The land shall yield its fruit, and you shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety. If you said, “What shall we eat the seventh year? Behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase;” then I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, and it shall bear fruit for the three years. You shall sow the eighth year, and eat of the fruits from the old store until the ninth year. Until its fruits come in, you shall eat the old store.
“ ‘The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and live as foreigners with me. In all the land of your possession you shall grant a redemption for the land.
“ ‘If your brother becomes poor, and sells some of his possessions, then his kinsman who is next to him shall come, and redeem that which his brother has sold. If a man has no one to redeem it, and he becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, then let him reckon the years since its sale, and restore the surplus to the man to whom he sold it; and he shall return to his property. But if he isn’t able to get it back for himself, then what he has sold shall remain in the hand of him who has bought it until the Year of Jubilee. In the Jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his property.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 Hebrew, I will command.
Hebrew, I will command.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28 Lev 25:20 And if ye shall say, What shall…
Lev 25:20 And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase:
Ver. 20. And if ye shall say.] A clear answer to a carnal objection. Usually God conceals the objection in Scripture, and meets it with an answer, which is an act of grace.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28 A like objection, see Exo 34:23,24.
A like objection, see Exo 34:23,24.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v23 Here is, I. A law concerning the real estates…
Here is, I. A law concerning the real estates of the Israelites in the land of Canaan, and the transferring of them. 1. No land should be sold for ever from the family to whose lot it fell in the division of the land. And the reason given is, The land is mine, and you are strangers and sojourners with me, Lev 25:23. (1.) God having a particular propriety in this land, he would by this restraint keep them sensible of it. The possessions of good people, who, having given up themselves to God, have therewith given up all they have to him, are in a particular manner at his disposal, and his disposal of them must be submitted to. (2.) They being strangers and sojourners with him in that land, and having his tabernacle among them, to alienate their part of that land would be in effect to cut themselves off from their fellowship and communion with God, of which that was a token and symbol, for which reason Naboth would rather incur the wrath of a king than part with the inheritance of his fathers, Kg1 21:3. 2. If a man was constrained through poverty to sell his land for the subsistence of his family, yet, if afterwards he was able, he might redeem it before the year of jubilee (Lev 25:24, Lev 25:26, Lev 25:27), and the price must be settled according to the number of years since the sale and before the jubilee. 3. If the person himself was not able to redeem it, his next kinsman might (Lev 25:25): The redeemer thereof, he that is near unto him, shall come and shall redeem, so it might be read. The kinsman is called Goel, the redeemer (Num 5:8; Rut 3:9), to whom belonged the right of redeeming the land. And this typified Christ, who assumed our nature, that he might be our kinsman, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, and, being the only kinsman we have that is able to do it, to him belonged the right of redemption. As for all our other kinsmen, their shoe must be plucked off (Rut 4:6, Rut 4:7); they cannot redeem. But Christ can and hath redeemed the inheritance which we by sin had forfeited and alienated, and made a new settlement of it upon all that by faith become allied to him. We know that this Redeemer liveth, Job 19:25. And some make this duty of the kinsman to signify the brotherly love that should be among Christians, inclining them to recover those that are fallen, and to restore them with the spirit of meekness. 4. If the land was not redeemed before the year of jubilee, then it should return of course to him that had sold or mortgaged it: In the jubilee it shall go out, Lev 25:28. This was a figure of the free grace of God towards us in Christ, by which, and not by any price or merit of our own, we are restored to the favour of God, and become entitled to paradise, from which our first parents, and we in them, were expelled for disobedience. 5. A difference was made between houses in walled cities, and lands in the country, or houses in country villages. Houses in walled cities were more the fruits of their own industry than land in the country, which was the immediate gift of God's bounty; and therefore, if a man sold a house in a city, he might redeem it any time within a year after the sale, but otherwise it was confirmed to the purchaser for ever, and should not return, no, not at the year of the jubilee, Lev 25:29, Lev 25:30. This provision was made to encourage strangers and proselytes to come and settle among them. Though they could not purchase land in Canaan to them and their heirs, yet they might purchase houses in walled cities, which would be most convenient for those who were supposed to live by trade. But country houses could be disposed of no otherwise than as lands might. 6. A clause is added in favour of the Levites, by way of exception from these rules. (1.) Dwelling houses in the cities of the Levites might be redeemed at any time, and, if not redeemed, should revert in the year of jubilee (Lev 25:32, Lev 25:33), because the Levites had no other possessions than cities and their suburbs, and God would show that the Levites were his peculiar care; and it was for the interest of the public that they should not be impoverished, or wormed out of their inheritances. (2.) The fields adjoining to their cities (Num 35:4, Num 35:5) might not be sold at any time, for they belonged, not to particular Levites, but to the city of the Levites, as a corporation, who could not alienate without a wrong to their tribe; therefore, if any of those fields were sold, the bargain was void, Lev 25:34. Even the Egyptians took care to preserve the land of the priests, Gen 47:22. And there is no less reason for the taking of the maintenance of the gospel ministry under the special protection of Christian governments.
