The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
The Law of Redemption
Leviticus 25:23–34 — The Law of Redemption. 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.
23The land must not be sold permanently, because it is Mine, and you are but foreigners and residents with Me.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·hā·’ā·reṣ lō ṯim·mā·ḵêr liṣ·mi·ṯuṯ kî- hā·’ā·reṣ lî kî- ’at·tem ḡê·rîm wə·ṯō·wō·šā·ḇîm ‘im·mā·ḏî
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And the land shall not be sold to cutting-off, for the land [is] Mine; for strangers and sojourners [are] you with Me.
Where the English smooths the original
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.
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 ( Exodus 15:17 ; Isaiah 14:2 ; Isaiah 14:25 ; Jeremiah 2:5 ; Psalm 10:16 ), and as the Lord of the soil He prescribes conditions on which he allotted it to the different tribes of Israel.
the land shall not be sold לצמיתת" (lit., to annihilation), i.e., so as to vanish away from, or be for ever lost to, the seller. For "the land belongs to Jehovah:" the Israelites, to whom He would give it ( Leviticus 25:2 ), were not actual owners or full possessors, so that they could do what they pleased with it, but "strangers and sojourners with Jehovah" in His land.
in each generation the people might feel themselves to be his tenants, not independent owners, possessores , not domini.
24Thus for every piece of property you possess, you must provide for the redemption of the land.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ū·ḇə·ḵōl ’e·reṣ ’ă·ḥuz·zaṯ·ḵem tit·tə·nū gə·’ul·lāh lā·’ā·reṣ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And in all the land of your holding a redemption you shall grant to the land.
Where the English smooths the original
Being simply tenants at will, and having obtained possession of it on such terms, the land is not even to remain with the purchaser till the year of jubile, but the buyer is to grant every opportunity to the seller to redeem it before that time.
You shall sell it on the condition that it may be redeemed.
Grant a redemption for the land - i. e. grant power to recover the land to the original holder who had parted with it.
25If your brother becomes impoverished and sells some of his property, his nearest of kin may come and redeem what his brother has sold.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kî- ’ā·ḥî·ḵā yā·mūḵ ū·mā·ḵar mê·’ă·ḥuz·zā·ṯōw haq·qā·rōḇ ’ê·lāw ḡō·’ă·lōw ū·ḇā wə·ḡā·’al ’êṯ ’ā·ḥîw mim·kar
Literal — word-for-word from the original
If your brother grows poor and sells some of his holding, then shall come his redeemer, the [one] near to him, and shall redeem what his brother sold.
Where the English smooths the original
The expression “redeemer” is applied in Hebrew to one who, by virtue of being the nearest of kin, had not only to redeem the patrimony of the family, but to marry the childless widow of his brother ( Ruth 3:13 ), and avenge the blood of his relative ( Numbers 35:19-28 ; Deuteronomy 19:6-12 ).
if the redeemer come, being near akin to him , to whom the right of redemption belonged, Ruth 3:2 ,9,12 Jer 32:7 , who in this act was an eminent type of Christ, who was made near akin to us by taking our flesh, that he might perform the work of redemption for us.
For the important term Gô’çl , here rendered ‘kinsman,’ lit. vindicator , cp. Jeremiah 32:8 ff.; Ruth 4:1 ff., and Art. Goel in HDB.
such an one was an emblem of our "goel", our near kinsman and Redeemer the Lord Jesus Christ, who came in our nature into this world to redeem us, and put us into the possession of the heavenly inheritance; nor was it in the power of any to hinder his performance of it, for he is the mighty God, the Lord of Hosts is his name.
The Israelites never parted with their land except under the pressure of poverty. Compare the answer of Naboth, 1 Kings 21:3 .
