What Does Leviticus 27:24 Mean in the King James?
In the year of the jubile the field shall return unto him of whom it was bought, even to him to whom the possession of the land did belong.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The field’s return shows that a change of hands does not erase its deeper belonging.
THE MEANING
You are looking at a transfer with an endpoint: at the jubilee, the field returns to the one to whom the landholding belongs. The verse holds acquisition and prior belonging together; a temporary holding does not erase the relation it will return to.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that whoever acquires something owns it without limit: the purchase changes the holding, but the field returns to its prior belonging.
THE ROOT
יָשׁוּב
yāshuv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
to turn back, return
The field does not simply pass to a new recipient; it turns back toward its prior belonging. The root holds return and turning together, so the verse describes what was held temporarily coming back into its original relation.
ALSO GROWS
shāv: he returned
שָׁב
This verb form makes the root’s returning action visible as a movement back.
teshuvah: return, turning back
תְּשׁוּבָה
This noun carries the same turn-back movement, illuminating the field’s restoration to its former relation.
אֲחֻזָּה
ʾaḥuzzāh
GROWS FROM
אָחַז
ʾāḥaz
to grasp, take hold of
The word for possession grows from the language of holding. The verse makes that holding real but bounded: what someone has in hand can change, while the land’s deeper belonging remains.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāḥaz: to grasp, take hold
אָחַז
The verb reveals the grasping sense within the word for a landholding.
ʾōḥēz: one who holds or takes hold
אֹחֵז
This form keeps the act of holding visible, distinguishing possession in hand from lasting belonging.
THE PATTERN
What is displaced or held for a time can be returned to its prior belonging.
And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.THE THREAD
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.Both verses use שׁוּב (shuv, “to return”): here the field returns to its prior holder; there the human returns to the ground and dust from which the verse says the human came. The shared root makes return feel like more than a transfer: it is a movement back toward what one came from.
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