Leviticus 25:15

Lev 25:15 According to the number of years after the jubile thou shalt buy of thy neighbour, [and] according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee:

Ver. 15. Years of the fruits.] The land was not properly sold, but the fruits and revenues thereof.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lev 25:15. According to the number of years — thou shalt buy — The purchase of all lands, houses, or estates, was to be at a price proportionable to the greater or less number of years that remained from the time of the purchase to the next jubilee. Years of fruits — Years in which, having sowed, they reaped the fruits of the land, in opposition to those years in which they were neither allowed to sow nor reap.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25:15-16 the number of years: The law did not allow the land to be sold in perpetuity. It was God’s, and Israel was simply permitted to use it (25:23). However, if the owner was forced to give it up due to financial distress, it could be leased for up to forty-nine years (until the next jubilee). The price was adjusted according to the length of the lease. At the end of that time, the land was to revert to the family of the original owner.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

If the Jubilee to come be near, thou shalt sell better cheap: if it be far off, dearer.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 15. According to the number of years] The purchases that were to be made of lands were to be regulated by the number of years unelapsed of the current jubilee. This was something like buying the unexpired term of a lease among us; the purchase is always regulated by the number of years between the time of purchase and the expiration of the term.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(15) According to the number of years . . . thou shalt buy.—The promised land, according to the Law, was to be divided by lot in equal parts among the Israelites. The plot which should thus come into the possession of each family is to be absolutely inalienable, and for ever continue to be the property of the descendants of the original possessor. Hence it is here enacted that where a proprietor being pressed by poverty is compelled to sell a field, it could not be bought of him for a longer period than up to the time of the next jubile, when it reverted to the original possessor, or to his family. In purchasing a plot of and the purchaser is to reckon how many years had elapsed since the last jubile, since this would show him the exact period during which he would be entitled to hold it. It thus corresponds to what with us is buying the unexpired term of a lease.

Of thy neighbour.—From this it was deduced that the Israelite who was reduced to poverty could only sell his land to a fellow-Israelite, but not to a Gentile.

The number of years of the fruit he shall sell.—Whilst the purchaser is to take into consideration the number of years which the lease has still to run, the vendor has to consider how many sabbatical years there will be from the time of the sale till next jubile, since the sale was not so much of the land as of the produce of so many years. Hence the fallow sabbatical years are not to be included. As the plural “number of years “is here used, the authorities during the second Temple concluded that the vendor could not sell it for less than two productive years, exclusive of a sabbatical year, a year of barrenness, and of the first harvest if the purchase was effected shortly before the seventh month, with the ripe produce in the field.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

15, 16. The purchase is in fact not of the soil, but of the expectation of a greater or less number of years’ fruits.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

According to the number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbour,.... That is, reckoning how many years had past since the last jubilee, and how many there were to come to the next, and so give as many years' purchase as were yet to come:

and according to the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee; only care was to be taken, that as many years as were sabbatical ones, which were not years of fruit, should be deducted out of the account by the seller; since these were years the buyer could have no profit by the estate, and therefore it was not reasonable that such years should be reckoned into the purchase; and hence the Jewish writers gather, that when a man had sold his field, he could not redeem it in less than two years, because a number of years cannot be less than two, and that if even the buyer agreed to it, it might not be done (b).

(b) Misn. Eracin, c. 9. sect. 1. Maimon. & Bartenora in. ib.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The number of years of the fruits - i. e. according to the number of harvests. The average value of a yearly crop might of course be estimated, and the sabbatical years were to be deducted from the series.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Or,

of years of fruits, or, of fruitful years; for there were some unfruitful years, to wit, such wherein they were not allowed to sow or reap, &c.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

15. The number of years of the fruits — The price of the usufruct of the land, not of the fee simple, was calculated on the years of tillage, exclusive of the years of rest, which would deprive the purchaser of a number of crops before the jubilee. Josephus describes the terms on which the buyer resigned the field in the year of jubilee to the original proprietor. The former produced a statement of the value of the crops and of his expenses. If the expenses exceeded in value the income, the balance was paid by the proprietor before the field was restored. But if the balance was on the other side, the proprietor simply took back the field, and the purchaser retained the profit. This arrangement would remove the objection to permanent improvements on the part of the purchaser, while it kept estates from deterioration.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Years of fruits - Or, fruitful years; for there were some unfruitful years; those wherein they were not allowed to sow or reap.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

General Information:

God continues telling Moses what the people must do.

that can be harvested

This can be stated in active form. AT: "that you can harvest" (See: Active or Passive)

the next Jubilee

"the next year of restoration" or "the next year to return land"

translationWords

neighbor

wrong

honor

God

Yahweh

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

במספר שנים אחר היובל תקנה ACCORDING TO THE NUMBER OF YEARS AFTER THE JUBILEE THOU SHALT BUY [OF THY COMPANION] — This (the following) is the literal sense fitting in the clauses of the verse as required by the context: Scripture intends here to warn against wronging prohibited in the preceding verse: When you sell or buy landed property take into account how many years there are until the Jubilee, and according to the years and the crops of the field which it can be expected to yield shall the vendor sell and the purchaser buy, for in the end he (the purchaser) will have to return it to him (to the vendor) in the Jubilee-year. Consequently if there are only a few years until the Jubilee and this man sells it at a high price it follows that the purchaser has been overreached. If, on the other hand, there are still many years until the Jubilee so that he eats from it many crops the seller is overreached if you give him only a low price. It must therefore be purchased according to the period remaining until the Jubilee. That is what Scripture means when it states: “According to the number of the years of the fruits he shall sell unto,"thee," i. e. according to the number of years of crops that it (the field) will remain in the hand of the purchaser you shall sell it to him. Our Rabbis, however, derived from here the law that one who sells his field has no right to repurchase it before the elapse of at least two years, — that it must remain in the possession of the purchaser two full years reckoning from date to date, and even though there may be three crops in these two years, as, for instance, if he sold it when it had its corn standing. And in this interpretation the word שני does not lose its literal meaning, viz., that of years, (the words שני תבואות are not taken in this interpretation to mean “two crops” as you might at first think) — the phrase means מספר שנים של תבואות the number of years of crops (i. e. שני is the construct of שנים) and not of years when the corn is smitten by blast, and you know that the minimum number implied in the plural שנים is two (this is how the Rabbis derived the law that the vendor must leave the field at least two years in possession of the purchaser) (Arakhin 29b).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.