26Or if a man has no one to redeem it for him, but he prospers and acquires enough to redeem his land,
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kî wə·’îš yih·yeh- lō gō·’êl lōw wə·hiś·śî·ḡāh yā·ḏōw ū·mā·ṣā kə·ḏê ḡə·’ul·lā·ṯōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And [if] a man has no redeemer, but his hand reaches and he finds enough for his redemption,
Where the English smooths the original
after he was compelled, by stress of poverty, to sell the property he has become prosperous, so as to be able to redeem it himself; though not distinctly expressed, it is implied that under these altered circumstances he is obliged to redeem his patrimony himself. According to the canonical law, however, he must not borrow money to redeem it.
by one providence or another, by the blessing of God on his trade and business, is become rich, and it is in the power of his hand to redeem the possession he had sold, he might do it; but, as the same writer observes, he might not borrow and redeem, but must do it with what he had got of his own since the time of sale, and which is also the sense of othersExcerpt ends before Gill's parenthetical footnote citation; the quoted span is one continuous run of his sentence.
The second case ( Leviticus 25:26 , Leviticus 25:27 ) was this: if any one had no redeemer, either because there were no relatives upon whom the obligation rested, or because they were all too poor, and he had earned and acquired sufficient to redeem it, he was to calculate the years of purchase, and return the surplus to the man who had bought it, i.e., as much as he had paid for the years that still remained up to the next year of jubilee, that so he might come into possession of it again.
27he shall calculate the years since its sale, repay the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and return to his property.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·ḥiš·šaḇ ’eṯ- šə·nê mim·kā·rōw wə·hê·šîḇ ’eṯ- hā·‘ō·ḏêp̄ lā·’îš lōw ’ă·šer mā·ḵar- wə·šāḇ la·’ă·ḥuz·zā·ṯōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
then he shall reckon the years of its sale and return the surplus to the man to whom he sold it, and shall return to his holding.
Where the English smooths the original
To regulate the price of the redemption money the crops were valued which the purchaser had enjoyed since he had acquired the property. This was deducted from what he originally paid for the plot of land, and the difference was returned to him by the vendor, to whom the patrimony reverted.
Deducting money for the years past, and paying for the rest of the years to come.
the overplus ] i.e. a proportion of the original price obtained, corresponding to the number of years which were still to intervene between the redemption and the next Jubile year.
28But if he cannot obtain enough to repay him, what he sold will remain in possession of the buyer until the Year of Jubilee. In the Jubilee, however, it is to be released, so that he may return to his property.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’im lō- mā·ṣə·’āh yā·ḏōw dê hā·šîḇ lōw mim·kā·rōw wə·hā·yāh bə·yaḏ haq·qō·neh ’ō·ṯōw ‘aḏ šə·naṯ hay·yō·w·ḇêl bay·yō·ḇêl wə·yā·ṣā wə·šāḇ la·’ă·ḥuz·zā·ṯōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
But if his hand has not found enough to repay him, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of the Jubilee; and in the Jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return to his holding.
Where the English smooths the original
if a man had not earned as much as was required to make compensation for the recovery of the land, what he had sold was to remain in the possession of the buyer till the year of jubilee, and then it was to "go out," i.e., to become free again, so that the impoverished seller could enter into possession without compensation.
It shall go out - i. e. it shall be set free.
The design of this law was to secure to each family a permanent interest in the soil, and to prevent the accumulation of land on the part of the greedy few who are ever anxious to join field unto field, thus precluding the existence of landless beggars and too extensive landed proprietors.
If the land were not redeemed before the year of jubilee, it then returned to him that sold or mortgaged it. This was a figure of the free grace of God in Christ; by which, and not by any price or merit of our own, we are restored to the favour of God.Henry comments on the whole block 25:23-34 at once; we place his free-grace reading at v. 28, the verse where the Jubilee releases the land for nothing. Excerpt is the opening run of that single block-note, verbatim.
29If a man sells a house in a walled city, he retains his right of redemption until a full year after its sale; during that year it may be redeemed.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kî- wə·’îš yim·kōr bêṯ- mō·wō·šaḇ ḥō·w·māh ‘îr wə·hā·yə·ṯāh gə·’ul·lā·ṯōw ‘aḏ- tōm šə·naṯ mim·kā·rōw yā·mîm tih·yeh ḡə·’ul·lā·ṯōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And if a man sells a dwelling-house [in] a city of wall, then his right of redemption shall be until the completion of the year of its sale; days shall his redemption be.
