Leviticus 25:30-40

30 If it is not bought back before a full year has passed, the house in the walled city will belong to the buyer permanently and their descendants forever. It will not be released at the Jubilee.
31 But houses in settlements that are unwalled will be considered as if they were country fields. They can be bought back, and they must be released at the Jubilee.
32 Levites will always have the right to buy back homes in the levitical cities that are part of their family property.
33 Levite property that can be bought back—houses sold in a city that is their family property—must be released at the Jubilee, because homes in levitical cities are the Levites' family property among the Israelites.
34 But the pastureland around their cities cannot be sold, because that is their permanent family property.

Poor Israelites and slavery

35 If one of your fellow Israelites faces financial difficulty and is in a shaky situation with you, you must assist them as you would an immigrant or foreign guest so that they can survive among you.
36 Do not take interest from them, or any kind of profit from interest, but fear your God so that your fellow Israelite can survive among you.
37 Do not lend a poor Israelite money with interest or lend food at a profit.
38 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt to give you Canaan's land and to be your God.
39 If one of your fellow Israelites faces financial difficulty with you and sells themselves to you, you must not make him work as a slave.
40 Instead, they will be like a hired laborer or foreign guest to you. They will work for you until the Jubilee year,

Leviticus 25:30-40 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO LEVITICUS 25

In this chapter the Israelites are directed, when come into the land of Canaan, to observe every seventh year as a sabbatical year, in which there was to be no tillage of the land, and yet there would be a sufficiency for man and beast, Le 25:1-7; and every fiftieth year as a year of jubilee, in which also there was to be no tillage of the land, and every man was to return to his possession or estate, which had been sold to another any time before this, Le 25:8-17; and a promise of safety and plenty in the seventh year is made to encourage the observance of it, Le 25:18-22; and several laws and rules are delivered out concerning the sale of lands, the redemption of them, and their return to their original owner in the year of jubilee, Le 25:23-28; and the sale of houses, and the redemption of them, and the difference between those in walled cities and those in villages, with respect thereunto, Le 25:29-31; and also concerning the houses of the cities of the Levites, and the fields of the suburbs of them, Le 25:32-34; to which are added some instructions about relieving decayed, persons, and lending and giving to them, without taking usury of them, Le 25:34-38; and other laws concerning the release of such Israelites as had sold themselves for servants to the Israelites, in the year of jubilee, since none but Heathens were to be bondmen and bondmaids for ever, Le 25:39-46; and of such who were sold to proselytes, Le 25:47-55.

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