II. A law for the relief of the poor, and the tender usage of poor debtors, and these are of more general and perpetual obligation than the former.
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1. The poor must be relieved, Lev 25:35. Here is, (1.) Our brother's poverty and distress supposed: If thy brother be waxen poor; not only thy brother by nation as a Jew, but thy brother by nature as a man, for it follows, though he be a stranger or a sojourner. All men are to be looked upon and treated as brethren, for we have all one Father, Mal 2:10. Though he is poor, yet still he is thy brother, and is to be loved and owned as a brother. Poverty does not destroy the relation. Though a son of Abraham, yet he may wax poor and fall into decay. Note, Poverty and decay are great grievances, and very common: The poor you have always with you. (2.) Our duty enjoined: Thou shalt relieve him. By sympathy, pitying the poor; by service, doing for them; and by supply, giving to them according to their necessity and thy ability.
2. Poor debtors must not be oppressed: If thy brother be waxen poor, and have occasion to borrow money of thee for the necessary support of his family, take thou no usury of him, either for money or victuals, Lev 25:36, Lev 25:37. And thus far this law binds still, but could never be thought binding where money is borrowed for purchase of lands, trade, or other improvements; for there it is reasonable that the lender share with the borrower in the profit. The law here is plainly intended for the relief of the poor, to whom it is sometimes as great a charity to lend freely as to give. Observe the arguments here used against extortion. (1.) God patronizes the poor: "Fear thy God, who will reckon with thee for all injuries done to the poor: thou fearest not them, but fear him." (2.) Relieve the poor, that they may live with thee, and some way or other they may be serviceable to thee. The rich can as ill spare the hands of the poor as the poor can the purses of the rich. (3.) The same argument is used to enforce this precept that prefaces all the ten commandments: I am the Lord your God which brought you out of Egypt, Lev 25:38. Note, It becomes those that have received mercy to show mercy. If God has been gracious to us, we ought not to be rigorous with our brethren.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv19–28 And the land shall yield her fruit,.... That is,…
And the land shall yield her fruit,.... That is, continually, and even in the seventh year, the sabbath of rest; for the land, though not manured, ploughed, and sowed, nor the vines, olives, and fig trees pruned, yet shall yield fruit as in other years, the Israelites observing the statutes and judgments of God:
and ye shall eat your fill; feel no want of provisions, but have fulness of everything as at other times, and never make a scanty meal, having sufficiency and plenty of all things:
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and dwell therein in safety; not fearing enemies, nor being disturbed by them, nor carried captive.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28 For three years - Not compleatly, but in great…
For three years - Not compleatly, but in great part, namely, for that part of the 6th year which was between the beginning of harvest and the beginning of the 7th year, for the whole 7th year, and for that part of the 8th year which was before the harvest, which reached almost until the beginning of the ninth year. This is added to shew the equity of this command. As God would hereby try their faith and obedience, so he gave them an eminent proof of his own exact providence and tender care over them in making provisions suitable to their necessities.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv20, 23, 25 Verse 20. What shall we eat the seventh year?]…
Verse 20. What shall we eat the seventh year?] A very natural question, which could only be laid at rest by the sovereign promise in the next verse: I will COMMAND my BLESSING upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for THREE YEARS. See Clarke on Le 25:2.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv21, 23, 24, 27 Lev 25:21. For three years — Not completely, but…
Lev 25:21. For three years — Not completely, but in great part; namely, for that part of the sixth year which was between the beginning of the harvest and the beginning of the seventh year, for the whole seventh year, and for that part of the eighth year which was before the harvest, which reached almost until the beginning of the ninth year. This is added to show the equity of this command. As God would hereby try their faith and obedience, so he gave them an evident proof of his own exact providence and tender care over them in making provisions suitable to their necessities.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv23, 25, 28 These verses express the principle on which the law…
These verses express the principle on which the law of Jubilee, as it regards the land, was based. The land belonged to Yahweh, and it was He who allotted it among the families of Israel for their use. No estate could therefore be alienated in perpetuity, by any human authority, from the family to whose lot it might fall.