Where the English smooths the original
These are not the creation of God (see Leviticus 25:23 ), allotted by His command to the different tribes of Israel; they are the work of man, who build them up and raze them to the ground at their own will, and according to their fancy. Hence the law of jubile does not apply to these temporary human buildings.
There was no danger of confusion in tribes or families by the final alienation of houses in cities, as tribes and families were not distinguished by them as they were by those in the country that were annexed to their lands, and therefore to be considered as a part of their inheritance.
ימים, "days (i.e., a definite period) shall its redemption be;" that is to say, the right of redemption or repurchase should be retained.
30If it is not redeemed by the end of a full year, then the house in the walled city is permanently transferred to its buyer and his descendants. It is not to be released in the Jubilee.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’im lō- yig·gā·’êl ‘aḏ- mə·lōṯ lōw ṯə·mî·māh wə·qām šā·nāh hab·ba·yiṯ ’ă·šer- ḥō·māh bā·‘îr ’ă·šer- lō laṣ·ṣə·mî·ṯuṯ laq·qō·neh ’ō·ṯōw lə·ḏō·rō·ṯāw lō yê·ṣê bay·yō·ḇêl
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And if it is not redeemed until the filling-out of a complete year for it, then the house that is in the city which has the wall shall stand to its buyer throughout his generations; it shall not go out in the Jubilee.
Where the English smooths the original
If it was not redeemed within the year, it remained to the buyer for ever for his descendants, and did not go out free in the year of jubilee. קם to arise for a possession, i.e., to become a fixed standing possession, as in Genesis 23:17 .
the phrase “full year” is here used for the benefit of the seller, inasmuch as it gives him the advantage of an intercalary year, when he has an additional month, up to the last day of which he could still effect the redemption.
Not go out - Because most of the houses in cities were occupied by artificers and traders whose wealth did not consist in lands.
31But houses in villages with no walls around them are to be considered as open fields. They may be redeemed, and they shall be released in the Jubilee.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ū·ḇāt·tê ha·ḥă·ṣê·rîm ’ă·šer ’ên- lā·hem ḥō·māh sā·ḇîḇ ‘al- yê·ḥā·šêḇ śə·ḏêh hā·’ā·reṣ gə·’ul·lāh tih·yeh- lōw yê·ṣê ū·ḇay·yō·ḇêl
Literal — word-for-word from the original
But the houses of the villages which have no wall around them, upon the field of the land they shall be reckoned; redemption shall be for it, and in the Jubilee it shall go out.
Where the English smooths the original
Houses in villages, however, form an exception. They are part of the landed property, and hence, like the cultivated land on which they are erected, are subject to the law of jubile.
there was a difference between the houses of villages (which, being connected with agriculture, were treated as parts of the land) and houses possessed by trading people or foreigners in walled towns, which could only be redeemed within the year after the sale; if not then redeemed, these did not revert to the former owner at the Jubilee.
Such houses as these were to be reckoned as part of the land, and to be treated as landed property, with regard to redemption and restoration at the year of jubilee.
32As for the cities of the Levites, the Levites always have the right to redeem their houses in the cities they possess.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·‘ā·rê hal·wî·yim lal·wî·yim ‘ō·w·lām tih·yeh gə·’ul·laṯ bāt·tê ‘ā·rê ’ă·ḥuz·zā·ṯām
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And [as for] the cities of the Levites, [their] houses [in] the cities of their holding — a perpetual right of redemption shall belong to the Levites.
Where the English smooths the original
The Levites, having no possessions but their towns and their houses, the law conferred on them the same privileges that were granted to the lands of the other Israelites. A certain portion of the lands surrounding the Levitical cities was appropriated to them for the pasturage of their cattle and flocks (Nu 35:4, 5). This was a permanent endowment for the support of the ministry and could not be alienated for any time.
so far as the Levitical towns, viz., the houses of the Levites in the towns belonging to them, were concerned, there was to be eternal redemption for the Levites; that is to say, when they were parted with, the right of repurchase was never lost. עולם (eternal) is to be understood as a contrast to the year allowed in the case of other houses ( Leviticus 25:29 , Leviticus 25:30 ).
Having the same value to the Levites as landed property has to the other tribes, these houses are to be subject to the jubile laws for fields, and hence may be redeemed at any time.
