And the land shall not be sold for ever; for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.
Leviticus 25 sets out how Israel was to hold the country God was giving them. The whole arrangement rests on one claim: the land is His. That fact decides what may be sold, what must come back, and how the people were to see themselves.
The chapter gives its laws first. Verse 23 gives the reason behind them.
Leviticus 25 introduces a fresh subject. The earlier chapters dealt mainly with matters that especially concerned the priests, and God spoke them "out of the tabernacle" (chapter 1:1). This chapter concerns right government in Israel once they had come into the land, so God spoke it "in Mount Sinai." Here the basic fact they had to remember comes in verse 23 — "the land is Mine." So Israel had to handle the land, once they had it, in the way the earlier verses set out.
Because the title stays with God, no failure of Israel's can transfer it to anyone else.
The Land — "My Land," whatever its state or divisions. It is Jehovah's Land, and if the people fail in every way, it falls into His hands. He only entrusted it to Israel. The Gentiles have no right except through Israel's sin, and no right at all against the Lord.
The Owner never changed, so a sale could only pass on the use of a field for a while. That built in two safeguards at once.
One thing is very plain. The land was God's, so those to whom He gave it could only let it go on lease. They sold it until the jubilee came, and the value of the lease dropped as the jubilee drew near. So each inheritance could never pass for good out of the family that first had it. In this way grasping men could not pile up land. More important still, Israel had a constant reminder that all they held, they held from the Lord, and that they depended on Him.
Under such a landlord, being a tenant was a privilege. It also set Canaan apart from every other land.
Happy, highly privileged tenants! What an honour to hold directly under Jehovah! No rent! No taxes! No burdens!… "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine." What does this mean, except that Canaan belongs specially to Jehovah, and that He will hold it through the tribes of Israel? True, "the earth is the Lord's," but that is quite another thing.
The word "stranger" had a history for Israel. They had been strangers in Egypt, and God told them to love strangers because of it. Then He gave them that same name at home.
Israel themselves had known "the heart of a stranger" by bitter experience, and God declared Himself to them as One who "loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing." He urges them, "Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt" (Deuteronomy 10:18-19). More than that, He taught them to count themselves strangers even in their own land, and so to prove to themselves that love of His toward strangers… The Israelite, even if born in the land, could still say that he lived there as God's guest, in weakness and dependence.
The relationship this creates is not one of insecurity but of hospitality.
The land of Israel was God's, and they were His guests — "strangers and sojourners with Me," He says.
Later history put the verse to the test, when a king asked a man to hand over his family's ground.
Ahab's proposal to Naboth meant far more than it looks at first. It would have given away this God-fearing Israelite's inheritance for good. An Israelite who feared God could not accept such terms. When he sold his land, he sold only its harvests, since the jubilee would give his possession back to him… The Israelite who feared God would keep the inheritance of his fathers because they had received it from the Lord. But there was a reason even more decisive than that. In reality the land, the ground itself, did not belong to the people, but to the Lord.
God never let ownership pass out of His hands, so whatever went wrong could still be undone. Commentators read the land of Israel as a sample of the whole earth.
The Lord of Israel kept in His own hand the means of restoring all things. He acted as Lord of the soil, and said the Land was His… And so with this earth, of which the land of Israel was the sample. Man may take it into his own hand for a time, and by greed or idleness disturb God's order in it. But a day is coming — the promised and expected jubilee, the time of the restoring of all things. Then the earth will come back to God.
The same principle reaches believers today. What they hold was also given.
Solomon had no right to give away the least part of the land, for it did not belong to him: it belongs to God. Can we today give away any part of the inheritance God has given to believers "in heavenly places"? Primarily the inheritance belongs to the Lord Jesus, who graciously shares it with us (Ephesians 1:9-11). We have no liberty to give up any part of it.
- Owner — "The land is Mine" stands behind every rule in the chapter. Israel held a trust, never the ownership.
- Tenant — The Owner never changed, so land could only be leased until the jubilee. That blocked land-grabbing and kept Israel aware that they depended on Him.
- Guest — "Strangers and sojourners with Me" gives Israel the same name as the strangers God told them to love. They lived in their own land as His guests.
- Test — Naboth shows the verse in real life. A God-fearing man could not sell his family's inheritance for good, because it was not his to sell.
- Restoration — God kept the title, so He kept the power to put everything back. The jubilee points on to the restoring of all things for the whole earth.
And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land.
God tells Israel that the land is His, and then adds a rule for every field they hold: an owner must always be able to buy his land back. Two questions follow: why God keeps ownership in His own hands, and what a lasting "right of redemption" was meant to picture.
The rule about redemption rests on a statement of ownership made one verse earlier. One writer places the whole chapter in the setting of Israel's life in the land.