Lev 25:24
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Grant a redemption for the land - i. e. grant power to recover the land to the original holder who had parted with it.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv21, 22, 23, 27 Three years. After the harvest of the sixth year…
Three years. After the harvest of the sixth year was gotten in, the land rested from September to September, the beginning of the 8th year, when it was tilled again. Nothing would be ripe till about March; yet the harvest of the 6th year would suffice to furnish food till that time, or even for a year longer, as it would be requisite, when the year of jubilee succeeded that of rest, ver. 8. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv21, 23 I will command my blessing upon you in the…
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 Kg2 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.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27 20. What shall we eat the seventh year —…
20. What shall we eat the seventh year — This question is kindly anticipated and answered by God, lest the strain upon their faith might be too great if the people were left with no special promise. He knoweth our frame.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv23, 24, 25, 27 23. A resumption of the Jubile regulation (after the…
23. A resumption of the Jubile regulation (after the interruption of Lev_25:18-22) providing that the land was not to be alienated beyond the next Jubile.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv20–28 (20) What shall we eat the seventh year ?—The…
(20) What shall we eat the seventh year ?—The Lawgiver here anticipates an objection on the part of those who are called upon to abstain from cultivating the land in the sabbatical year, and who are overanxious about the provisions of their families.
Behold, we shall not sow.—That is, are forbidden to sow. (See Lev_25:4.)
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Nor gather in our increase.—That is, we are even prohibited to gather the spontaneous growths and store them up, and are commanded to leave “the increase” in the field. (See Lev_25:7.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv19, 23, 25 HOMILIES BY S.R. ALDRIDGE Vers. 19-21. The sabbatical year.
HOMILIES BY S.R. ALDRIDGE Vers. 19-21. The sabbatical year.
All the Divine institutions are marked by practical wisdom, and doubtless subserved many purposes which are not distinctly mentioned in the Law. To celebrate a year of abstinence from agricultural labour must have benefited the ground itself, as well as tended to produce a spirit of brotherhood amongst all classes of the people. For in that year the natural uncultivated produce of the soil was free to be partaken of by the poorest. But we shall concern ourselves chiefly with the reasons given in the Law for the observance of the sabbatical year.
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I THE PROPRIETORSHIP OF THE LAND IS CLAIMED BY GOD. "The land is mine" (verse 23). As proprietors occasionally shut up a path for a day in order to prevent its being claimed as public property, so God refuses every seventh year to let the Israelites do what they please with the land, in order to remind them of the fact that he is the real owner whose grace bestowed the tenancy on them. Men are but stewards. God"s dominion is universal over their persons and possessions. Nothing that man is or has can be exempted from the need of consecration. The conditions of tenancy must be complied with. If the people were unwilling to observe the terms, let them quit their holding, and start somewhere for themselves. But where shall we procure aught by our own exertions apart from the favour of the Almighty? Our very existence is due to him. Useless, then, is it to quarrel with the lease of our premises.
II MAN IS TAUGHT THAT HE HAS OTHER DUTIES THAN THAT OF PROVIDING FOR HIS PHYSICAL WANTS. Work is the fundamental necessity, the burden laid upon us by the declaration, "In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread." Mere idleness is disgraceful. Yet by this command of the text God asserts that rest is a duty as well as toil The one does indeed fit us for the other. Recreation is by no means sinful, and that is a narrow, false view which deems it so. God"s rest after the work of creation has for ever hallowed legitimate relaxation. Rest from servile labour may be properly employed in holy service. It was during this sabbatical year that the Law was to be read in the bearing of the entire people. Man does not find his noblest end in the industrial pursuit of his daily occupation. He is not always to be surveying the same span of earth. He may lift up his head, and rejoice in upward thoughts and wider prospects. This world is not man"s final home. So we may without violence interpret the statement, "Ye are strangers and sojourners with me." It refers primarily to the placing of Israel in a land which did not belong to them, but it conveys a deeper lesson, one of pertinent application to modern circumstances. Many fancy that if they diligently attend to their business and pay their way, they do all that can be demanded of them. Such low-thoughted action is here rebuked.