The purchaser of a Levite's house was in fact only in the condition of a tenant at will, while the fields attached to the Levitical cities could never be alienated, even for a time.
33So whatever belongs to the Levites may be redeemed—a house sold in a city they possess—and must be released in the Jubilee, because the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the Israelites.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wa·’ă·šer min- hal·wî·yim yiḡ·’al ba·yiṯ mim·kar- wə·‘îr ’ă·ḥuz·zā·ṯōw wə·yā·ṣā bay·yō·ḇêl kî ḇāt·tê hî ‘ā·rê hal·wî·yim ’ă·ḥuz·zā·ṯām bə·ṯō·wḵ bə·nê yiś·rā·’êl
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And whoever redeems from the Levites — the house sold, [in] the city of his holding, shall go out in the Jubilee; for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their holding among the sons of Israel.
Where the English smooths the original
It seems best therefore to suppose that the ‘not’ which the Vulg. supplies (see R.V. mg.) has dropped out of the original text. The sense will then be, If one of the Levites does not redeem, then the house which he has sold will at any rate return into his possession at the Jubile.
The difficulty connected with the first clause is removed, if we understand the word גּאל (to redeem, i.e., to buy back), as the Rabbins do, in the sense of קנה to buy, acquire.
in case none of them redeem it, yet the house that was sold, and the city of his possession, i.e. his share or interest in the city of his possession, shall go out and return to the Levites without any redemption.
34But the open pastureland around their cities may not be sold, for this is their permanent possession.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ū·śə·ḏêh miḡ·raš ‘ā·rê·hem lō yim·mā·ḵêr kî- hū lā·hem ‘ō·w·lām ’ă·ḥuz·zaṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
But the field of the pastureland of their cities may not be sold, for it [is] to them a perpetual holding.
Where the English smooths the original
The estates belong to the whole tribe to all futurity, and the present occupiers have to transmit them intact to their successors. Hence no present owner, or all of them combined, have a right to dispose of any portion of the estates, or materially to alter it.
partly, because it was of absolute necessity for them for the keeping of their cattle, and partly because these were no enclosures, but common fields, in which all the Levites that lived in such a city had an interest, and therefore no particular Levite could dispose of his part in it.
rather, as R.V. mg., pasture lands , probably referring to common land belonging to the inhabitants of the adjacent city. The original word seems from its derivation to mean lit. land on to which cattle were driven .
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's first word, after a fronted subject, is a prohibition built in the passive: lō ṯimmāḵêr (H4376), "it shall not be sold" — and the disqualifying adverb is the most violent in the chapter, liṣmiṯuṯ (H6783), which Keil & Delitzsch render "lit., to annihilation" (Keil & Delitzsch, 1860s). To sell the land outright is to cut the family off from existence on its soil. The ground of the ban is a verbless clause of pure ownership, "the land [is] Mine" — what the Pulpit Commentary calls "its inculcation of the lesson of the proprietorship of the Lord," so that Israel are "his tenants, not independent owners, possessores, not domini" (Pulpit Commentary, 1880s). The verdict on Israel's status — gêrîm wəṯōwšāḇîm, "strangers and sojourners" — sounds like sentence of homelessness until the last word turns it inside out. Maclaren hears it: "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" (Maclaren, c. 1905). Out of this ownership flows the positive command of v. 24: throughout all the land they must give a gə’ullāh (H1353) — a redemption-right — to the soil itself; Geneva states the principle plainly: "You shall sell it on the condition that it may be redeemed" (Geneva Study Bible, 1599).
