Notwithstanding the cities of the Levites, and the houses of the cities of their possession, may the Levites redeem at any time.
Notwithstanding the cities of the Levites, and the houses of the cities of their possession, may the Levites redeem at any time.
Nevertheless the cities of the Levites, the houses of the cities of their possession, may the Levites redeem at any time.
But the houses in the towns of the Levites may be got back by the Levites at any time.
Notwithstanding the cities of the Levites, and the houses of the cities of their possession, may the Levites redeem at any time.
"'Nevertheless the cities of the Levites, the houses in the cities of their possession, the Levites may redeem at any time.
Nevertheless the cities of the Levites, the houses of the cities of their possession, may the Levites redeem at any time.
The cities of the Levites - The law in this and the following verses was also a very wise one. A Levite could not ultimately sell his house: if sold he could redeem it at any time in the interim between the two jubilees; but if not redeemed, it must go out at the following jubilee. And why? "Because Moses framed his laws so much in favor of the priesthood, that they had peculiar privileges?" etc. Just the reverse: they were so far from being peculiarly favored that they had no inheritance in Israel, only their cities, to dwell in: and because their houses in these cities were the whole that they could call their own, therefore these houses could not be ultimately alienated. All that they had to live on besides was from that most precarious source of support, the freewill-offerings of the people, which depended on the prevalence of pure religion in the land.
Rather, And concerning the cities of the Levites, the houses in the cities of their possession, etc. If one of the Levites redeems a house in the city, etc. The meaning appears to be, if a Levite redeemed a house which had been sold to a person of a different tribe by another Levite, it was to revert in the Jubilee to the latter Levite as its original possessor. The purchaser of a Levite's house was in fact only in the condition of a tenant at will, while the fields attached to the Levitical cities could never be alienated, even for a time.
For the application of the law of Jubilee to lands dedicated to the service of the sanctuary, see Leviticus 27:16-25.