“ ‘The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and live as foreigners with me.
Parallel Translations
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“ ‘The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and live as foreigners with me.
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The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.
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And the land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is Mine; for ye are strangers and settlers with Me.
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Commandments (1)
The laws of the Torah, each cited and shown as a primary source.
Cross-references (19)
Passages linked to Leviticus 25:23 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 1 Peter 2:11 Beloved, I beg you as foreigners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;
- Psalms 24:1 The earth is Yahweh’s, with its fullness; the world, and those who dwell in it.
- Ezekiel 48:14 They shall sell none of it, nor exchange it, nor shall the first fruits of the land be alienated; for it is holy to Yahweh.
- 1 Chronicles 29:15 For we are strangers before you, and foreigners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no remaining.
- Psalms 39:12 “Hear my prayer, Yahweh, and give ear to my cry. Don’t be silent at my tears. For I am a stranger with you, a foreigner, as all my fathers were.
- Exodus 19:5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice, and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession from among all peoples; for all the earth is mine;
- Deuteronomy 32:43 Rejoice, you nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants. He will take vengeance on his adversaries, and will make atonement for his land and for his people.
- Genesis 23:4 “I am a stranger and a foreigner living with you. Give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”
- Leviticus 25:10 You shall make the fiftieth year holy, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee to you; and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family.
- 2 Chronicles 7:20 then I will pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.
- Psalms 85:1 Yahweh, you have been favorable to your land. You have restored the fortunes of Jacob.
- Hosea 9:3 They won’t dwell in Yahweh’s land; but Ephraim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.
- Joel 2:18 Then Yahweh was jealous for his land, And had pity on his people.
- Joel 3:2 I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will execute judgment on them there for my people, and for my heritage, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations. They have divided my land,
- Genesis 47:9 Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are one hundred thirty years. The days of the years of my life have been few and evil. They have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.”
- 1 Kings 21:3 Naboth said to Ahab, “May Yahweh forbid me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers to you!”
- Psalms 119:19 I am a stranger on the earth. Don’t hide your commandments from me.
- Isaiah 8:8 It will sweep onward into Judah. It will overflow and pass through. It will reach even to the neck. The stretching out of its wings will fill the width of your land, Immanuel.
- Hebrews 11:9-13 By faith, he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for the city which has the foundations, whose builder and maker is God. By faith, even Sarah herself received power to conceive, and she bore a child when she was past age, since she counted him faithful who had promised. Therefore as many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as innumerable as the sand which is by the sea shore, were fathered by one man, and him as good as dead. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and embraced them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
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Explain this verse (18 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain It could not be sold forever, but must return…
It could not be sold forever, but must return to the family in the Jubilee.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Lev 25:23 The land shall not be sold for…
Lev 25:23 The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land [is] mine; for ye [are] strangers and sojourners with me.
Ver. 23. The land is mine.] See Lev 25:2.
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 For ever, or, absolutely and properly, so as to…
For ever, or, absolutely and properly, so as to become the propriety of the buyer; or to the extermination or utter cutting off, to wit, of the seller, from all hopes and possibility of redemption. For the land is mine; procured for you by my power, given to you by my mere grace and bounty, and the right of propriety reserved by me, and to be disposed of by you only to such persons and in such manner as I shall have ordained.
Sojourners with me, i.e. in my land or houses: thus he is said to sojourn with another that dwells in his house. Thus the poor decayed Israelites and the strangers are said to live with them, i.e. with the other Israelites, to wit, in the land or houses here, Lev 25:35,36,40,44. Or, before me, in my sight, or in my account. Howsoever in your own or other men’s opinions you pass for lords and proprietors, yet in truth, according to which my judgment always is, you are but strangers and sojourners, not to possess the land for ever, but only for a season, and to leave it to such as I have appointed for it.