Keil & Delitzsch lay out the architecture: "There were three ways in which this could be done" (Keil & Delitzsch, 1860s). First (v. 25), when a brother "grows poor" — yāmūḵ (H4134), a verb Cambridge notes is "almost confined to this ch." (Cambridge Bible, 1880s) — his gō’êl (H1350), "the redeemer that is nearest to him," comes and buys back the field. This is the title around which the whole biblical doctrine of redemption is built; Cambridge gives the literal force, "vindicator," cross-referencing Ruth 4 and Jeremiah 32 (Cambridge Bible, 1880s). Second (vv. 26-27), if there is no redeemer but "his hand reaches" prosperity (the Hebrew idiom the BSB smooths to "he prospers"), the man redeems himself, reckoning — wəḥiššaḇ (H2803) — the years and refunding the buyer only "the overplus," hā‘ōḏêp̄ (H5736), the value of harvests not yet enjoyed (Cambridge: "a proportion of the original price ... corresponding to the number of years which were still to intervene," 1880s). Third (v. 28), if his hand finds nothing, the Jubilee itself releases the land for free: it shall "go out," yāṣā (H3318), which Barnes glosses, "it shall be set free" (Barnes, 1834). The economic upshot, says Keil & Delitzsch, is that "every purchase of land became simply a lease for a term of years" (1860s) — and Ellicott reads the social design behind it: "to prevent the accumulation of land on the part of the greedy few who are ever anxious to join field unto field" (Ellicott, 1878).
The law now distinguishes what God gave from what man built. A house in a ḥōwmāh-walled city (H2346) is, in Ellicott's words, "the work of man ... Hence the law of jubile does not apply to these temporary human buildings" (Ellicott, 1878). Its redemption window is one ṯᵊmîmāh year (H8549, "complete," the sacrificial word for "unblemished"); after that it stands — wəqām (H6965) — as a permanent possession, which Keil & Delitzsch tie to Abraham's irrevocable purchase of Machpelah, "as in Genesis 23:17" (1860s). Here alone the ṣᵊmîṯuṯ forbidden in v. 23 is permitted (v. 30). But the village house with no wall is "reckoned" — yêḥāšêḇ (H2803) — as field, and so keeps the land's mercy (v. 31). The Levites are the climactic exception: having "no possessions but their towns and their houses" (Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, 1871), their redemption-right is made ‘ōwlām (H5769), "eternal ... to be understood as a contrast to the year allowed in the case of other houses" (Keil & Delitzsch, 1860s). And the common pasture-belt — miḡraš (H4054), "land on to which cattle were driven" (Cambridge, 1880s) — "may not be sold" at all, closing the unit on the same passive verb that opened it (v. 23 / v. 34). The verse 33 crux is left honestly open: the Hebrew, Cambridge admits, "presents great difficulty as it stands," and the versions split over whether a negative has dropped out (Cambridge Bible, 1880s; cf. Keil & Delitzsch's rabbinic reading of gâʼal as "to buy, acquire").
Read under Sola Scriptura, this law is the Old Testament's deepest economic confession: no one owns the ground. The rare word liṣmiṯuṯ — "to cutting-off" — names the one thing forbidden: turning a temporary stewardship into an absolute, perpetual title that severs a family from its inheritance for ever. Against that, God installs a permanent escape clause in every deed: a gə’ullāh, a redemption-right that can never be bought out, and a horn-blast year that resets the whole board. The mechanism rests on a single relationship: the gō’êl, the near-kinsman who has both the right and the obligation to buy back what poverty stole. Three layers of grace stack up — the kinsman redeems, or the man redeems himself, or, failing both, the Jubilee redeems for free. The text refuses to let human destitution be final, because the destitute man is a brother and the land is God's. The Levites — the ministers, the landless tribe — are guarded most fiercely of all, their possession made ‘ōwlām, eternal. The whole structure is a rehearsal: a people who are themselves "strangers and sojourners with Me" learning that the loss of an inheritance is never the last word where there is a Redeemer near of kin. This is a fallible reading, offered to be tested against the text.
Not one Israelite owned the soil he stood on — which is exactly why no Israelite could ever finally lose it. (an interpretive line, not Scripture)
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The kinsman-redeemer of v. 25 — gō’êl (H1350) acting to redeem (gâʼal) what a brother sold — is the precise office dramatized at the gate of Bethlehem, where the nearer redeemer declines and Boaz takes up the gᵉʼullâh (H1353). We are careful about which word anchors which verse: the Verifier ties Lev 25:25 to Ruth 4:6 on the redeemer-verb gâʼal (H1350, 84 vv); the genuinely rare redemption-noun gᵉʼullâh (H1353, only 13 vv in the whole canon) sits not in v. 25 but in the unit's other verses (vv. 24, 26, 31), and it is that rare noun the Verifier finds shared with Ruth 4:6-7 (e.g. Lev 25:26 → Ruth 4:6 shares both gâʼal and gᵉʼullâh). Because Ruth narrates the very statute rather than quoting it, and the link rests on shared institution-vocabulary rather than a citation formula, we tier it structural/thematic — strong on the rarity of gᵉʼullâh across the unit, but not a quotation. Ellicott already reads the connection: the redeemer's office included redeeming "the patrimony of the family" and marrying "the childless widow of his brother (Ruth 3:13)" (Ellicott, 1878).
