Leviticus 25:23-34

Buying back family property

23 The land must not be permanently sold because the land is mine. You are just immigrants and foreign guests of mine.

24 Throughout the whole land that you possess, you must allow for the land to be bought back.

25 When one of your fellow Israelites faces financial difficulty and must sell part of their family property, the closest relative will come and buy back what their fellow Israelite has sold.

26 If the person doesn't have someone to buy it back, but then manages to afford buying it back,

27 they must calculate the years since its sale and refund the balance to the person to whom they sold it. Then it will go back to the family property.

28 If they cannot afford to make a refund to the buyer, whatever was sold will remain in the possession of the buyer until the Jubilee year. It will be released in the Jubilee year, at which point it will return to the family property.

29 When a person sells a home in a walled city, it may be bought back until a year after its sale. The period for buying it back will be one year.

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.

Leviticus 25:23-34 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.

Footnotes

• [a]. Or next of kin; traditionally redeemer
• [b]. Or they will go back to their family property; also in 25:28.