesh, of his family, doth redeem him, or -- his own hand hath attained -- then he hath been redeemed.
50 `And he hath reckoned with his buyer from the year of his being sold to him till the year of jubilee, and the money of his sale hath been by the number of years; as the days of an hireling it is with him.
51 `If yet many years, according to them he giveth back his redemption `money', from the money of his purchase.
52 `And if few are left of the years till the year of jubilee, then he hath reckoned with him, according to his years he doth give back his redemption `money';
53 as an hireling, year by year, he is with him, and he doth not rule him with rigour before thine eyes.
54 `And if he is not redeemed in these `years', then he hath gone out in the year of jubilee, he and his sons with him.
55 For to Me `are' the sons of Israel servants; My servants they `are', whom I have brought out of the land of Egypt; I, Jehovah, `am' your God.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Leviticus 25
Commentary on Leviticus 25 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 25
Le 25:1-7. Sabbath of the Seventh Year.
2-4. When ye come into the land which I give you—It has been questioned on what year, after the occupation of Canaan, the sabbatic year began to be observed. Some think it was the seventh year after their entrance. But others, considering that as the first six years were spent in the conquest and division of the land (Jos 5:12), and that the sabbatical year was to be observed after six years of agriculture, maintain that the observance did not commence till the fourteenth year.
the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord—This was a very peculiar arrangement. Not only all agricultural processes were to be intermitted every seventh year, but the cultivators had no right to the soil. It lay entirely fallow, and its spontaneous produce was the common property of the poor and the stranger, the cattle and game. This year of rest was to invigorate the productive powers of the land, as the weekly Sabbath was a refreshment to men and cattle. It commenced immediately after the feast of ingathering, and it was calculated to teach the people, in a remarkable manner, the reality of the presence and providential power of God.
Le 25:8-23. The Jubilee.
8-11. thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years—This most extraordinary of all civil institutions, which received the name of "Jubilee" from a Hebrew word signifying a musical instrument, a horn or trumpet, began on the tenth day of the seventh month, or the great day of atonement, when, by order of the public authorities, the sound of trumpets proclaimed the beginning of the universal redemption. All prisoners and captives obtained their liberties, slaves were declared free, and debtors were absolved. The land, as on the sabbatic year, was neither sowed nor reaped, but allowed to enjoy with its inhabitants a sabbath of repose; and its natural produce was the common property of all. Moreover, every inheritance throughout the land of Judea was restored to its original owner.
10. ye shall hallow the fiftieth year—Much difference of opinion exists as to whether the jubilee was observed on the forty-ninth, or, in round numbers, it is called the fiftieth. The prevailing opinion, both in ancient and modern times, has been in favor of the latter.
12. ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field, &c.—All that the ground yielded spontaneously during that period might be eaten for their necessary subsistence, but no persons were at liberty to hoard or form a private stock in reserve.
13. ye shall return every man unto his possession, &c.—Inheritances, from whatever cause, and how frequently soever they had been alienated, came back into the hands of the original proprietors. This law of entail, by which the right heir could never be excluded, was a provision of great wisdom for preserving families and tribes perfectly distinct, and their genealogies faithfully recorded, in order that all might have evidence to establish their right to the ancestral property. Hence the tribe and family of Christ were readily discovered at his birth.
17. Ye shall not oppress one another, but thou shalt fear thy God—This, which is the same as Le 25:14, related to the sale or purchase of possessions and the duty of paying an honest and equitable regard, on both sides, to the limited period during which the bargain could stand. The object of the legislator was, as far as possible, to maintain the original order of families, and an equality of condition among the people.
21, 22. I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years, &c.—A provision was made, by the special interposition of God, to supply the deficiency of food which would otherwise have resulted from the suspension of all labor during the sabbatic year. The sixth year was to yield a miraculous supply for three continuous years. And the remark is applicable to the year of Jubilee as well as the sabbatic year. (See allusions to this extraordinary provision in 2Ki 19:29; Isa 37:30). None but a legislator who was conscious of acting under divine authority would have staked his character on so singular an enactment as that of the sabbatic year; and none but a people who had witnessed the fulfilment of the divine promise would have been induced to suspend their agricultural preparations on a recurrence of a periodical Jubilee.
23-28. The land shall not be sold for ever—or, "be quite cut off," as the Margin better renders it. The land was God's, and, in prosecution of an important design, He gave it to the people of His choice, dividing it among their tribes and families—who, 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, Le 27:20).
29-31. if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold—All sales of houses were subject to the same condition. But there was a difference between the houses of villages (which, being connected with agriculture, were treated as parts of the land) and houses possessed by trading people or foreigners in walled towns, which could only be redeemed within the year after the sale; if not then redeemed, these did not revert to the former owner at the Jubilee.
32-34. Notwithstanding the cities of the Levites, &c.—The Levites, having no possessions but their towns and their houses, the law conferred on them the same privileges that were granted to the lands of the other Israelites. A certain portion of the lands surrounding the Levitical cities was appropriated to them for the pasturage of their cattle and flocks (Nu 35:4, 5). This was a permanent endowment for the support of the ministry and could not be alienated for any time. The Levites, however, were at liberty to make exchanges among themselves; and a priest might sell his house, garden, and right of pasture to another priest, but not to an Israelite of another tribe (Jer 41:7-9).
35-38. if thy brother be waxen poor, … relieve him—This was a most benevolent provision for the poor and unfortunate, designed to aid them or alleviate the evils of their condition. Whether a native Israelite or a mere sojourner, his richer neighbor was required to give him food, lodging, and a supply of money without usury. Usury was severely condemned (Ps 15:5; Eze 18:8, 17), but the prohibition cannot be considered as applicable to the modern practice of men in business, borrowing and lending at legal rates of interest.
39-46. if thy brother … be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant—An Israelite might be compelled, through misfortune, not only to mortgage his inheritance, but himself. In the event of his being reduced to this distress, he was to be treated not as a slave, but a hired servant whose engagement was temporary, and who might, through the friendly aid of a relative, be redeemed at any time before the Jubilee. The ransom money was determined on a most equitable principle. Taking account of the number of years from the proposal to redeem and the Jubilee, of the current wages of labor for that time, and multiplying the remaining years by that sum, the amount was to be paid to the master for his redemption. But if no such friendly interposition was made for a Hebrew slave, he continued in servitude till the year of Jubilee, when, as a matter of course, he regained his liberty, as well as his inheritance. Viewed in the various aspects in which it is presented in this chapter, the Jubilee was an admirable institution, and subservient in an eminent degree to uphold the interests of religion, social order, and freedom among the Israelites.