Here is a matter that concerned right government in Israel, once they had come into the land, and so God spoke it "in Mount Sinai." Verse 23 states the basic fact they had to remember — "the land is mine." So Israel had to handle the land, once they held it, in the way the earlier verses laid down.
Since the land stayed God's, Israel held it as tenants. That shaped how they were to treat the outsiders living among them.
Israel themselves had known "the heart of a stranger" by bitter experience. God declared Himself to them as One who "loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing." The word to them is, "Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt." More than that, they were taught to keep counting themselves strangers, even in their own land, and so to prove to themselves that love of His towards strangers.
A buyer never got the ground itself. The price told him how long his claim would last.
When he sold his land, he sold only its harvests. His possession would return to him in the year of jubilee, so the price depended on how many years the buyer would harvest its produce. The seller even had the right to redeem his land at any time. He refunded the buyer the amount above the value of the crops for the years that had passed since the sale.
The right belonged to the seller, but it did not stop with him. Another writer names the one reason a man could sell, and who else could buy the land back.
If poverty made him sell part of his possession — and that is the only ground stated here for parting with his family estate — he kept the right of redemption before the Jubilee arrived, and so did his relatives. If a relative came forward to carry it out, this law gave him the power to do it. If he had no relative, the liberty to redeem it stayed with him, though that depended on what he could afford. The inheritance was to be prized, and no one should have thought lightly of it, for it was God's provision for His people. Naboth had not fallen into poverty, and he refused to sell his vineyard even at the king's personal request: "The LORD forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers."
A man might have no relative able or willing to help. The law still did not leave him without hope.
If no relative proved able or willing to redeem the inheritance, it returned to the heir in the Jubilee. So the Lord of Israel kept in His own hand the means of restoring all things. He acted as Lord of the soil, and said the land was His.
Commentators read this arrangement as a picture. The redeemer had to be a relative, and he had to pay.
If an Israelite or his possession had been sold, his kinsman had both the duty and the right to ransom him and it. Now Jesus has shown Himself our kinsman in both ways. The Son of God became the Son of man, and so showed His kinsman nature. He died to buy us and our inheritance by blood, and so showed His kinsman love.
This right also has a future. One writer sees it now held by God Himself, kept for the moment He chooses.
The Lord will vindicate His rights in that day… The men of Israel had been strangers and sojourners with Him. But from then on He will hide His face from them no more. They were responsible to grant the right of redemption in all the land they held. He keeps that right for the fit moment, and will proclaim it in triumph to their everlasting joy.
- Owner. The command stands on one fact stated just before it: the land is God's, so Israel had to handle it on His terms.
- Tenants. They held God's land as guests. So they kept counting themselves strangers, and showed strangers the love God showed them.
- Price. A sale passed on only the harvests left until the jubilee. The seller could buy back at any time by refunding the balance.
- Redeemer. Poverty was the one ground for selling. A relative could redeem what a man could not — and Christ is that kinsman, by nature and by blood.
- Restoration. Where no redeemer came, the jubilee restored the inheritance. God kept that right in His own hand, and still does.
If thy brother grow poor, and sell of his possession, then shall his redeemer, his nearest relation, come and redeem that which his brother sold.
A man in Israel grows poor and sells part of the family land God gave him. The law's answer is not charity but kinship: his nearest relative comes and buys it back.
The law guards the family's land. Poverty is the only reason it gives for selling, and the right to buy the land back stays open.
If poverty forced him to sell part of his property, he kept the right to buy it back before the Jubilee, and so did his relatives. Poverty is the only reason the law gives here for parting with the family estate. If a relative came forward to do it, this law gave him the power. If he had no relative to do it, the freedom to redeem it stayed with him. But redeeming it himself depended on what he could afford. The inheritance was to be prized. No one should have thought lightly of it, for it was God's provision for His people.
Redemption here was not open to just anyone. The right belonged to a relative, and it came with a duty.
Only a near relative could act as the kinsman-redeemer. In other words, he first had to be related to the one needing redemption — a brother (Lev. 25:25), an uncle, or an uncle's son (Lev. 25:49). When disaster and difficulty came, the kinsman-redeemer was to step in. He bought back the property or the persons, or both, of relatives who had sold themselves or their possessions to a stranger. More than that, he could not shelve or evade the responsibility laid on him. The kinsman-redeemer who refused to do his part was to be in disgrace in Israel.
Kinship is the qualification. Commentators draw a straight line from that rule to Christ.
In verse 25 we learn that, if a man stayed poor and could not buy it back himself, "any of his kin" might step in and redeem it for him. Boaz does this in the Book of Ruth. That picture shows how necessary it was that the Lord Jesus should take up perfect Manhood, sin apart. So He shared in flesh and blood, as Hebrews 2:14 says, so that by death He might break the devil's power over us. If He had taken hold of angels only, He could not have fulfilled the picture as our Kinsman-Redeemer, or paid the price that was needed.
