Leviticus 25:29-43

 "29 And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; within a full year may he redeem it. 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 for ever to him that bought it throughout his generations: it shall not go out in the jubile. 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 jubile. 32 Notwithstanding the cities of the Levites, and the houses of the cities of their possession, may the Levites redeem at any time. 33 And if a man purchase of the Levites, then the house that was sold, and the city of his possession, shall go out in the year of jubile: for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel. 34 But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold; for it is their perpetual possession. 35 And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. 36 Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. 37 Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase. 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. 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 bondservant: 40 But as an hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubile: 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. 42 For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen. 43 Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour; but shalt fear thy God." — Leviticus 25:29-43 KJV.

THE REDEMPTION OF HOUSES, 29-34.

29. A dwellinghouse in a walled city — The redemption of this is limited to a year, after which it belongs to the purchaser forever, undisturbed by the jubilee. Such property used for mercantile purposes is of special value to the merchant who has built up a lucrative trade therein. Again, city property is liable to greater fluctuations in value in fifty years than country estates, and it is just that the present holder should have the benefit of the increased valuation. The fact that city property was permanently alienable would tend to keep the poor from flocking to the great cities, twice each century, to starve in poverty and to fester in vice. “This provision was made to encourage strangers and proselytes to come and settle among them. Though they could not purchase land in Canaan, yet they might purchase houses in walled cities, which would be most convenient for them who were supposed to live by trade.” — Bush. It is the opinion of some that this law applied only to such cities as were walled in the days of Joshua, and conquered by him. This would exclude Jerusalem.

32. The Levites may redeem — Here is the first hint of the mode of maintaining the Levites in cities. This exception to the statute concerning walled cities is grounded on the fact that the Levites, if their houses could be irredeemably sold, might become utterly homeless, since they had no landed inheritance, but only city houses. Jehovah is not honored by a mendicant ministry.

33. And if a man purchase of the Levites — The Hebrew is “redeem” instead of “purchase.” Ewald, with others, inserts a negative from the Vulgate, which makes better sense — “si redemptae non fuerint, in jubilaeo revertentur ad dominos.” If the houses shall not have been redeemed, they shall revert to their owners in the jubilee.

34. The field of the suburbs — The extent of these is given in Numbers 35:4, 5, which see.

MERCY TO THE POOR ENJOINED, 35-43.

35. Thy brother — Of the seed of Abraham. Thou shalt relieve him — The singular number here seems to signify an individual obligation to relieve the poor, though systematic relief by the commonwealth is by no means excluded. That he may live — Bare existence is not here intended, but a happy life. This explains the significance of the terms “life” and “eternal life.” The more abundant life which Jesus Christ came to inspire in the believer, (John 10:10, note,) is fulness of joy. The annihilationists, whose fundamental error is that immortality is a gift of grace and not inherent in human nature, take their first false step in their definition of life as mere animate being, and not a blissful existence.

36. Take no usury — This word in the original signifies interest on money loaned, but in modern English it has come to designate excessive interest, either formally illegal or at least oppressive. When our Authorized Version was made, the term usury was the exact equivalent of the Hebrew נֶ֣שֶׁךְ, interest. Thy brother — The prohibition of interest extended only to a brother Hebrew. At first only the poor Hebrew was exempted from interest, (Exodus 22:25,) but Jahn thinks that it was found difficult to define the term poor person; hence the prohibition was extended to all Hebrews, so that henceforth interest could be taken only of foreigners. Deuteronomy 23:20. We cannot agree with Davidson, that this would limit their commerce with other nations, and thus conserve their religious faith. This prohibition was flagrantly transgressed by Hebrew capitalists after the return from the captivity, when one per cent. per month was exacted from their brethren. See Nehemiah 5:11, in which “the hundredth” is one per cent. a month, a ruinous rate.

37. Victuals — In Deuteronomy 23:19, there is added the prohibition of “usury of anything that is lent upon usury.” Thus in all the means of life the poor are mercifully guarded against the oppression of avarice.

38. I am the Lord — In this verse there are four reasons for obedience: 1.) Their peculiar relationship to Jehovah; 2.) Their deliverance from Egypt; 3.) The promise of Canaan; and 4.) The continued future regards of God.