Leviticus 25:25 · Leviticus 25:26 · Ruth 4:6 · Ruth 4:7
basis: Verifier: Lev 25:25 ↔ Ruth 4:6 shares H1350 gâʼal (84 vv); the rare H1353 gᵉʼullâh (13 vv) is shared at the unit level (Lev 25:24/26/31 ↔ Ruth 4:6-7), NOT in v. 25 itself. Ruth 4 enacts the Levitical redemption statute rather than citing it — shared institution-vocabulary, strong on gᵉʼullâh's rarity, but not a quotation
When Jeremiah's cousin Hanamel comes saying "the right of redemption is yours," the prophet is exercising the very gᵉʼullâh (H1353) granted in Lev 25:24. The Verifier ties Lev 25:24 directly to Jeremiah 32:7 on that single rare anchor — gᵉʼullâh (H1353, 13 vv) — the redemption-noun that the chapter installs in every Israelite deed; the link to Jer 32:8 rests only on the common conjunction H3588 kîy, so the strength of the whole tie is carried by the rare noun at v. 7. The Pulpit Commentary and Cambridge both cross-reference Jeremiah 32 here as the Law's own outworking (Pulpit Commentary, 1880s; Cambridge Bible, 1880s). We tier it structural/thematic: the verbal core is the same rare redemption-term, but the tie is the shared institution of kinsman-redemption, not a citation formula. Matthew Poole notes the very chain: the redeemer's right "to whom the right of redemption belonged, Ruth 3:2,9,12 Jer 32:7" (Poole, 1685).
Leviticus 25:24 · Leviticus 25:25 · Jeremiah 32:7 · Jeremiah 32:8
basis: Verifier: Lev 25:24 ↔ Jer 32:7 shares the rare H1353 gᵉʼullâh (13 vv); Lev 25:25 ↔ Jer 32:8 shares only H3588 kîy (3910 vv). Jeremiah 32 exercises the Levitical redemption-right rather than quoting the text — shared institution-vocabulary, not a citation
The verdict of v. 23 — Israel are gêrîm wəṯōwšāḇîm, "strangers and sojourners" before God — becomes the believer's own confession. The Verifier joins Lev 25:23 to Psalm 39:12 and to David's prayer in 1 Chronicles 29:15 on the doublet gêr (H1616, 83 vv) and the rare tôwshâb (H8453, only 13 vv), the same pairing that names the landless tenure of every mortal before the eternal Owner. Because tôwshâb is rare and the two words travel together as a fixed phrase, this is a strong verbal-thematic tie; we tier it structural/thematic since it is shared idiom across the canon, not a quotation of Leviticus. Maclaren turns the whole sermon on this echo: "It is a universal truth ... 'Ye are strangers and sojourners' — pilgrims who make a brief halt in a foreign country" (Maclaren, c. 1905).
Leviticus 25:23 · Psalm 39:12 · 1 Chronicles 29:15
basis: Verifier-shared fixed doublet H1616 gêr (83 vv) + the rare H8453 tôwshâb (13 vv); the phrase recurs as canon-wide idiom for human tenure before God, not as a citation of Lev 25:23
This pericope deliberately resumes the earlier sale-rules of the chapter and looks ahead to the redemption of persons. The Verifier ties Lev 25:25 to v. 14 and v. 50 on a cluster that includes the genuinely rare noun mimkâr (H4465, "the thing sold," only 10 vv in the canon) together with mâkar (H4376, sell) and (with v. 14) ’âch (H251, brother) — and on that rare-lexeme basis the Verifier returns the tier "verbal / quotation — confirmed." We adopt that tier honestly, but with a sharp qualifier: this is not a citation across books; it is the chapter quoting itself, the same legislator resuming his own sale-and-redemption clauses (the link to vv. 48-50 adds the redemption verbs gâʼal (H1350) and the rare gᵉʼullâh (H1353)). Keil & Delitzsch read it exactly so: "What was already implied in the laws relating to the purchase and sale of the year's produce (Leviticus 25:15, 16) ... is here clearly expressed" (Keil & Delitzsch, 1860s). The redemption of land (vv. 25-28) is thereby made the verbal template for the redemption of the enslaved brother (vv. 47-55).