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 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 The land shall not be sold for ever,.... That…
The land shall not be sold for ever,.... That is, the land of Israel; the meaning is, any part of it, for that the whole might be sold or disposed of at once is not to be supposed, but anyone part of it, which was the property of a single man, or belonged to a family; though it might be sold in case of necessity, yet not for ever, so as never to return to the owner, or his heirs; for if it was sold for ever it returned in the year of the jubilee: the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan render the word "absolutely", simply, properly; a proper absolute sale was not to be made, but a conditional one, or for so many years, or with a view to its reversion in the year of jubilee, and so the agreement to be made according to the number of years, as before directed: the word, as Aben Ezra observes, signifies "cutting off", and the sense is, that no land should be sold entirely, so as that the proprietor or his heirs should be wholly cut off from it, or that the entail of it upon the family should be cut off:
for the land is mine; as indeed the whole earth is, but the land of Canaan was peculiarly his, which he had chosen above all other lands for the inheritance of his people; out of which he drove the old inhabitants of it for their sins, and put in his own people to possess it under him; where he himself had his dwelling place, and where he was served and worshipped, and where the Messiah was to be born, and was born, and therefore called Immanuel's land; and which was a figure of the better country, or the heavenly glory and happiness, which is of God's preparing and giving, and will never be alienated from those whose right it is:
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for ye are strangers and sojourners with me; as the Gentiles that lived among them were strangers and sojourners with them, so they were with the Lord; he was the original proprietor, they were but tenants at will; though it was both an honour and happiness to be with him, under any character, to board, and lodge, and dwell with him; and they might well be content to be reckoned not proprietors but strangers and sojourners, and especially such as had faith and hope in a better inheritance, of which this was only a figure; however, this being their present case, it was a reason good, why they could not for ever dispose of their lands and possessions, any more than a sojourner or inmate can of a house of which he has only a part.
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 For ever - So as to be forever alienated…
For ever - So as to be forever alienated from the family of him that sells it. Or, absolutely and properly, so as to become the property of the buyer: Or, to the extermination or utter cutting off, namely, of the seller, from all hopes and possibility of redemption. The land is mine - Procured for you by my power, given to you by my grace and bounty, and the right of propriety reserved by me. With me - That is, in my land or houses: thus he is said to sojourn with another that dwells in his house. Howsoever in your own or other mens opinions you pass for lords and proprietors, yet in truth, ye are but strangers and sojourners, not to possess the land forever, but only for a season, and to leave it to such as I have appointed for it.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 23. The land shall not be sold for…
Verse 23. The land shall not be sold for ever - the land is mine] As God in a miraculous manner gave them possession of this land, they were therefore to consider themselves merely as tenants to him; and on this ground he, as the great landholder or lord of the soil, prescribes to them all the conditions on which they shall hold it. This one circumstance was peculiarly favourable to their advancement in religion, in righteousness, and true holiness; for feeling that they had nothing which they could call their own upon earth, they must frequently, by this, be put in mind of the necessity of having a permanent dwelling in the heavenly inheritance, and of that preparation without which it could not be possessed.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Lev 25:23. For ever — So as to be…
Lev 25:23. For ever — So as to be for ever alienated from the family of him that sells it. Or, absolutely and properly, so as to become the property of the buyer. Or, to the extermination or utter cutting off, namely, of the seller, from all hopes and possibility of redemption. The land is mine — Procured for you by my power, given to you by my grace and bounty, and the right of propriety is reserved by me. Ye are sojourners with me — That is, in my land or houses: thus he is said to sojourn with another that dwells in his house. Howsoever in your own or other men’s opinions you pass for lords and proprietors, yet in truth ye are but strangers and sojourners, not to possess the land for ever, but only for a season, and to leave it to such as I have appointed for it.
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 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 For ever. Samaritan version, "absolutely." The only exception to…
For ever. Samaritan version, "absolutely." The only exception to this law is, when a person makes a vow to give some land to the Lord, and will not redeem it, chap xxvii. 20. In that case, God re-enters upon his property, and it belongs to his priests. (Calmet)
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 The land shall not be sold for ever--or, "be…
The land shall not be sold for ever--or, "be quite cut off," as the Margin better renders it. The land was God's, and, in prosecution of an important design, He gave it to the people of His choice, dividing it among their tribes and families--who, however, held it of Him merely as tenants-at-will and had no right or power of disposing of it to strangers. In necessitous circumstances, individuals might effect a temporary sale. But they possessed the right of redeeming it, at any time, on payment of an adequate compensation to the present holder; and by the enactments of the Jubilee they recovered it free--so that the land was rendered inalienable. (See an exception to this law, Lev 27:20).
