Discovery BoxLeviticus 25:19-28 
Context25:19 “‘The land will give its fruit and you may eat until you are satisfied, 1 and you may live securely in the land. 25:20 If you say, ‘What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not sow and gather our produce?’ 25:21 I will command my blessing for you in the sixth year so that it may yield 2 the produce 3 for three years, 25:22 and you may sow the eighth year and eat from that sixth year’s produce 4 – old produce. Until you bring in the ninth year’s produce, 5 you may eat old produce. 25:23 The land must not be sold without reclaim 6 because the land belongs to me, for you are foreigners and residents with me. 7 25:24 In all your landed property 8 you must provide for the right of redemption of the land. 9
25:25 “‘If your brother becomes impoverished and sells some of his property, his near redeemer is to come to you and redeem what his brother sold. 10 25:26 If a man has no redeemer, but he prospers 11 and gains enough for its redemption, 12 25:27 he is to calculate the value of the years it was sold, 13 refund the balance 14 to the man to whom he had sold it, and return to his property. 25:28 If he has not prospered enough to refund 15 a balance to him, then what he sold 16 will belong to 17 the one who bought it until the jubilee year, but it must revert 18 in the jubilee and the original owner 19 may return to his property.
1 tn Heb “eat to satisfaction”; KJV, ASV “ye shall eat your fill.”
2 tn Heb “and it [i.e., the land] shall make the produce.” The Hebrew term וְעָשָׂת (vÿ’asat, “and it shall make”) is probably an older third feminine singular form of the verb (GKC 210 §75.m). Smr has the normal form.
3 tn Smr and LXX have “its produce” (cf. 25:3, 7, etc.) rather than “the produce.”
4 tn Heb “the produce,” referring to “the produce” of the sixth year of v. 21. The words “sixth year” are supplied for clarity.
5 tn Heb “until the ninth year, until bringing [in] its produce.”
6 tn The term rendered “without reclaim” means that the land has been bought for the full price and is, therefore, not subject to reclaim under any circumstances. This was not to be done with land in ancient Israel (contrast the final full sale of houses in v. 30; see the evidence cited in B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 174).
7 tn That is, the Israelites were strangers and residents who were attached to the
8 tn Heb “And in all the land of your property.”
9 tn Heb “right of redemption you shall give to the land”; NAB “you must permit the land to be redeemed.”
10 tn Heb “the sale of his brother.”
11 tn Heb “and his hand reaches.”
12 tn Heb “and he finds as sufficiency of its redemption.”
13 tn Heb “and he shall calculate its years of sale.”
14 tn Heb “and return the excess.”
15 tn Heb “And if his hand has not found sufficiency of returning.” Although some versions take this to mean that he has not made enough to regain the land (e.g., NASB, NRSV; see also B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 176), the combination of terms in Hebrew corresponds to the portion of v. 27 that refers specifically to refunding the money (cf. v. 27; see NIV and G. J. Wenham, Leviticus [NICOT], 315).
16 tn Heb “his sale.”
17 tn Heb “will be in the hand of.” This refers to the temporary control of the one who purchased its produce until the next year of jubilee, at which time it would revert to the original owner.
18 tn Heb “it shall go out” (so KJV, ASV; see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 176).
19 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the original owner of the land) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
