Leviticus 25:16-26

16 The more years until the next jubilee, the higher the price; the fewer years, the lower the price. After all, the person selling the land is actually selling you a certain number of harvests.
17 Show your fear of God by not taking advantage of each other. I am the LORD your God.
18 “If you want to live securely in the land, follow my decrees and obey my regulations.
19 Then the land will yield large crops, and you will eat your fill and live securely in it.
20 But you might ask, ‘What will we eat during the seventh year, since we are not allowed to plant or harvest crops that year?’
21 Be assured that I will send my blessing for you in the sixth year, so the land will produce a crop large enough for three years.
22 When you plant your fields in the eighth year, you will still be eating from the large crop of the sixth year. In fact, you will still be eating from that large crop when the new crop is harvested in the ninth year.
23 “The land must never be sold on a permanent basis, for the land belongs to me. You are only foreigners and tenant farmers working for me.
24 “With every purchase of land you must grant the seller the right to buy it back.
25 If one of your fellow Israelites falls into poverty and is forced to sell some family land, then a close relative should buy it back for him.
26 If there is no close relative to buy the land, but the person who sold it gets enough money to buy it back,

Leviticus 25:16-26 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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