Sunday, June 28, 2015

Jubilee Land Laws

The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are but aliens and sojourners with Me. (Leviticus 25:23 NASB)

Rural land in Israel in the time of Moses cannot be sold permanently. They have a fifty year lease hold.

When a person sells a home in a walled city, it may be bought back until a year after its sale. The period for buying it back will be one year. If it is not bought back before a full year has passed, the house in the walled city will belong to the buyer permanently and their descendants forever. It will not be released at the Jubilee. But houses in settlements that are unwalled will be considered as if they were country fields. They can be bought back, and they must be released at the Jubilee.
Levites will always have the right to buy back homes in the levitical cities that are part of their family property. Levite property that can be bought back—houses sold in a city that is their family property—must be released at the Jubilee, because homes in levitical cities are the Levites' family property among the Israelites. But the pastureland around their cities cannot be sold, because that is their permanent family property. (Leviticus 25:29-34 CEB)

For land in walled cities, it is treated differently.

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