The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
Return of Property
Leviticus 25:13–17 — Return of Property. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
13In this Year of Jubilee, each of you shall return to his own property.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
haz·zōṯ biš·naṯ hay·yō·w·ḇêl ’îš tā·šu·ḇū ’el- ’ă·ḥuz·zā·ṯōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
In this the year of the Jubilee, each man shall return unto his holding.
Where the English smooths the original
The original word first occurs in Exodus 19:13 , where it is rendered "trumpet," margin "cornet." It most probably denotes the sound of the cornet, not the cornet itself, and is derived from a root, signifying to flow abundantly, which by a familiar metaphor might be applied to sound.
Inheritances, from whatever cause, and how frequently soever they had been alienated, came back into the hands of the original proprietors. This law of entail, by which the right heir could never be excluded, was a provision of great wisdom for preserving families and tribes perfectly distinct
The liberty every man was born to, if sold or forfeited, should return at the year of jubilee. This was typical of redemption by Christ from the slavery of sin and Satan, and of being brought again to the liberty of the children of God.
this was a special business done at this time, and of great importance; the word "return" being so often used, may serve to confirm the sense of the word "jubilee"Gill weighs the rabbinic reading (the repetition includes gifts, per Bekhorot 8) and then offers his own preferred sense; the excerpt gives that preferred reading.
The Israelites were only tenants of God. They might regard themselves as owners for fifty years, but at the end of every fifty years the land was to come back to him to whom the Lord had assigned it, or to his representative.The Pulpit editors state the chapter's theology of land directly: tenancy under God, not freehold — the human counterpart to the divine claim of v. 23, "the land is Mine."
14If you make a sale to your neighbor or a purchase from him, you must not take advantage of each other.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·ḵî- ṯim·kə·rū mim·kār la·‘ă·mî·ṯe·ḵā ’ōw qā·nōh mî·yaḏ ‘ă·mî·ṯe·ḵā ’al- tō·w·nū ’îš ’eṯ- ’ā·ḥîw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And when you sell a sale to your fellow, or buy from the hand of your fellow — you shall not wrong a man his brother.
Where the English smooths the original
The fact that the phrase which is here translated “one another” in the Authorised Version is varied in the Hebrew in Leviticus 25:17 , where it is likewise rendered “one another,” shows that it is not used in this idiomatic sense, but is designed to denote fellow-brethren, members of the same community, those who are related to each other by race and creed
הונה applies specially to the oppression of foreigners ( Leviticus 19:33 ; Exodus 22:20 ), of slaves ( Deuteronomy 23:17 ), of the poor, widows, and orphans ( Jeremiah 22:3 ; Ezekiel 18:8 ) in civil matters, by overreaching them or taking their property away.
thy neighbour ] An unusual Heb. word (‘ âmîth ), occurring in the H section eleven timesThe bracketed lemma footnote is the Cambridge editors' own apparatus; quoted as their philological note.
Neither the seller by requiring more, nor the buyer by taking the advantage from his brother’s necessities to give him less than the worth of it.
15You are to buy from your neighbor according to the number of years since the last Jubilee; he is to sell to you according to the number of harvest years remaining.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
tiq·neh mê·’êṯ ‘ă·mî·ṯe·ḵā bə·mis·par šā·nîm ’a·ḥar hay·yō·w·ḇêl yim·kār- lāḵ bə·mis·par ṯə·ḇū·’ōṯ šə·nê-
Literal — word-for-word from the original
By the number of years after the Jubilee you shall buy from your fellow; by the number of years of crops he shall sell to you.
Where the English smooths the original
The purchase is in fact not of the soil, but of the expectation of a greater or less number of years’ fruits.
Years of fruits — Years in which, having sowed, they reaped the fruits of the land, in opposition to those years in which they were neither allowed to sow nor reap.
the vendor has to consider how many sabbatical years there will be from the time of the sale till next jubile, since the sale was not so much of the land as of the produce of so many years. Hence the fallow sabbatical years are not to be included.
If the Jubile to come is near, you would be better to sell cheaply. If it is far off, sell at a higher price.The Geneva gloss (note i) reads from the seller's side — the mirror of the buyer's rule in the verse.
16You shall increase the price in proportion to a greater number of years, or decrease it in proportion to a lesser number of years; for he is selling you a given number of harvests.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
tar·beh miq·nā·ṯōw lə·p̄î rōḇ haš·šā·nîm mə·‘ōṭ miq·nā·ṯōw ū·lə·p̄î tam·‘îṭ haš·šā·nîm kî hū mō·ḵêr lāḵ mis·par tə·ḇū·’ōṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
In proportion to the abundance of years you shall increase its price, and in proportion to the fewness of years you shall decrease its price; for a number of crops he is selling to you.
