23 No exchange of land may be for ever, for the land is mine, and you are as my guests, living with me for a time. 24 Wherever there is property in land, the owner is to have the right of getting it back. 25 If your brother becomes poor, and has to give up some of his land for money, his nearest relation may come and get back that which his brother has given up. 26 And if he has no one to get it back for him, and later he himself gets wealth and has enough money to get it back; 27 Then let him take into account the years from the time when he gave it up, and make up the loss for the rest of the years to him who took it, and so get back his property. 28 But if he is not able to get it back for himself, then it will be kept by him who gave a price for it, till the year of Jubilee; and in that year it will go back to its first owner and he will have his property again. 29 And if a man gives his house in a walled town for money, he has the right to get it back for the space of a full year after he has given it up. 30 And if he does not get it back by the end of the year, then the house in the town will become the property of him who gave the money for it, and of his children for ever; it will not go from him in the year of Jubilee. 31 But houses in small unwalled towns will be the same as property in the country; they may be got back, and they will go back to their owners in the year of Jubilee. 32 But the houses in the towns of the Levites may be got back by the Levites at any time. 33 And if a Levite does not give money to get back his property, his house in the town which was exchanged for money will come back to him in the year of Jubilee. For the houses of the towns of the Levites are their property among the children of Israel. 34 But the land on the outskirts of their towns may not be exchanged for money, for it is their property for ever.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Leviticus 25:23-34
Commentary on Leviticus 25:23-34
(Read Leviticus 25:23-34)
If the land were not redeemed before the year of jubilee, it then returned to him that sold or mortgaged it. This was a figure of the free grace of God in Christ; by which, and not by any price or merit of our own, we are restored to the favour of God. Houses in walled cities were more the fruits of their own industry than land in the country, which was the direct gift of God's bounty; therefore if a man sold a house in a city, he might redeem it only within a year after the sale. This encouraged strangers and proselytes to come and settle among them.