One phrase runs through this chapter: "if your brother becomes poor." Commentators say the repetition is deliberate.
Redemption by buying back is the subject of Lev. 25, and the expression comes four times in the chapter. "If your brother becomes poor" is not mere repetition of words. Each time it is used it suggests a different condition of misery, and each one goes deeper than the last. This was instruction for the guidance of the people of Israel in the first place. Even so, it had nothing to do with law as a principle — keeping strict righteousness and demanding it from others. It points instead to the principle of grace on which God had dealt with Israel, and on which He expected His people to act towards others. It begins where law ends.
Commentators also read the poor brother as a picture of Israel. The nation lost its land through unfaithfulness, and grace will give it back.
Grace will count the time of suffering over, and sin pardoned through Him who loved His people and suffered for their sins... We hear of a brother who lost his possession through unfaithfulness and got it back through grace that overcame every difficulty. And Israel will be the standing, public witness both of the loss through evil and of the gain through grace. Yet the credit is not theirs in any way, but only Jesus'.
The chapter offers the impoverished man two routes home: a relative pays, or the Jubilee arrives and the land returns free. Commentators see both fulfilled in one Redeemer.
The ordinance of the Jubilee seems to set out this twofold redemption — by price and by power. That chapter teaches us that at any time during forty-nine years, a relative of the heir could buy back the lost possession of an Israelite. The land was redeemed, or brought back to the family to which, under God, it had belonged. But if that were not done, it would return to the heir in the fiftieth year, the Jubilee, with nothing paid.
- Poverty. The brother has lost what God gave him. Only poverty could make him sell it, and he cannot win it back alone.
- Kinship. The redeemer's qualification is relationship. Without blood ties there is no right to redeem, only a right to buy.
- Price. Because kinship qualifies, the Son of God took flesh and blood, and paid what redemption cost.
- Power. The chapter joins the price to the Jubilee. What money buys back, power alone restores when the Jubilee comes.
- Possession. The inheritance returns. It was lost through failure and regained through grace, and the credit belongs to the Redeemer, not the redeemed.
And if the man have no one having right of redemption, and his hand have acquired and found what sufficeth for its redemption,
Leviticus 25 rests on one claim: the land was God's, not the family's. Verse 26 covers a single case under that law — the man with no relative to buy back his land, who later earns enough to redeem it himself.
The rules for buying land back rest on who owned it. One writer borrows a legal phrase for God's claim — "eminent domain", the final right over all land:
In brief, the law declared the divine right of "eminent domain." The land was God's. It could never pass for good out of the hands of those to whom His grace had given it. All was to go free in the year of Jubilee, or a near relative could buy it back.
Verse 26 assumes the man has already sold. One writer sets out the one reason the law allowed it, and who could buy the land back:
If poverty made him sell any of his possession, he or his kin kept the right to redeem it before the Jubilee arrived. Poverty is the only ground stated here for letting him part with his family estate. If a kinsman came forward, this law gave him the power to do it. If he had no kinsman, he kept the freedom to redeem it himself. But for him, redeeming it depended on his ability. The inheritance was worth prizing, and no one should have thought lightly of it, for it was God's provision for His people.
"Sufficient means" was a set sum, worked out from the calendar:
In time the seller himself might have enough funds to redeem his possession. If so, he was to count the years since the sale, and of course the time left till the year of Jubilee, and pay according to this. Suppose the buyer had use of the property for 20 years, and ten years were left before the Jubilee. He was to work out the price on that basis. For in the year of Jubilee the first owner would pay nothing to have his property returned (v. 28).
Verse 26 applies only when the option in verse 25 has failed. Commentators see a picture of Christ in that earlier option — a relative stepping in:
Some who had done this might later have money enough to redeem it themselves. Verse 26 considers such a case, and verse 27 states fair terms of redemption. But in verse 25 we learn that, if a man remained poor and unable for this, "any of his kin" might step in and redeem it for him. Boaz shows us this in action in the book of Ruth. That picture shows why the Lord Jesus had to take perfect Manhood, sin apart.
Everything here hangs on conditions the man may never meet. One commentator reads that small word as the story of human failure — and names the Redeemer who answers it:
"If" is a serious word for man. No doubt it is righteous. But the fact is that the first man breaks down and fails in his responsibility… Jesus will be owned as the Kinsman Redeemer. And He will indeed come to redeem. The right is His, and He will not fail to recognise and apply it, in everlasting mercy… Otherwise their kin will have failed, and their own hand will not have found enough. But grace will count the time of suffering over, and iniquity pardoned through Him who loved His people and suffered for their sins.