Where the English smooths the original
Better, in proportion to the multitude of years . . . and in proportion to, as the words in the original here are not the same which are used in Leviticus 25:15 and at the end of this verse
The meaning is, he selleth not the land, but only the fruits thereof, and that for a certain time.
for according to the number of the years of the {k} fruits doth he sell unto thee. (k) And not the full possession of the land.Geneva's terse note k states the chapter's thesis: what is sold is fruits, not possession.
More was to be asked and required, and should be given for an estate, when, for instance, there were thirty years to the year of jubilee, than when there were but twenty
17Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God; for I am the LORD your God.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·lō ṯō·w·nū ’îš ’eṯ- ‘ă·mî·ṯōw wə·yā·rê·ṯā mê·’ĕ·lō·he·ḵā kî ’ă·nî Yah·weh ’ĕ·lō·hê·ḵem
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And you shall not wrong a man his fellow; but you shall fear from your God; for I am Yahweh your God.
Where the English smooths the original
the fear of God being before their eyes, and on their hearts, would preserve both buyer and seller from doing an ill thing, when it was in the power of either, through the necessity of the one, or the ignorance of the other
But thou shalt fear thy God —who pleads the cause of the oppressed, and avenges every injustice.
The object of the legislator was, as far as possible, to maintain the original order of families, and an equality of condition among the people.
Overreaching and oppression God would avenge; they were therefore to fear before Him.In the same note (omitted here for length) Keil argues at length against Knobel that vv. 18-22 are not a Jehovist interpolation but cohere with the Jubilee law — the excerpt gives his theological summary, not that source-critical defense.
Summary, together with the guiding motive characteristic of H."H" is the Cambridge editors' siglum for the Holiness Code (Lev 17-26); they read v. 17 as that source's signature pairing of command with the motive "I am the LORD." The siglum is their critical framework, recorded as theirs.
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The unit opens by naming its institution after a noise. The original word for "Jubilee," hayyōwḇêl (H3104), is not a season but a sound — Barnes traces it to a root "signifying to flow abundantly, which by a familiar metaphor might be applied to sound," the note of the cornet that first appears "in Exodus 19:13 , where it is rendered" as "trumpet," margin "cornet" (Barnes, 1834). On the Day of Atonement the horn flows out over the land, and at its blast "each man shall return" — tāšuḇū (H7725), the verb deliberately repeated from v. 10. John Gill catches the weight of that repetition: the word "return" being so often used, he writes, "may serve to confirm the sense of the word" jubilee (Gill, 1746–63). The thing returned is his ’ăḥuzzāṯōw (H272), not "property" in our absolute sense but a holding, a grip granted and guaranteed by God. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown sees the social genius of it: "This law of entail, by which the right heir could never be excluded, was a provision of great wisdom for preserving families and tribes perfectly distinct" (JFB, 1871).
Because the land always reverts, no sale is ever a sale of the ground — only of its yields until the next horn-blast. The Cambridge editors state the principle exactly: "The purchase is in fact not of the soil, but of the expectation of a greater or less number of years' fruits" (Cambridge Bible, 1880s). Hence the arithmetic of vv. 15-16: price rises and falls bəmispar šānîm (H4557 + H8141), "by the number of years," with the fallow sabbatical years struck out, since they are not "years of fruits" — Benson: "Years in which, having sowed, they reaped the fruits of the land, in opposition to those years in which they were neither allowed to sow nor reap" (Benson, 1810s). Ellicott, with a philologist's care, even notes that v. 16 changes the preposition — "in proportion to the multitude of years . . . and in proportion to, as the words in the original here are not the same which are used in Leviticus 25:15" — the verse uses lə-p̄î (H6310), "to the mouth/measure of." Poole reduces the whole to one clean line: "he selleth not the land, but only the fruits thereof, and that for a certain time" (Poole, 1685). The economics are not neutral; they are the shape mercy takes in a deed of sale.
Twice the law forbids the same act with the same word — tōwnū (H3238, Hiphil of yānāh) in v. 14 and again in v. 17 — bracketing the pricing-rule in a single prohibition. The verb is heavier than "take advantage": Keil shows it "applies specially to the oppression of foreigners ( Leviticus 19:33 ; Exodus 22:20 ), of slaves ( Deuteronomy 23:17 ), of the poor, widows, and orphans ( Jeremiah 22:3 ; Ezekiel 18:8 )" (Keil & Delitzsch, 1860s). The persons defrauded are ‘ămîṯeḵā (H5997) — the rare covenant word "fellow," which the Cambridge editors note is "An unusual Heb. word (‘ âmîth ), occurring in the H section eleven times" — and even ’āḥîw (H251), "his brother." What enforces honesty where no court can see? Not penalty but fear: "thou shalt fear thy God —who pleads the cause of the oppressed, and avenges every injustice" (Ellicott, 1878). Gill makes the inwardness explicit: the fear of God "would preserve both buyer and seller from doing an ill thing, when it was in the power of either, through the necessity of the one, or the ignorance of the other" (Gill, 1746–63). The motive clause is the covenant Name itself, ’ănî Yahweh ’ĕlōhêḵem (H3068, H430) — "I am Yahweh your God."