III TIMID FORETHOUGHT INQUIRES AS TO THE FEASIBILITY OF COMPLIANCE WITH THE ENACTMENT. "What shall we eat the seventh year?" Man is expected to use his reason, and to anticipate the future. Ushered into the world the most helpless of animals, he is enabled to surround himself with ample might and resources. One harvest suffices to fill his granaries till they are replenished by the stores of another year. Is he to run in the teeth of prudence, and to neglect the usual tillage operations? The requirement of the Law is superior to such scruples. It may seem unreasonable conduct, unbelief may suggest terrible eventualities, but if the wilt of God has been clearly expressed, the devout Israelite dares not falter. There are many Divine precepts which appear to impose trying obligations upon the faith of God"s people. Some have feared to risk the loss involved in renouncing Sunday trading. Some have refused to sacrifice any portion of their time or profits to engage in religious work. The livelihood of themselves and families has been the one prominent object. Too often the necessary provision is rated too high, and luxuries are included among the essentials. There are others to whom the question suggests itself, "How can I compete with my rivals if I adhere to moral laws and discountenance all practices savouring of dishonesty? To make a profession of Christianity may entail the loss of position and worldly esteem.
IV GOD PROMISES THAT NOTHING SHALL BE LOST THROUGH OBEDIENCE TO his STATUTES. "I will command my blessing upon you." The sixth year shall bring forth fruit for three years. Of course, this supposes a supernatural association of conduct and prosperity which is not to be looked for in the ordinary course of providence. Yet the promise of blessing upon the faithful is for every generation. There is a full recompense guaranteed for all tribulation endured in the service of righteousness. Nor are the instances few in number where men have in modern times experienced the truth of the assertion that God withholds no good thing from them that walk uprightly, that the righteous are not forsaken, nor have their poor been obliged to beg for bread.
Recently a Greek newspaper owned that since it had discontinued its Sunday issue, its profits had increased rather than diminished. This, at least, is certain, that he makes a good investment who takes shares in God"s companies formed for righteous purposes. Such shall realize the double assurance of" safety" and "abundance" (verse 19). Note our Lord"s reply to Peter asking, "What shall we have then?" Moses esteemed "the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt." Let the promises of God"s Word scatter all doubt and hesitation! His counsel may appear strange as it did to King Zedekiah, (Jer_38:20) but the result shall verify his wisdom. "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" In keeping his commandments there is great reward. It is good for this life, and even better for the life to come. S.R.A.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v23
Leviticus
SOJOURNERS WITH GOD
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Lev 25:23.
The singular institution of the Jubilee year had more than one purpose. As a social and economical arrangement it tended to prevent the extremes of wealth and poverty. Every fiftieth year the land was to revert to its original owners, the lineal descendants of those who had ‘come in with the conqueror,’ Joshua. Debts were to be remitted, slaves emancipated, and so the mountains of wealth and the valleys of poverty were to be somewhat levelled, and the nation carried back to its original framework of a simple agricultural community of small owners, each ‘sitting under his own vine and fig-tree’ and, like Naboth, sturdily holding the paternal acres.
As a ceremonial institution it was the completion of the law of the Sabbath. The seventh day proclaimed the need for weekly rest from labour, and as was the sabbath in the week, so was the seventh year among the years-a time of quiet, when the land lay fallow and much of the ordinary labour was suspended. Nor were these all; when seven weeks of years had passed, came the great Jubilee year, charged with the same blessed message of Rest, and doubtless showing dimly to many wearied and tearful eyes some gleams of a better repose beyond.
Besides these purposes, it was appointed to enforce, and to make the whole fabric of the national wealth consciously rest upon, this thought contained in our text. The reason why the land was not to pass out of the hauls of the representatives of those to whom God had originally given it, was that He had not really given it to them at all. It was not theirs to sell-they had only a beneficiary occupation. While they held it, it was still His, and neither they, nor any one to whom they might sell the use of it for a time, were anything more than tenants at will. The land was His, and they were only like a band of wanderers, squatting for a while by permission of the owner, on his estate. Their camp-fires were here today, but to-morrow they would be gone. They were ‘strangers and sojourners.’ That may sound sad, but all the sadness goes when we read on-’with Me.’ They are God’s guests, so though they do not own a foot of soil, they need not fear want.
All this is as true for us. We can have no better New Year’s thoughts than those which were taught by the blast of the silver trumpets that proclaimed liberty to the slaves, and restored to the landless pauper his alienated heritage.
I. Here is the lesson of God’s proprietorship and our stewardship.
‘The land is Mine’ was of course true in a special sense of the territory which God gave by promise and miracle, which was kept by obedience, and lost by rebellion. But it is as really true about our possessions, and that not only because of our transient stay here. It would be as true if we were to live in this world for ever. It will be as true in heaven. Length of time makes no difference in this tenure. Undisturbed possession for ever so long does not constitute ownership here. God is possessor of all, by virtue of His very nature, by His creation and preservation of us and of all things. So that when we talk about ‘mine’ and ‘thine,’ we are only speaking a half truth. There is a great sovereign ‘His’ behind both. So then let us take that thought with us for use, as we pass into another year. What lessons does it give?
