Context No. 3562 of 4322 · Leviticus

Leviticus 25:23-28: in context

23“‘The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and live as foreigners with me. 24In all the land of your possession you shall grant a redemption for the land. 25“‘If your brother becomes poor, and sells some of his possessions, then his kinsman who is next to him shall come, and redeem that which his brother has sold. 26If a man has no one to redeem it, and he becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, 27then let him reckon the years since its sale, and restore the surplus to the man to whom he sold it; and he shall return to his property. 28But if he isn’t able to get it back for himself, then what he has sold shall remain in the hand of him who has bought it until the Year of Jubilee. In the Jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his property.

This law rests on a striking declaration: the land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; you are strangers and sojourners with me. The Israelites did not ultimately own the land; God did, and they held it as tenants and guests in his world.

So land sold in hardship could always be redeemed, by a near kinsman, or by the seller once he recovered, or at the latest at the Year of Jubilee, when all property returned to its original family. No one could be permanently dispossessed; the land always came back. Behind the law lies a humbling truth that reaches far beyond real estate: everything we hold is finally God's, and we are strangers and sojourners with him, stewards rather than absolute owners. It reshapes how we grip our possessions, loosely, as a trust from God, and it built into Israel's life a rhythm of restoration and mercy, so that hardship need never be the final word.

Do I hold my possessions as a steward and sojourner before God, to whom everything finally belongs, rather than as an absolute owner clutching what is only lent to me?

Sources

Leviticus 25:23: "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and live as foreigners with me."
Leviticus 25:25: "If your brother becomes poor, and sells some of his possessions, then his kinsman who is next to him shall come, and redeem that which his brother has sold."
1 Chronicles 29:15: "For we are strangers before you, and foreigners, as all our fathers were."