Discovery BoxLeviticus 25:13
Context25:13 “‘In this year of jubilee you must each return 1 to your property.
Leviticus 27:21-22
Context27:21 When it reverts 2 in the jubilee, the field will be holy to the Lord like a permanently dedicated field; 3 it will become the priest’s property. 4
27:22 “‘If he consecrates to the Lord a field he has purchased, 5 which is not part of his own landed property,
Leviticus 27:16
Context27:16 “‘If a man consecrates to the Lord some of his own landed property, the conversion value must be calculated in accordance with the amount of seed needed to sow it, 6 a homer of barley seed being priced at fifty shekels of silver. 7
Leviticus 25:10
Context25:10 So you must consecrate the fiftieth year, 8 and you must proclaim a release 9 in the land for all its inhabitants. That year will be your jubilee; 10 each one of you must return 11 to his property and each one of you must return to his clan.
Leviticus 25:33
Context25:33 Whatever someone among the Levites might redeem – the sale of a house which is his property in a city – must revert in the jubilee, 12 because the houses of the cities of the Levites are their property in the midst of the Israelites.
Leviticus 27:28
Context27:28 “‘Surely anything which a man permanently dedicates to the Lord 13 from all that belongs to him, whether from people, animals, or his landed property, must be neither sold nor redeemed; anything permanently dedicated is most holy to the Lord.
[25:13] 1 tn Heb “you [plural] shall return, a man.”
[27:21] 2 tn Heb “When it goes out” (cf. Lev 25:25-34).
[27:21] 3 tn Heb “like the field of the permanent dedication.” The Hebrew word חֵרֶם (kherem) is a much discussed term. In this and the following verses it refers in a general way to the fact that something is permanently devoted to the
[27:21] 4 tn Heb “to the priest it shall be his property.”
[27:22] 3 tn Heb “his field of purchase,” which is to be distinguished from his own ancestral “landed property” (cf. v. 16 above).
[27:16] 4 tn Heb “a conversion value shall be to the mouth of its seed.”
[27:16] 5 tn Heb “seed of a homer of barley in fifty shekels of silver.”
[25:10] 5 tn Heb “the year of the fifty years,” or perhaps “the year, fifty years” (GKC 435 §134.o, note 2).
[25:10] 6 tn Cf. KJV, ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV “liberty”; TEV, CEV “freedom.” The characteristics of this “release” are detailed in the following verses. For substantial summaries and bibliography on the biblical and ancient Near Eastern material regarding such a “release” see J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 427-34, and B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 270-74.
[25:10] 7 tn Heb “A jubilee that shall be to you.” Although there has been some significant debate about the original meaning of the Hebrew word translated “jubilee” (יוֹבֵל, yovel; see the summary in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 434), the term most likely means “ram” and can refer also to a “ram’s horn.” The fiftieth year would, therefore, be called the “jubilee” because of the associated sounding of the “ram’s horn” (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 172, and the literature cited there).
[25:10] 8 tn Heb “you [plural] shall return, a man.”
[25:33] 6 tn Heb “And which he shall redeem from the Levites shall go out, sale of house and city, his property in the jubilee.” Although the end of this verse is clear, the first part is notoriously difficult. There are five main views. (1) The first clause of the verse actually attaches to the previous verse, and refers to the fact that their houses retain a perpetual right of redemption (v. 32b), “which any of the Levites may exercise” (v. 33a; J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 418, 421). (2) It refers to property that one Levite sells to another Levite, which is then redeemed by still another Levite (v. 33a). In such cases, the property reverts to the original Levite owner in the jubilee year (v. 33b; G. J. Wenham, Leviticus [NICOT], 321). (3) It refers to houses in a city that had come to be declared as a Levitical city but had original non-Levitical owners. Once the city was declared to belong to the Levites, however, an owner could only sell his house to a Levite, and he could only redeem it back from a Levite up until the time of the first jubilee after the city was declared to be a Levitical city. In this case the first part of the verse would be translated, “Such property as may be redeemed from the Levites” (NRSV, NJPS). At the first jubilee, however, all such houses became the property of the Levites (v. 33b; P. J. Budd, Leviticus [NCBC], 353). (4) It refers to property “which is appropriated from the Levites” (not “redeemed from the Levites,” v. 33a) by those who have bought it or taken it as security for debts owed to them by Levites who had fallen on bad times. Again, such property reverts back to the original Levite owners at the jubilee (B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 177). (5) It simply refers to the fact that a Levite has the option of redeeming his house (i.e., the prefix form of the verb is taken to be subjunctive, “may or might redeem”), which he had to sell because he had fallen into debt or perhaps even become destitute. Even if he never gained the resources to do so, however, it would still revert to him in the jubilee year. The present translation is intended to reflect this latter view.
[27:28] 7 tn Heb “Surely, any permanently dedicated [thing] which a man shall permanently dedicate to the