39. Be sold — This is more correctly rendered reflexively, SELL HIMSELF. Ewald maintains that the reflexive and not the passive was the primary force of the niphal form of the Hebrew. See Gesen. Thes., p. 787. There is granted here no authority for the creditor to seize the debtor and sell him into slavery. He may enter into voluntary servitude under the pressure of poverty, but not of debt. The instances in 2 Kings 4:1 and Nehemiah 5:5 were outrages of the Mosaic law, and the case in Matthew 18:25 is a parable founded on Roman usages. Isaiah 50:1, applies to one already a slave. The only cases of the legal involuntary sale of a Hebrew are for theft, (Exodus 22:1, 3,) and of a daughter for the matrimonial estate. Exodus 21:7-11. According to Jewish writers, it was not lawful for a Hebrew to sell himself except in extreme poverty. Says Maimonides: “A man might not sell himself to lay up the money which was given for him; nor to buy goods, nor to pay his debts, but merely that he might get bread to eat. Neither was it lawful for him to sell himself as long as he had so much as a garment left.” Bondservant — The Hebrew is, thou shalt not impose upon him the service of a servant. This language has no word to signify distinctively what we mean by slave, bondman, or bondservant. Many glaring misstatements have proceeded from the false assumption that all the servitude in the Old Testament was slavery, and that the word עָֽבֶד, servant, wherever it occurs, means slave. It is to be regretted that our English translators did not use the term apprenticed servant of all work as distinctive from the servant, like a mechanic hired to do specific work by the day or year. The Israelites were oppressed servants in Egypt, but never bondmen or slaves, the property of the Egyptians. The Septuagint frequently and more accurately uses παῖς where the English Version uses bondman. The poor Hebrew who contracted to serve until the jubilee must be exempted from the rough work of the apprenticed non-Hebrew servant of all work. In Exodus 21:2; Deuteronomy 15:12, the Hebrew servant is to go out free after serving six years, while in Leviticus he is to serve till the year of jubilee. These apparent discrepancies harmonize in this way, “His servitude would cease at the end of the six years or at the end of the jubilee period, whichever was nearest. For example, a man sold under ordinary circumstances must serve six full years; but a man sold in the forty-sixth, would go out in the fiftieth year of the jubilee period, thus serving less than six years’ time.” — Haley. This is the rabbinic view. We cannot agree with Ewald and others that we have here legal provisions of different dates; that after emancipation in the seventh year had fallen out of use through the avarice of the masters, the later legislation in the interest of the oppressor extended the service to the fiftieth year; “which would indeed,” says Oehler, “have been a very sorry surrogate, since numberless servants did not survive to the year of jubilee.” The first legislation in Exodus harmonizes with the last in Deuteronomy, both limiting the service to six years. Saalschutz, who thinks “this is getting over the difficulty in a superficial way,” harmonizes the discrepancy in these two classes of laws by “the pretty clear intimations contained in them that they treat of entirely different classes of persons.” 1.) Hebrew servants born in a state of servitude. 2.) Impoverished Israelites, free landholders, who are never called servants, but brethren. See verses 39 and 47. These, having sold their lands till the jubilee, are allowed, as a favour to them, to borrow money on the pledge of a long term of service, extending to the jubilee. But in the case of the purchase of a servant already in bondage, on the contrary, his master set his price in view of the requirement to release him at the end of six years. See Bib. Sac., Jan., 1862. 

41. Unto the possession of his fathers — These words afford a key to the difficulty which we have just discussed. The release here spoken of is that which restores the servant to his landed inheritance. This in no way is in conflict with the release of servants occurring every seventh year after their respective terms of six years, a release unattended by the restoration of their ancestral lands.

42. For they are my servants — Their first allegiance is to me. I have the prior claim to their service, which is inconsistent with chattelism. They shall not be sold as bondmen — Literally, “they shall not sell themselves the selling of a servant,” that is, as a servant is sold.

43. Not rule… with rigour — Literally, thou shalt not tread on him. The rabbins specified a variety of duties as coming under these general precepts; as compensation for personal injury, exemption from such menial duties as unbinding the master’s sandals or carrying him on a litter, while he was shielded from serious abusive words. The master was also obliged to maintain the servant’s wife and children, though, if they were free, he could exact no work from them. At the end of his term of service the master was forbidden “to let him go away empty.” Deuteronomy 15:13, 14. Fear thy God — Genuine piety always bears good will towards man as its first fruit. Acts 16:33; Ephesians 6:9.