Reading only what the words say, under Sola Scriptura and offered as fallible: the deepest claim of this unit is that God will not let ownership become final. Every fifty years the deed-book is torn up, every grip on land relaxed, every poor man's loss reversed — because the land was never anyone's to keep (v. 23, "the land is Mine"). And so the marketplace is re-described from the ground up: you cannot really sell soil, only the few harvests until the next reset (vv. 15-16), and you may not wrong your fellow in the reckoning (vv. 14, 17). The hinge is not law but the divine Name. Twice the prohibition is given; once it is grounded — "fear your God; for I am Yahweh your God." The same Name that proclaims liberty at the horn-blast (v. 10) signs the rule against fraud, so that fearing God and dealing fairly are one act. The Jubilee is therefore not an economic policy with a religious coating; it is a confession — that no human grip is permanent, that the LORD audits the unwitnessed bargain, and that mercy is meant to be built into the price.
God will not let ownership become final: every fifty years the deed-book is torn up — because the land was never ours to keep. (a fallible synthesis, not Scripture)
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The command "each of you shall return to his own property" in v. 13 repeats v. 10's proclamation almost word for word — the Verifier records the shared anchor yōwbêl (H3104, Jubilee, 25 occurrences in the canon) alongside ’ăḥuzzāh (holding, H272), šûwb (return, H7725) and shâneh (year, H8141). Because this is a restatement within the same chapter rather than a citation across books, the tie is verbal at the lexical level but is better read as internal repetition than as quotation in the strict sense; we tier it verbal on the strength of the rare chapter-keyword yōwbêl, and say so. Gill reads the repetition as deliberate, not redundant: "the word 'return' being so often used, may serve to confirm the sense of the word 'jubilee.'" The unit anchors itself in the foregoing Jubilee statute.
Leviticus 25:10 · Leviticus 25:13
basis: Verifier-shared lexemes incl. the rare chapter-keyword H3104 yôwbêl (25 vv), with H272 ʼăchuzzâh, H7725 shûwb, H8141 shâneh — INTERNAL restatement of v. 10 within Lev 25, not a cross-book citation; the verbal tier rests on yôwbêl's rarity
Leviticus 25:25 supplies the mechanism that the Jubilee guarantees as a backstop: if a man grows poor and sells his ’ăḥuzzāh (H272, holding — the only shared lexeme the Verifier finds, freq. 58), his nearest kinsman may redeem it. The bond is thematic, not a quotation: both verses turn on the inalienable family holding, one by relative's redemption, the other by the horn-blast. The go'el of v. 25 and the Jubilee of v. 13 are the two arms of one promise — no Israelite is permanently cut off from his land.
Leviticus 25:13 · Leviticus 25:25
basis: single Verifier-shared lexeme H272 ʼăchuzzâh (58 vv) — common, not rare; the link is the shared institution of the inalienable holding, not a verbal citation, so tiered thematic
The prohibition tōwnū (oppress) against the ‘āmîṯ (fellow) ties this unit into the Holiness Code's web of neighbor-law. The Verifier links it to Leviticus 19:11, 19:15, 19:17, 24:19, 6:2 and 18:20 — every one sharing the rare ‘āmîyth (H5997, only ten occurrences in the whole Bible). The shared rare lexeme makes the verbal connection secure; Cambridge confirms "An unusual Heb. word (‘ âmîth ), occurring in the H section eleven times." These are not separate rules but one ethic of the fellow-Israelite, spoken in the same vocabulary.
Leviticus 25:14 · Leviticus 25:17 · Leviticus 19:11 · Leviticus 19:17 · Leviticus 6:2 · Leviticus 24:19
basis: Verifier-shared RARE lexeme H5997 ʻâmîyth (only 10 vv in the canon) across the Holiness Code neighbor-laws — rarity yields a confirmed verbal link
Outside Leviticus the rare word ‘āmîth (H5997) surfaces only once — Zechariah 13:7, "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is My fellow." The Verifier confirms the shared rare lexeme (10 occurrences). The link is genuinely verbal at the level of the lemma, yet the contexts diverge sharply: Leviticus governs honest trade among equals, Zechariah names the smitten shepherd. We record the shared lexeme as the basis but flag the leap in sense — the word travels; the setting does not.