Leviticus 25:25 · Leviticus 25:14 · Leviticus 25:48 · Leviticus 25:50
basis: Verifier returns 'verbal / quotation — confirmed' for Lev 25:25 ↔ 25:14 and ↔ 25:50 on the rare H4465 mimkâr (10 vv) with H4376 mâkar (+ H251 ʼâch at v. 14); vv. 48-50 add H1350 gâʼal and rare H1353 gᵉʼullâh (13 vv). Rare-lexeme verbal tie — but INTERNAL self-resumption within Lev 25, the same law restated, NOT a cross-book citation
The unit closes (v. 34) declaring the Levites' pasture an ‘ōwlām holding that "may not be sold"; the dedication-laws of Lev 27 echo the same logic of land that reverts to its rightful holder at the Jubilee. The Verifier links Lev 25:34 to Lev 27:24 on ʼăchuzzâh (H272, holding, 58 vv) and sâdeh (H7704, field, 309 vv). These are common words, so we tier this structural/thematic on the strength of the shared institution — the inalienable, Jubilee-governed field — rather than on rare phrasing. Ellicott draws out the principle the two texts share: "The estates belong to the whole tribe to all futurity, and the present occupiers have to transmit them intact to their successors" (Ellicott, 1878).
Leviticus 25:34 · Leviticus 27:24
basis: Verifier-shared common lexemes H272 ʼăchuzzâh (58 vv) and H7704 sâdeh (309 vv); tie rests on the shared Jubilee/inalienable-field institution, NOT on rare phrasing — tiered structural, not verbal
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
The gō’êl of v. 25 — the kinsman with both the right and the duty to buy back what poverty lost — is read by the Reformation commentators as the law's clearest figure of Christ. Two conditions had to meet in the redeemer: he must be near of kin, and he must be able. Matthew Poole fastens on the first: this redeemer "in this act was an eminent type of Christ, who was made near akin to us by taking our flesh, that he might perform the work of redemption for us" (Poole, 1685). John Gill names the office and then presses the second, the redeemer's unstoppable power: "such an one was an emblem of our 'goel', our near kinsman and Redeemer the Lord Jesus Christ, who came in our nature into this world to redeem us, and put us into the possession of the heavenly inheritance; nor was it in the power of any to hinder his performance of it, for he is the mighty God, the Lord of Hosts is his name" (Gill, 1746-63). The New Testament confesses the same in its own tongue — "in Him we have redemption through His blood" (Eph 1:7; cf. Heb 2:11-15, where He is "not ashamed to call them brothers" precisely because He shares their flesh and blood). The link is typological, not verbal: the Verifier returns no shared Strong's number between the Hebrew gō’êl and the Greek of Hebrews or Ephesians (Greek and Hebrew cannot share one), so this rests on the kinsman-redemption pattern, not on lexical citation. The reading is ancient and widely held.
Leviticus 25:25 · Ephesians 1:7 · Hebrews 2:14
The third case (v. 28) — when the poor man's hand finds nothing, the land "goes out" free at the Jubilee — Matthew Henry reads as the gospel itself: "This was a figure of the free grace of God in Christ; by which, and not by any price or merit of our own, we are restored to the favour of God" (Henry, 1706). The restoration costs the dispossessed nothing; it depends entirely on the appointed year of release, which Jesus claimed at Nazareth as fulfilled in Himself ("to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD," Luke 4:18-21, Jubilee language from Isaiah 61). The typology is figural rather than verbal — no shared Strong's number across the Testaments — and rests on the Jubilee motif of unbought release, which Jesus appropriates. Widely held in the tradition.