It should nurture constant thankfulness. To-day looking back over whatever dark, dreary, sunless days, we all have bright ones too. Does any thought of God as the Fountain of all our joys and goods rise in our souls? Have we learned to associate a divine hand and a Father’s will with them? Do we congratulate ourselves on our own cleverness, tact, and skill, saying, ‘mine hand hath done it,’ or do we hug ourselves on our own good fortune, and burn incense to chance and ‘circumstances’? -or, sadder still, are we generously grateful to every human friend that helps us, and unthankful only to God-or does the glad thought come, to gild the finest gold of our possessions with new brilliance and worth, and to paint and perfume the whitest lily of our joys with new delightsomeness, ‘All things come of Thee’; ‘Thou makest us drink of the river of Thy pleasures’?
Blessed are they who, by the magic glass of a thankful heart, see all things in God, and God in all things. To them life is tenfold brighter, as a light plunged in oxygen flames more intensely than in common air. The darkest night is filled with light, and the loneliest place blazes with angel faces, and the stoniest pillar is soft, to him who sees everywhere the ladder that knits earth with heaven, and to whom all His blessings are as the messengers that descend by it on errands of mercy, whose long shining ranks lead up the eye and the heart to the loving God from whom they come.
Here too is the ground for constant thankful submission. ‘The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away.’ We have no right to murmur, however we may regret, if the Landowner takes back a bit of the land which He has let us occupy. It was the condition of our occupation that He should be at liberty to do so whenever He saw that it would be best for us. He does not give us our little patches for His advantage, but for ours, nor does He take them away at His own whim, but ‘for our profit.’ We get more than full value for all the work and capital we have expended, and His only reason for ever disturbing us is that we may be driven to claim a better inheritance in Himself than we can find even in the best of His gifts. So He sometimes gives, that we may be led by our possessions to think lovingly of Him; and He sometimes takes, that we may be led, in the hour of emptiness and loss, to recognise whose hand it was that pulled up the props round which our poor tendrils clung. But the opposite actions have the same purpose, and like the up-and-down stroke of a piston, or the contrary motion of two cogged wheels that play into each other, are meant to impel us in one direction, even to the heart of God who is our home. A landowner stops up a private road one day in a year, in order to assert his right, and to remind the neighbourhood that he could stop it altogether if he liked. So God reminds us by our losses and sorrows, of what we are so apt to forget, and what it is such a joy to us to remember-His possession of them all. Blessed be God! He teaches us in that fashion far seldomer than in the other. Let joy teach us the lesson, and we shall the less need ‘the sternest’ teacher ‘and the best,’ even sorrow. Better to learn it by gladness than by tears; better to see it written in ‘laughing flowers’ than in desolate gardens and killing frost.
So, too, there should be a constant sense of responsibility in the use of all which we have. All is His, and He has given all to us, for a purpose. So, plainly, we are but stewards, or trustees, and are bound to employ everything, not according to our own inclination or notion of what is right, but according to what, in the exercise of our best and most impartial judgment, we believe to be the owner’s will. Trusteeship means that we take directions as to the employment of the property from its owner. It means too that we employ it not for our own satisfaction and well-being alone, though that is included, and is a part of His purpose who ‘delights in the prosperity of His servants.’ Thoughts of others, thoughts of the owner’s claims, and of bringing back to Him all that He has given to us, increased by our diligence, must be uppermost in our minds, if we are to live nobly or happily here. ‘It is required in stewards that a man be found faithful.’ And this applies to all we have in mind, body, and estate. A thoughtful expenditure and use of all His gifts, on principles drawn from our knowledge of His will, and for objects not terminating with self, is the duty that corresponds to the great fact of God’s ownership of all. If we use His gifts to minister to our own vanity or frivolity, or love of ease, or display; if an ‘intolerable deal’ of all we have is used for ourselves, and a poor ha’ porth’ for others; if our gifts are grudging; if we possess without sense of responsibility, and enjoy without thankfulness, and lose with murmuring; if our hearts are more set on material prosperity than on love and peace, knowledge and purity, noble lives and a Father God; if higher desires and hopes are dying out as we ‘get on’ in the world, and religious occupations which used to be pleasant are stale; then for all our outward Christianity the stern old woe applies, ‘Your riches are corrupted, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you,’ and we need the shrill note of the trumpet of Jubilee to be blown in our ears, ‘The land is Mine.’