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 THE JUBILEE YEAR CONTINUED — THE REDEMPTION OF LAND,…
THE JUBILEE YEAR CONTINUED — THE REDEMPTION OF LAND, Lev_25:23-28.
23. The land shall not be sold for ever — The usufruct only could be sold. In their deeds of conveyance the phrase “to him and to his heirs forever” had no place. After an equal allotment of the land at the start this is a merciful safeguard against oppressive monopolies, and a provision to secure to the family a perpetual inheritance. To effect the restoration of all lands twice each century to the family to which it was originally allotted by Joshua required the utmost care in the preservation of the genealogical records of every tribe and family. By this means evidence was afforded of the exact lineage of the Messiah in fulfilment of the prophecies, evidence which has been unavailable to every Jew since the destruction of these records in the destruction of Jerusalem.
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For the land is mine — Jehovah held the fee simple of Canaan. Hence he is justified in the ejection of non-paying tenants, first the Canaanites, then the Israelites. For further justification of the extermination of the Canaanites, see Jos_6:21, note.
For ye are strangers — This implies that foreigners, resident in the land, could not acquire even a temporary title to the soil. See Lev_23:22, note.
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 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 (23) The land shall not be sold for ever.—That…
(23) The land shall not be sold for ever.—That is, no plot of the land of Israel must be absolutely alienated from the original proprietor, who has been driven by poverty to sell his patrimony. We have here a resumption of the laws relating to the sale and purchase of land, which have already been briefly stated in Lev_25:14-17. Having been interrupted by the insertion of the Divine promise with regard to the sabbatical year (Lev_25:20-22), the legislation now proceeds with more directions about the limited sale of land.
For the land is mine.—The reason for this prohibition absolutely to cut off the patrimony from the family, is that God claims to be the supreme owner of the land (Exo_15:17; Isa_14:2; Isa_14:25; Jer_2:5; Psa_10:16), and as the Lord of the soil He prescribes conditions on which he allotted it to the different tribes of Israel.
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Ye are strangers and sojourners with me.—God has not only helped the Israelites to conquer the land of Canaan, but has selected it as His own dwelling-place, and erected His sanctuary in the midst of it (Exo_15:13; Num_35:34). He therefore is enthroned in it as Lord of the soil, and the Israelites are simply His tenants at will (Lev_14:34; Lev_20:24; Lev_23:10; Num_13:2; Num_15:2), and as such will have to quit it if they disobey His commandments (Lev_18:28; Lev_20:22; Lev_26:33; Deu_28:63). For this reason they are accounted as strangers and sojourners, and hence have no right absolutely to sell that which is not theirs.
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 Vers. 23, 24. For the land is mine; for…
Vers. 23, 24. For the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. Many incidental advantages, if some difficulties, arose from the jubilee law (which will be the more appreciated if we compare the evils resulting from slavery and the accumulation of land in a few hands, found in the history of Rome or any other ancient nation); but its essential features, so far as the laud was concerned, was its inculcation of the lesson of the proprietorship of the Lord. Palestine was God"s land: he divided it once for all in the time of Joshua among his people, and every fifty years he required that recourse should be had to that original division, in order that in each generation the people might feel themselves to be his tenants, not independent owners, possessores, not domini.
Vers. 23-34. Redemption.
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This subject is intimately connected with that of the jubilee; and the redemption of the Law prefigured that of the gospel, which also stands intimately related to the glorious jubilee of the great future. In this light we have to consider
I THE NATURE OF THE REDEMPTION. This we may view:
1. In respect to the possession.
(1) Canaan may be taken as a specimen of the earth at large. The Hebrew word for that land (xras the term also for the whole world. In the largest sense the earth was given to mankind for an inheritance. (Gen_1:26-29 Psa_8:5-9 Psa_115:16) If the Israelites were ever reminded that they had their possession of Canaan from God (verse 23), we must never forget that we have nothing that we receive not. (Joh_3:27 1Co_4:7 Jam_1:17)
(2) The Hebrews held their possession upon the tenure of faith and obedience. (Deu_1:34-36 Deu_30:15-20 Heb_3:18, Heb_3:19) Such also is the tenure upon which the earth at large is held. And as the expulsion of Adam from Eden vividly brought home to him his forfeiture of right to the earth, so did the forfeiture of Canaan keep alive in the Israelite the remembrance of the consequences of the Fall.