Leviticus 25:28 · Luke 4:18 · Isaiah 61:1
The confession of v. 23 — "strangers and sojourners with Me" — is taken up in the New Testament as the posture of faith: the patriarchs "confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth" and "looked for a city ... whose builder and maker is God" (Heb 11:13-16; cf. 1 Pet 2:11). Maclaren reads Leviticus 25:23 straight into this hope: the believer is a stranger "because your native land is elsewhere ... we 'dwell in tabernacles' because 'we look for the city'" (Maclaren, c. 1905). The connection is structural/thematic, not verbal — the Verifier finds no shared original-language lexeme between the Hebrew and the Greek, so the tie must be argued from the shared pilgrim-tenant motif, not asserted as quotation. The reading is ancient and widely held, though it is the New Testament's own development of the Levitical phrase rather than a strict citation.
Leviticus 25:23 · Hebrews 11:13 · 1 Peter 2:11
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 strong words. Three genuinely rare lexemes carry the weight of this unit. gᵉʼullâh (H1353, "redemption") occurs in only 13 verses in the entire Hebrew Bible, and several of them cluster in this chapter (vv. 24, 26, 29, 31, 32) and in Ruth 4 and Jeremiah 32 — so the threads to those passages rest on a real verbal anchor, not coincidence, though we tier them structural/thematic because they share an institution rather than a citation. We are precise about placement: gᵉʼullâh does not stand in v. 25 itself, so the Ruth and Jeremiah ties to that exact verse run only through the verb gâʼal (Ruth) or the common kîy (Jeremiah); the rare-noun tie belongs to vv. 24/26/31, and the badges say so. tôwshâb (H8453, "sojourner," 13 vv) travels as a fixed doublet with gêr (H1616), and the Verifier confirms that pairing shared at Lev 25:23 ↔ Psalm 39:12 and ↔ 1 Chronicles 29:15, making that echo strong. liṣmiṯuṯ (H6783, "to cutting-off / for ever") is the rarest of all, appearing in this whole unit only at vv. 23 and 30 — once forbidden (land), once permitted (walled house) — a deliberate internal contrast. On the one verbal tie. The only thread the Verifier tiers "verbal / quotation — confirmed" is internal: Lev 25:25 against vv. 14 and 50, on the rare noun mimkâr (H4465, 10 vv). We keep that tier but stress it is the chapter restating itself, not a cross-book quotation. On the cross-Testament links. Every Christ-thread here is figural, not verbal: the Verifier returns "no shared original-language lexeme" ("flagged — verify source") for Lev 25 against Hebrews 2:14, Hebrews 11:13, and Luke 4:18, because Greek and Hebrew cannot share a Strong's number. Those readings are therefore argued from the kinsman-redeemer and Jubilee motifs, and marked typological/ancient — never "verbal." On a thematic echo we decline to over-promote. Naboth's refusal to sell his ancestral inheritance (1 Kings 21:3), which both Barnes and Maclaren cite here, is the living drama of this very law; but Naboth speaks of his naḥălâh ("inheritance"), not the Lev 25 vocabulary, and the Verifier finds no shared lexeme ("flagged"). We therefore surface it as an honest thematic resonance through the commentators' own voices rather than asserting it as a confirmed thread. On a genuine textual difficulty. Verse 33 is hard in the Hebrew: Cambridge judges it "presents great difficulty as it stands," the Vulgate and LXX supply a negative ("if one of the Levites does not redeem"), while Keil & Delitzsch and the rabbis read gâʼal as "to buy, acquire." The Berean text (followed in our literal) takes the latter; we flag the difficulty in the divergence rather than resolving it by emendation. On the parses. Where the BSB gloss splits a single Hebrew word across several English words (notably gō’ălōw, "his nearest of kin," v. 25, and the hand-idiom hiśśîḡāh yāḏōw, "his hand reaches," vv. 26, 28), we follow the Berean/Strong's parse but name the original word so the reader sees what the smoothing conceals. This unit is in Leviticus, not Joshua; the mandatory Joshua 1:5 → Hebrews 13:5 flag does not apply here.
✦ = 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)