II. We have the teaching of the transiency of our stay here.
‘Ye are strangers and sojourners’-pilgrims who make a brief halt in a foreign country. The image has in it an allusion to the nomad life of Abraham and his son and grandson, as well as to the desert-wanderings of the people, and suggests the thought, ‘You are homeless wanderers, not having where to lay your heads, as truly when you have been settled for generations on your ancestral lands, as when you plodded wearily in the wilderness.’ It is a universal truth, ever acknowledged and forgotten, wholesome though sometimes sad to feel, and preached to even frivolous natures by the change in our calendar which a New Year brings.
How vividly this word of our text brings out the contrast between the permanence of the external world and our brief stay in it!
In Israel there would be few vineyards or olive-grounds held by the same man at two, and none at three, successive jubilees. The hoary twisted olives yielded their black berries, say, to Simeon, the son of Joseph, to-day, as they did fifty years ago to Joseph, the son of Reuben, and as they will do fifty years hence to Judas, the son of Simeon. So is it with us all. There is nothing more pathetic than the thought of how generations come and go, and empires rise and fall, while the scene on which they play their brief parts remains the same.
‘The mountains look on Marathon,
And Marathon looks on the sea.’
to-day as they did more than two millenniums ago, only the grass was for a while a little ranker on the plain. Olivet lifts the same outline against the pale morning twilight as when David went up its slope a weeping exile. The pebble that we kick out of our path had thousands of years of existence ere we were born, and may lie there unaltered to all appearance for centuries after we are dead. ‘One generation cometh and another goeth, but the earth abideth for ever.’
And how much more lasting our possessions are than their possessors! Where are the strong hands that clutched the rude weapons that lie now quietly ticketed in our museums? How dim and dark the bright brave eyes that once flashed through the bars of these helmets, hanging just a little rusted, over the tombs in Westminster Abbey! Other men will live in our houses, read our books, own our mills, use our furniture, preach in our pulpits, sit in our pews: we are but lodgers in this abiding nature, ‘like a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night,’ and to-morrow morning vacates his rooms for a new arrival, and goes away unregretted and is forgotten in an hour.
The constant change and progression of life are enforced, too, in this metaphor.
The old threadbare emblem of a journey which is implied in the text suggests how, moment by moment, we hurry on and how everything is slipping past us, as fields and towns do to a traveller in a train. Only our journey is smooth and noiseless, like the old-fashioned canal boat travelling, where, if you shut your eyes, you could not tell that you were moving. We glide on and never know it, and so gradually and silently is the scene ‘changed by still degrees,’ that it is only now and then that men have any vivid consciousness that the ‘fashion of this world is’ ever ‘in the act of passing,’ like the canvas of a panorama ever winding and unwinding on its twin rollers with slow, equable motion. It needs an effort of attention and will to discern the movement, and it is worth while to make the effort, for that clear and poignant sense of the constant flux and mutation of all things around us, and of the ebbing away of our own lives, is fundamental to all elevation of thought, to all nobleness of deed, to all worthy conception of duty and of joy. Everything that is, stands poised, like Fortune, on a rolling ball. The solid earth is a movable sphere, for ever spinning on its axis and rushing on its path among the stars. Ever some star is sinking in mist, or dipping below the horizon; ever new constellations are climbing to the zenith. A long, patient discipline is needed to keep fresh in our hearts the sense of this transiency. Let us set ourselves consciously to deepen our convictions of it, and amidst all the illusions of these solid-seeming shows of things, keep firm hold of the assurance that they are but fleeting shadows that sweep across the solemn mountain’s side, and that only God and the doing of His will lasts. So shall our life pierce down with its seeking roots to the abiding ground of all Being, and, looking to the ‘things that are eternal,’ we shall be able to make what is but for a moment contribute to the everlasting ennobling of our character and enrichment of our life yonder.
Surely these words, too, tell of the true home.
‘Ye are strangers’-because your native land is elsewhere. It is not merely the physical facts of death and change that make us strangers here, but the direction of our desires, and the true affinities of our nature. If by these we belong to heaven and God, then here we shall feel that we have not where to lay our heads, and shall ‘dwell in tabernacles’ because ‘we look for the city.’
What a contrast between the perishable tents of the wilderness and the rock-built mansions of that city. And how short this phase of being must look when seen from above! You remember how long a year, a week, seemed to you when a child-what do the first ten years of your life look to you now? What must the earthly life of Abel, the first who died, look to him even now, when he contrasts its short twenty or thirty years with the thousands since? and, after thousands and thousands more, how it will dwindle! So to us, if we reach that safe shore, and look back upon the sea that brought us thither, as it stretches to the horizon, miles of billows once so terrible will seem shrunken to a line of white foam.