Kelly also quotes another writer, who marks the limit of this law:
The law of Moses allowed anyone who was able to redeem himself. But that was impossible for us. We owe God absolute obedience in all our actions, so no act of ours can make any satisfaction for the least offence.
What if the man finds no kinsman and never gains the means? The Jubilee still answers, and it costs him nothing:
The kinsman might redeem with money. The Jubilee would redeem without money, by its own title. Its force and authority came from Him who was the God of Israel and the Lord of the soil.
- Owner — The land was God's, so a poor man's sale was temporary, never a final loss.
- Right — The right to buy the land back stayed in the family: a kinsman, or the man himself. The inheritance was God's provision, and worth prizing.
- Reckoning — The calendar fixed the price: count the years since the sale, then pay by the years left to the Jubilee.
- Kinsman — The relative who buys the land back pictures Christ, who took perfect Manhood so He could come as the Kinsman Redeemer.
- Jubilee — The kinsman redeemed with money; the Jubilee redeemed without it. The law let a man buy himself back, but no one can do that with sin.
then shall he reckon the years since the sale thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it; and so return unto his possession.
Verse 27 assumes a sale that was never permanent. Because the land itself belonged to God, an Israelite could only hand over the use of it for a stretch of years, and the closer the year of jubilee came, the less that stretch was worth.
One thing is made very plain. The land was God's. So those to whom He gave it could only lease it out. They sold it until the jubilee came, and the value of the lease dropped as the jubilee drew near. In this way no family lost its inheritance for good. It also stopped grasping men from piling up land. More important still, it kept reminding Israel that all they would have, they held from the Lord, and they depended on Him.
The refund in this verse is arithmetic, not haggling.
The seller himself might in time have enough money to redeem his possession. If so, he was to count the years since the sale, and the time left till the year of Jubilee, and pay on that basis. Say the buyer had use of the property for 20 years, and ten years were left before the Jubilee. The price had to follow those numbers. For in the year of Jubilee the first owner would pay nothing to have his property returned (v. 28).
A sale like this was forced on a man. He never chose it as a business move, and so he kept the right to buy the land back.
He might sell part of his possession because of poverty. That is the only reason given here for letting a man part with his family estate. He kept the right to buy it back before the Jubilee came, and so did his relatives... The inheritance was to be prized, and no one should have thought lightly of it, for it was God's provision for His people. Naboth had not fallen into poverty. He refused to sell his vineyard even when the king himself asked: "The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers" (1 Kings 21:3).
The right, however, depended on ability. Whether a man could act on verse 27 came down to whether his own hand had found enough.
Verse 27 is the happier case. Behind it stands verse 25, where a poor man's relative steps in and pays instead — and commentators read that arrangement as pointing forward.
Some who had done this might later have the means to redeem it themselves. Verse 26 has that case in view, and verse 27 gives fair terms of redemption. But in verse 25 we learn that if a man stayed poor and unable to do this, "any of his kin" might step in and redeem it for him. Boaz acts this out in the Book of Ruth. The picture shows how necessary it was that the Lord Jesus should take up perfect Manhood, yet without sin. So He "took part" of "flesh and blood," as Hebrews 2:14 says, that by death He might undo the power of the devil over us. If He had taken hold of angels only, He could not have filled out the picture as our Kinsman-Redeemer, and He could not have paid the price.
The whole section reads as God legislating in advance for people He knows will fail. One writer puts the sequence plainly: the inheritance is lost through sin and given back at a time God has already fixed.
A brother who grew poor and sold part of his possession was in a terrible condition, and one that should have spoken to his conscience... His inheritance had passed out of his hands because of sin. It would come back to him at the set time appointed by God, which the jubilee points to (Lev. 25:10). So it has been with the nation of Israel. Even so, the coming thousand-year kingdom will see them restored to their possession. They will live in safety and rest under the peaceful reign of the Son of David.
Israel's own recovery, one writer says, will not come from a full purse.
Relatives will have failed, and their own hand will not have found enough. But grace will count the time of suffering finished, and their sin pardoned through Him who loved His people and suffered for their sins... We hear of a brother who lost his possession through unfaithfulness, and got it back through grace that overcame every difficulty.
- Possession — the land was God's, held from Him, so a sale transferred only years of use, never ownership.
- Poverty — only poverty could put family land on the market; the inheritance was to be prized, not traded.
- Price — redemption is exact and fair: count the years since the sale, then pay for the years left.
- Provision — if his own hand cannot reach the price, a relative pays; the Lord Jesus took flesh and blood to act as Kinsman-Redeemer.
- Return — by his own money, by a relative, or by the jubilee itself, the man goes back to his land. It pictures an inheritance lost through unfaithfulness and restored by grace.
And if his hand have not found what sufficeth for him to restore it to him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of the purchaser, until the year of jubilee; and in the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.