Leviticus 25:23

Translations

King James Version (KJV)

The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine, for you are strangers and sojourners with me.

American King James Version (AKJV)

The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine, for you are strangers and sojourners with me.

American Standard Version (ASV)

And the land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is mine: for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.

Basic English Translation (BBE)

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.

Webster's Revision

The land shall not be sold for ever; for the land is mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.

World English Bible

"'The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and live as foreigners with me.

English Revised Version (ERV)

And the land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is mine: for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.

Clarke's Leviticus 25:23 Bible Commentary

The land shall not be sold for ever - the land is mine - As God in a miraculous manner gave them possession of this land, they were therefore to consider themselves merely as tenants to him; and on this ground he, as the great landholder or lord of the soil, prescribes to them all the conditions on which they shall hold it. This one circumstance was peculiarly favorable to their advancement in religion, in righteousness, and true holiness; for feeling that they had nothing which they could call their own upon earth, they must frequently, by this, be put in mind of the necessity of having a permanent dwelling in the heavenly inheritance, and of that preparation without which it could not be possessed.

Barnes's Leviticus 25:23 Bible Commentary

These verses express the principle on which the law of Jubilee, as it regards the land, was based. The land belonged to Yahweh, and it was He who allotted it among the families of Israel for their use. No estate could therefore be alienated in perpetuity, by any human authority, from the family to whose lot it might fall.

Wesley's Leviticus 25:23 Bible Commentary

25:23 For ever - So as to be for ever alienated from the family of him that sells it. Or, absolutely and properly, so as to become the property of the buyer: Or, to the extermination or utter cutting off, namely, of the seller, from all hopes and possibility of redemption. The land is mine - Procured for you by my power, given to you by my grace and bounty, and the right of propriety reserved by me. With me - That is, in my land or houses: thus he is said to sojourn with another that dwells in his house. Howsoever in your own or other mens opinions you pass for lords and proprietors, yet in truth, ye are but strangers and sojourners, not to possess the land for ever, but only for a season, and to leave it to such as I have appointed for it.