(3) The land of Canaan was not only a specimen of the earth at large, but also of a type of the new earth of the future. Eden also was a "like figure." Like the garden, Canaan was "the glory of all lands". (Deu_8:7-10 Eze_20:6, Eze_20:15) So in the institution of the law of redemption we have bodied forth the means by which we shall recover our interest in the earth. (see Luk_21:28 Rom_8:23 Eph_1:14 Eph_4:30)
(4) While Satan is the god of this world, the true heir may be kept out of his inheritance, but his title cannot be ultimately defeated. This was one of the important lessons of the jubilee, and of the law of redemption. (verses 23, 24, 28; see also Eph_1:4 Heb_11:9-14)
(5) As the possessions of the Levites were inalienable (verse 34), so the "kingdom of priests" shall for ever enjoy their possessions in the renovated earth. (1Pe_2:5 Rev_1:6) We may view this subject:
2. In respect to the person.
(1) By sin we have not only forfeited our right to Eden, to Canaan, to the old earth, to the new earth, but we have also become enslaved. The habit of evil is a chain of iron. The terror of death is formidable bondage. The tyranny of Satan is merciless. Bad enough to have our liberties sold to a fellow-man; but to be sold over to this "stranger" from the infernal world is intolerable.
(2) But there is redemption for the Hebrew slave. He may redeem himself if he have the means. His next of kin has the right of redemption (verses 25, 26). He may be redeemed by his brother Hebrew. (see Neh_5:8) So to the truly penitent, who like the Hebrews are the people of the Law, there is the redemption of the gospel.
(3) But the Law has no provision for the redemption of the stranger who cannot purchase freedom for himself. Yet might he be the subject of mercy. The gospel reaches those whom the Law discourages. The pagan slave might become a Jewish proselyte, and be released in accordance with the Law. So those who are furthest off may in true repentance be brought nigh to God.
(4) But the mercy of the gospel has its limits. It may be forfeited by obstinacy. It may also be forfeited by neglect. A year only is allowed in which to redeem a house in a city (verse 30). The house is a common figure for the people; and the interpretation of the year of recovery may be seen in Isa_61:2 Isa_63:4 2Co_6:2. If taken in time, the whole city of God may be redeemed; but the period of probation missed, the case is hopeless. Consider
II THE QUALIFICATIONS OF THE REDEEMER.
1. A slave might redeem himself.
(1) That is, if it be in the power of his hand. Under favourable conditions of earning and saving, this might become possible.
(2) But when the slave is the sinner and he is in bondage to the justice of God, this is impossible. Our deeds are sin. And the wages of sin is death.
2. The near kinsman is the legal redeemer.
(1) This kinsman was a type of Christ. Bishop Patrick quotes a rabbi, who says, "This Redeemer is the Messiah, the Son of David." Job speaks of Messiah as his Redeemer. (Job_19:25) So is he elsewhere termed in Scripture. (see Isa_59:20 Rom_11:26)
(2) To be qualified to redeem, Jesus became our Kinsman by taking up our nature. As any Hebrew brother might become a redeemer, so Jesus, in our flesh, became "the brother of every man," that he might redeem. Job speaks of seeing his Redeemer in his flesh, or incarnate for this I take to be the sense.
(3) Every near kinsman may not have it in his power to become a Goel or Redeemer. No mere human being can give to God a ransom for his brother. (Psa_49:7) But Christ is a competent Redeemer, having in his Godhead all resources.
(4) We can imitate Christ as redeemers of our brethren only by endeavouring instrumentally to recover them from the snares of Satan.
(5) What a blessing is liberty! "Whom the Son maketh free is free indeed. J.A.M.
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
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.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh continues speaking.
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The land must not be sold to a new permanent owner
This can be stated in active form. AT: "You must not sell your land permanently to another person" (See: Active or Passive)
You must observe the right of redemption
The noun "redemption" can be expressed with the verbs "redeem" or "buy back." AT: "You must remember that the original owner has the right to redeem the land whenever he wants" (See: Abstract Nouns)
you must allow the land to be bought back by the family from whom you bought it
This can be stated in active form. AT: "you must allow the family from whom you bought the land to buy it back" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
alien
redeem
Israel
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 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.