Leviticus 25:14 · Zechariah 13:7
basis: Verifier-shared RARE lexeme H5997 ʻâmîyth (10 vv; the sole occurrence outside Leviticus). Verbal at the lemma level; note the contextual divergence (commerce vs. the smitten shepherd) — claim limited to the shared word
The rule that price tracks the years-of-crops until Jubilee reappears in Leviticus 25:50, where a redeemed slave's price is reckoned "according to the years" to the Jubilee. The Verifier finds shared yōwbêl (H3104, 25 vv) with shâneh (year, H8141). Same accounting, different object — land in vv. 15-16, a person in 25:50 — so the connection is structural: the Jubilee is the universal reckoning-point for every contract, whether of field or of freedom.
Leviticus 25:15 · Leviticus 25:16 · Leviticus 25:50
basis: Verifier-shared H3104 yôwbêl (25 vv) + H8141 shâneh — shared pricing-by-years pattern; not a quotation, tiered structural
John Gill himself reaches for the New Testament on this verse, citing 1 Thessalonians 4:6 — "that no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such." The thought is identical: do not overreach your brother, for God avenges. But the Verifier finds no shared original-language lexeme — and it cannot, since this is a Greek-to-Hebrew link where Strong's numbers do not carry across. The connection is real but must be argued thematically, not asserted verbally; we flag it for that reason.
Leviticus 25:17 · 1 Thessalonians 4:6
basis: cross-Testament (Greek↔Hebrew): no shared Strong's possible; Verifier returns no indexed overlap. Thematic parallel (defrauding a brother; God the avenger) drawn by Gill — flagged as an argued, not verbal, link
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
The horn-blast of liberty (yōwbêl, v. 13) became, in later prophecy and in Jesus' own mouth, the figure of His mission. At Nazareth He read Isaiah 61 and stopped at "to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD" (Luke 4:18-21), the Jubilee-language of release for captives and return of the dispossessed — "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." Matthew Henry already reads Leviticus 25 this way: the Jubilee liberty "was typical of redemption by Christ from the slavery of sin and Satan, and of being brought again to the liberty of the children of God" (Henry, 1706). We mark this typology ancient/widely-held; the link is figural, not verbal — Greek and Hebrew share no Strong's number, and the connection rests on the Jubilee motif Jesus claims, not on a lexical citation.
Leviticus 25:13 · Luke 4:18 · Isaiah 61:1
The Jubilee's social work — keeping "families and tribes perfectly distinct, and their genealogies faithfully recorded" (JFB, 1871) — Jamieson-Fausset-Brown reads christologically: "Hence the tribe and family of Christ were readily discovered at his birth." The very statute that returned each man to his holding kept Judah and the house of David intact across the centuries until the genealogies of Matthew 1 and Luke 3 could be drawn. This is a providential, not a lexical, connection; we tier it widely-held among the older commentators, offered as their reading and ours under it, fallibly.
Leviticus 25:13 · Luke 3:23
The Jubilee guaranteed that no Israelite's ’ăḥuzzāh (holding) was finally lost — and where it had been sold, the kinsman-redeemer (go'el, 25:25) could buy it back. The New Testament names Christ as the Redeemer who buys back a forfeited inheritance not in land but in persons "with His own blood" (cf. Hebrews 9:12, 15; 1 Peter 1:18-19), securing "an inheritance incorruptible." This is a novel synthesis joining the Levitical redemption-and-return structure to the apostolic language of redemption; we mark it novel rather than ancient, and a figural reading to be tested — there is no shared lexeme, only the shared shape of a holding lost and bought back.
Leviticus 25:13 · Leviticus 25:25 · Hebrews 9:15
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
On the verbal links. The strongest threads in this unit rest on a genuinely rare word: ‘āmîyth (H5997, "fellow") occurs only ten times in the entire Hebrew Bible, so the Holiness-Code neighbor-laws (Lev 19; 24:19; 6:2; 18:20) and Zechariah 13:7 are joined to vv. 14/17 by a confirmed verbal tie, not a coincidence of common vocabulary. By contrast the ’ăḥuzzāh (H272, 58 vv) and shâneh (H8141, 646 vv) links are common words; those threads are tiered structural, resting on shared institution rather than shared phrasing. On the Zechariah caution. The lemma is shared, but the sense is not — Leviticus regulates fair trade, Zechariah names the smitten shepherd; the claim is restricted to the word itself. On the cross-Testament links. Every connection to the Greek New Testament (Luke 4, 1 Thess 4:6, Hebrews) has no shared Strong's number — Greek and Hebrew indices do not overlap — so none is tiered "verbal." The 1 Thessalonians 4:6 parallel is Gill's own (he cites it on v. 17); we carry it as flagged, an argued thematic link. On translation honesty. The Berean parses are followed throughout; where this synthesis presses a sense (e.g. "holding" for ’ăḥuzzāh, "fear FROM your God" for the preposition mê-), it is to expose the Hebrew, never to contradict the sourced gloss. The grand-commentary's sola reading and pull-quote are the tool's own fallible synthesis (⚙), marked as such and offered to be tested against the Word.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)