Leviticus 25:1-55. The Sabbatical year. The Year of Jubile, etc. (H and P) This ch. contains (_a_) legislation with respect to (1) the sabbatical year, and (2) the year of Jubile; and (_b_) sundry applications of the law of Jubile to land and individuals, devised in order to relieve the impoverishe... [ Continue Reading ]
The rest year was a transference to the _land_of the sabbatical idea emphasized each week for _living creatures_, the year being now taken as the unit instead of the day. See App. I, pp. 172 f. for the difference in standpoint between this and the parallel ordinances elsewhere in the Hexateucb, as i... [ Continue Reading ]
_keep a sabbath unto the Lord_ The land shall rest in the seventh year, as man rests on the seventh day, the sabbath. This idea is not expressed in Exodus 23:10 f., but may be implied there in the command immediately following with reference to the sabbath in Leviticus 25:12.... [ Continue Reading ]
_undressed_ untrimmed by lopping and hence consecrated. The Heb. word is the same as that denoting the Nazirite, who in token of his consecration wore his hair uncut (Numbers 6:5).... [ Continue Reading ]
_the sabbath_ i.e. the produce during the year of rest. Instead of storing it as in each of the six years, they were only to gather it from time to time when needed for food. Much of the grain in Palestine to-day sows itself, as it falls from the ripe ears.... [ Continue Reading ]
The 50th year or year of Jubile. In each such year landed property shall revert to its original owner, and the price to be paid in buying and selling such possessions shall be estimated in accordance with the distance of the transaction from that year.... [ Continue Reading ]
The year of Jubile began on the tenth of the seventh month and was proclaimed by the sound of the trumpet. The coincidence of this ceremony with the Day of Atonement presents a difficulty to some commentators, but according to Ezekiel 40:1 the tenth day of the month is sometimes reckoned as the firs... [ Continue Reading ]
_a jubile_ lit. -a ram's horn" (blowing). Doubtless the year had originally the name _year of the ram's horn_, and afterwards the first part of this title was dropped in current speech, thus leaving the Heb. word _yôbçl_, which, through the Vulg. Jubilaeus, has been adopted into English as jubile.... [ Continue Reading ]
See introd. note.... [ Continue Reading ]
_thou … ye_ The variation in person indicates the combination of two sources. _thy neighbour_ An unusual Heb. word (- _âmîth_), occurring in the H section eleven times, 5:21 (_bis_), Leviticus 18:20; Leviticus 19:11; Leviticus 19:15; Leviticus 19:17; Leviticus 24:19; Leviticus 25:14 (_bis_), Levitic... [ Continue Reading ]
The purchase is in fact not of the soil, but of the expectation of a greater or less number of years" fruits.... [ Continue Reading ]
Summary, together with the guiding motive characteristic of H.... [ Continue Reading ]
A hortatory addition, relating to the sabbatical year and interrupting the Jubile regulations. It is thus clearly out of place, and should properly follow Leviticus 25:7. Its tone is that of H, and is in accord with such hortatory passages as Leviticus 18:25 ff., Leviticus 20:22 f., Leviticus 26:3 f... [ Continue Reading ]
A resumption of the Jubile regulation (after the interruption of Leviticus 25:18) providing that the land was not to be alienated beyond the next Jubile.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Law in respect to the redemption of land_(H and P mixed)... [ Continue Reading ]
_be waxen poor_ The original verb is almost confined to this ch., the one exception being Leviticus 27:8 (-be poorer"). _his kinsman that is next unto him_ Cp. the more explicit statement in Leviticus 25:48 f. For the important term _Gô"çl_, here rendered -kinsman," lit. _vindicator_, cp. Jeremiah... [ Continue Reading ]
_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.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Law in respect to the redemption of houses_(P) Houses in a walled town, if sold, and not redeemed within a year, were (with the exception of those belonging to the Levites) to be unaffected by the Jubile, and remain the permanent possession of the buyer, but for houses elsewhere there was no restr... [ Continue Reading ]
_if one of the Levites redeem_ The Heb. presents great difficulty as it stands. If we take the rendering in the text, it is unsuitable, because in the case there supposed, viz. that one Levite redeems the house of another, obviously the statement that the house shall -go out" (i.e. return to its ori... [ Continue Reading ]
The law concerning houses in Levitical cities is not to apply to land outside the walls. _suburbs_ 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 cat... [ Continue Reading ]
_be waxen poor_ See on Leviticus 25:25. _his hand fail with thee_ i.e. if he lose his power of self-support by personal effort, and thou art able as a neighbour to help him. _uphold_ The text gives the literal sense of the Heb. verb, and the mg., _relieve_, its application in this context. _as a... [ Continue Reading ]
_Prohibition of usury in the case of a poor Israelite_(H with perhaps a slight admixture of P)... [ Continue Reading ]
_usury … increase_ The former was interest on money, the latter on food stuffs and paid in kind. For the important part played by such transactions in Babylonia see Johns, _Bab. and Assyr. Laws_, ch. 23, p. 253.... [ Continue Reading ]
No interest was to be permitted in such a case for money lent, nor, if the loan took the form of the necessaries of life, was more than the amount lent to be exacted in return. The same law appears in Exodus 22:25 [Heb. 24]; Deuteronomy 23:20. In the latter case it is from -a stranger" interest may... [ Continue Reading ]
_Prohibition of permanent servitude of one Israelite to another_(H and P mixed, the former probably preponderating) This case was to be subject to the operation of the law of Jubile, Moreover, the Israelite so bought shall not be compelled to work as a slave, but only under such conditions as befit... [ Continue Reading ]
_The case of Israelites who are slaves of resident foreigners_(H but with a large admixture of P) Such a person might be redeemed, or, if he acquired the means, might redeem himself, the price of redemption to be calculated according to the number of years intervening before the Jubile, as in the c... [ Continue Reading ]
Cp. Leviticus 25:25.... [ Continue Reading ]
_in thy sight_ whenever thou art cognizant of it.... [ Continue Reading ]
Cp. Leviticus 25:23_; Leviticus 25:42_.... [ Continue Reading ]