The Pulpit Commentary — Leviticus — Section 430

of the ninth or fifty-flrst year, a.a the Tal- tative in the year of jubilee, and might mnd and robbins of every age have nnder- at any earlier time be reJeemed. The etood the law" (Keil). The qneetion, What words, Notwithr..a.ndillg tha oities of tha shall we eat 1 would present itself with Levites, should rather be rendered, B11t in double force when the SBbba.tical and the respect to the aities of the Le1Ji/,es. There is jubilee years oame together. It and the a. difflcnlty also as to the translation or the answer to it therefore properly follow on clause, And if a. man purchase of the Levites, the inatitulion of the jubilee, instead of for the word rendered purchase means else, preceding it, as Ewald., Knobel, a.nd others where redeem; but here the Authorized demand that it ehonld do. Verdion would seem to be correct. The Vere. 23, 24.-l!'or the land is mine; for ye sense tho.t it gives is that if any one bought are atnmgers and sojourners with me. Many a house of the Levites, he had to render incidental advantages, if some difficulties, it back in the year or jubilee, just as arose from the jubilee law (which will be though it had been land. On the other the more appreciated if we compare the evils ha.ml, the land belonging to the Levites, in resulting from slavery and the accumulation the suburbs of the Levitica.l cities, which of land in a few hands, found in the history was used for the pasturage of the flocks of of Rome or any other ancient notion); bnt the Levites. could not be sold except to a its easential features, so fo.r as the land was Levile, and therefore no question between concerned, was its inculcation of the lesson the Levites and members of the other tribes of the proprietorship of the Lord. Palestine could arise regarding it. The phrase, the was God's land: he divided it once for all house that was sold, and the aity of his pos- in the time of Jo~hua among his people, session, must be understood, by a. hendia.dys, and every fifty years he required that re- to mean, Ike house that taaa ,old in the aitg of course should be had to that original divi- his posseasion (see Gesenius, 'Lex.,' •.11. ~ j.b.). sion, in order that in each generation the Vars. 35-38.-Blavery. It is presumed people might feel themselves to be his that no Hebrew will become a slave except tenants, not independent owners, possueores, on the prellSlll'e or poverty, and this poverty not damini. his brethren ore commanded to relieve; but Vere. 25-28.-The right of redemption foreseeing that either want of charity on the of land sold continued always alive, and pa.rt of the rich or unthrift on the part of might be exercised by the original owner or the poor would certainly bring about sla..-ery, his kinsman. If not exercised, the owner the legislator makes regulations so ea to returned into his possession at any rate in soften its oha.racter as far as poesible. Tho the jubilee yeo.r. If a man had to sell his literal tmnala.tion of ver. 35 is as follows : If land, he was bound to offer it to his nearest thy brother beoomea poor, and his hand fa.ileth kinsman first (see Jer. x.u.i.i. 7, 8). by thee, thou aha.It lay hold of him; a Vere. 29-31.-Houses in wo.lled cities stranger or a sojourner that he may live are not subject to the law of re~tomtion at with thee. The trunslo.tion of tho Io.tter the jubilee, as that law o.pplies only to clause adopted by the Authorized Version, lo.ads and to men ; but houses in the conntry 11ea, though he be a strangBT, or a sojourner; are subject to the law, as they o.re regarded that hd may Zi~e tailh thee, makes the duty only as appurtenances of the lo.ad. Houses of giving charitable support and Joans of in cities, being occupied by artisans and money to apply to the case of the stranger built by human industry, not originally end sojourner as well as of the lamelite. assigned in the territorial di vision, are not The other nnd more probable rendering con- considered in so strict a sense the property fines its application to no.live Israelites. If of the Lord as the soil is, and may be po.rted thy brother becomes poor, and his hand fa,'leth, with more readily. Yet the owners, if thou shalt support him a• a stranger or a obliged to part with them, e.re o.llowcd a sojourmr, that is, treat him with the for- year's grace, during which they ore to have broranoe shown to reaiden t forei~ers, to the right of buying them baok. The ex- whose state he hnd reduced himsolf by the pression, within a full year, would be more loas of his land. The command in ver. 36, litemlly rendered during a jiud time, that Take thou no uury. of him, or inoreue, does fixed time having just before been declared not bear upon the general question of taking to be e. year. interest for money when lent to weo.lthy Vere. 32-34.-The houses of the Levites men or companies for business purposes. are, by an exception, subject to the law of It simply forbids the taking of interest or jubilee. They constituted the share of the inorea.se of a brother Israelite who had national property which was assigned to become poor. The history of Rome shows the tribe of Levi, and eo far stood in the how much cruelty a.ud revolution such a.n so.me relation to them as the land did to Injunction may have prevented. The words, the other tribes. They therefore returned or increa,e, added to u•u"!I, forbid the exac- to the original possessor or his represen- tion of any greater quantUy ol. food or 306 THE DOOK OF LEVITICUS. [CH, XXV, 1-55.