Cherish, then, constant consciousness of that solemn eternity, and let your eyes be ever directed to it, like a man who sees some great flush of light on the horizon, and is ever turning from his work to look. Use the transient as preparation for the eternal, the fleeting days as those which determine the undying ‘Day’ and its character. Keep your cares and interests in the present rigidly limited to necessary things. Why should travellers burden themselves? The less luggage, the easier marching. The accommodation and equipment in the desert do not matter much. The wise man will say, ‘Oh, it will do. I shall soon be home.’ ‘Ye are strangers and sojourners.’
III. We have here also the teaching of trust.
Some of us think that such thoughts as the preceding are sad. Why should they be so? They need not be. Our text adds a little word which takes all the sadness out of them. ‘With Me’; that gives the true notion of our earthly life. We are strangers indeed, passing through a country which is not ours, but whilst we are sojourners, we are ‘sojourners’ with the king of the land. In the antique hospitable times, the chief of the tribe would take the travellers to his own tent, and charge himself with their safety and comfort. So we are God’s guests on our travels. He will take care of us. The visitor has no need to trouble himself about the housekeeping, he may safely leave that with the master of the house. If the king has taken us in charge, we may be quite sure that no harm will come to us in his country. So for ourselves and for those we love, and for all the wide interests of church and world, there are peace and strength in the thought that we are the guests of God here, ‘strangers and sojourners with Him.’ Will He invite us to His table and let us hunger? Will He call us to be His guests, and then, like some traitorous Arab sheikh, break the laws of hospitality and harm His too-confiding guests? Impossible for evermore. So we are safe, and our bread shall be given us, for we are sojourners with God.
True, we are strangers, and in our constant movement we lose many of the companions of our march, and the track of the caravan may be traced by the graves on either side. But, since we are ‘with Him,’ we have companionship even when most solitary, and even in a strange land shall not be lonely. Seek then to cultivate as a joy and strength that consciousness that the Lord of all the land is ever with you, Whoever goes, He abides. Whatever rushes past us like a phantasmagoria, He passes not. Whatever and whoever change, He changes never. Where thou goest, He will go. He will be ‘thy shield at thy right hand,’ and thy ‘keeper from all evil.’ So, looking forward to the unknown days of another New Year, we may be of good cheer.
So will it be while we live; and if this year we should die-well, the King of this land, where we are strangers, is the King of the other land beyond the sea, where we are at home. So we shall only be the nearer to Him for the change. Death the separator shall but unite us to the King, whose presence indeed fills this subject-province of His empire with all its good, but who dwells in more resplendent ‘beauty,’ and is felt in greater nearness in the other ‘land that is very far off.’ Whether here or there, we may have God with us, if we will. With Him for our Host and companion, let us peacefully go on our road, while the life of strangers and sojourners shall last. It will bring us to the fatherland where we shall be at home with the King, and find in Him our ‘sure dwelling, and quiet resting-place, and peaceful habitation for ever.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v25 Heb. "goel," Redemp. (Kinsman type). (See Scofield "Isa 59:20").
redeem
Heb. "goel," Redemp. (Kinsman type). (See Scofield "Isa 59:20").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v25 Consideration for the Poor and for Slaves.
Consideration for the Poor and for Slaves.
v. 25. If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some of his possession, land or houses in the country, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, the man upon whom this duty devolved, v. 48, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold, buy it hack for the former owner.
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v. 26. And if the man, the original owner, have none to redeem it, and himself be able to redeem it, if he finds himself in a position that he can buy back the land which he sold,
v. 27. then let him count the years of the sale thereof, since the sale was made, and restore the over-plus, whatever price had been paid for the crops still remaining till the next Year of Jubilee, unto the man to whom he sold it, that he may return unto his possession.
v. 28. But if he be not able to restore it to him, if he cannot raise the money needed to regain possession of his land in this way, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him that hath bought it until the year of jubilee; and in the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession, for the provision was that all leases, called sales, should terminate in the Year of Jubilee.
v. 29. And if a man sell a dwelling-house in a walled city, then he may redeem it, for the purchase price, within a whole year after it is sold; within a full year may he redeem it.
v. 30. And if it be not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be established forever to him that bought it throughout his generations; it shall not go out in the Jubilee. This was a distinct exception to the rule which applied to land in the open country and in towns.
v. 31. But the houses of the villages which have no wall round about them shall be counted as the fields of the country; they may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the Jubilee.
v. 32. Notwithstanding the cities of the Levites and the houses of the cities of their possession may the Levites redeem at any time. In their interest exceptions were always permitted.
