Leviticus 25:20-30

20 And if ye should say, What shall we eat in this seventh year, if we do not sow nor gather in our fruits?

21 Then will I send my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and the land shall produce its fruits for three years.

22 And ye shall sow in the eighth year, and eat old fruits till the ninth year: until its fruit come, ye shall eat old fruits of the old.

23 And the land shall not be sold for a permanence; for the land is mine, because ye are strangers and sojourners before me.

24 And in every land of your possession, ye shall allow ransoms for the land.

25 And if thy brother who is with thee be poor, and should have sold of his possession, and his kinsman who is nigh to him come, then he shall redeem the possession which his brother has sold.

26 And if one have no near kinsman, and he prosper with his hand, and he find sufficient money, his ransom;

27 then shall he calculate the years of his sale, and he shall give what is due to the man to whom he sold it, and he shall return to his possession.

28 But if his hand have not prospered sufficiently, so as that he should restore the money to him, then he that bought the possessions shall have them till the sixth year of the release; and it shall go out in the release, and the owner shall return to his possession.

29 And if any one should sell an inhabited house in a walled city, then there shall be the ransom of it, until is fulfilled: its time of ransom shall be a full year.

30 And if it be not ransomed until there be completed of its time a full year, the house which is in the walled city shall be surely confirmed to him that bought it, throughout his generations; and it shall not go out in the release.

Leviticus 25:20-30 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.