v. 33. And if a man purchase of the Levites, then the house that was sold and the city of his possession, that is, the house on its location in the city of the Levites, shall go out in the Year of Jubilee, be restored to the Levite, the original owner, without cost to him; for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel.
v. 34. But the field of the suburbs of their cities, the open meadow-land surrounding their cities, used for pasturing their cattle arid flocks, may not be sold; for it is their perpetual possession, and community property, at that.
v. 35. And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee, having failed entirely in his business, then thou shalt relieve him,—yea, though he be a stranger or a sojourner,—that he may live with thee. Here provision is made for the second contingency, namely, that connected with a man’s having sold himself into bondage on account of poverty. The paragraph is introduced with an admonition to help the poor brother who is in need of financial assistance.
v. 36. Take thou no usury of him or increase, neither interest in the case of money nor an added amount in the case of other necessaries of life; but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee.
v. 37. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase.
v. 38. I am the Lord, your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God. Because the Land of Promise was to the Israelites a gift of God’s merciful goodness, therefore they were not to forget kindness and mercy in dealing with their poor brothers.
v. 39. And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant, not treat him as a slave nor have him perform the labor of a slave,
v. 40. but as an hired servant and as a sojourner, as a worker under contract, he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of Jubilee;
v. 41. and then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return. This ordinance supplements Exo 21:2-6, for it would come into effect both if the servant had not yet been with a master seven years, or if lie had declared his willingness to remain with his master and had received the mark of bondage in his ear.
v. 42. For they are My servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt, they were God’s peculiar property; they shall not be sold as bondmen.
v. 43. Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor, as over a true slave, but shalt fear thy God.
v. 44. Both thy bondmen and thy bond-maids which thou shalt have shall be of the heathen that are round about you; these only could be kept in true slavery; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.
v. 45. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you which they begat in your land; and they shall be your possession, and could be kept arid treated as slaves.
v. 46. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever, this applying to heathen slaves of Hebrew masters only. But over your brethren, the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigor.
v. 47. And if a sojourner or stranger wax rich by thee, and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, the non-Israelite growing wealthy in the same proportion as the Israelite grew poor, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger’s family, that is, to the descendants of immigrants who were not citizen;
v. 48. after that he is sold, he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him, in order not to have the disgrace of being in bondage to an outsider resting upon him;
v. 49. either his uncle or his uncle’s son may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, if he finds ways and means of raising the money, he may redeem himself.
v. 50. And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him unto the Year of Jubilee; and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years, according to the time of an hired servant shall it be with him. The purchase price was to be divided by the number of years which he would have to serve till the next Tear of Jubilee, and the time which he had already served was to be valued in terms of a hired servant, this amount being subtracted from the entire sum.
v. 51. If there be yet many years behind, according unto them he shall give again the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for, as much as his services would have been worth to his master until the Pear of Jubilee
v. 52. And if there remain but few years unto the Year of Jubilee, then he shall count with him, and according unto his years shall he give him again the price of his redemption, in this case a relatively small sum.
v. 53. And as a yearly hired servant shall he be with him, as such he should be regarded by his master; and the other shall not rule with rigor over him in thy sight, so that the people would become aware of it: for as soon as such treatment were known, the government was supposed to act.
v. 54. And if he be not redeemed in these gears, then he shall go out in the Year of Jubilee, both he and his children with him.
v. 55. For unto Me the children of Israel are servants; they are My servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord, your God. Thus the Year of Jubilee became a year of freedom and of mercy to the entire people, but especially to the poor and oppressed, and a year of rest from toil and drudgery. In this respect, it was a type of the acceptable year of the Lord, in which the Gospel is being preached to the meek, in which the brokenhearted are being bound up, liberty is being proclaimed to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, this time being in itself a foretaste of the day when the sons of God will be received into the perfect and eternal liberty provided for them, Isa 61:1-3; Luk 4:17-21.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv20, 23, 26 You might say
You might say
Here "You" refers to the people of Israel. (See: Forms of You)
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I will command my blessing to come upon you
God speaks of his blessing as if it were a person that could obey him. AT: "I will send my blessing on you" or "I will bless you" (See: Personification)
from the provisions stored
This can be stated in active form. AT: "from the food you store" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
command
bless
harvest
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv23, 25 25:23 the land belongs to me: Israel’s ownership of…
25:23 the land belongs to me: Israel’s ownership of the land was derivative, not absolute—ownership depended on the covenant, in which God himself allotted them the land (Deut 1:8, 39). The ideas of land stewardship and of sharing material resources stem naturally from this concept of God’s ownership.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.