What Does Leviticus 25:29 Mean?
And if a man sells a house of settling in a walled city, then within a whole year after it is sold he may buy it back.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; within a full year may he redeem it.THE KEY
The house can be reclaimed, but its right of return has a one-year boundary.
THE MEANING
A dwelling sold in a walled city remains redeemable for one full year after the sale. Recovery is possible, but the opening has a defined end.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that the chance to recover what is lost remains open forever: here, the right to redeem ends with the year.
THE ROOT
גְּאֻלָּתוֹ
ge'ullato
GROWS FROM
גאל
g-ʾ-l
To reclaim or redeem; elsewhere in this word family, to act as a near kinsman who reclaims what has passed out of a relative’s hands.
“buy it back” in this verse is ge'ullato. The verse’s word for redemption belongs to the same family as the kinsman-redeemer: recovery is a claim to reclaim what has passed away, not simply a vague hope of getting it back. Here that claim has a clear boundary, the first full year after the sale.
ALSO GROWS
go'el: Near kinsman who redeems or reclaims.
גֹּאֵל
In Leviticus 25:25, a near kinsman may reclaim land a relative has sold; the shared root shows the family resemblance between that act and redeeming this house.
ge'ullah: Redemption or the act of reclaiming.
גְּאֻלָּה
This noun names the recovery itself, making the verse’s one-year limit a boundary on a real act of return.
THE PATTERN
Redemption reclaims what has been surrendered, bound, or endangered.
Therefore say to the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the loads of the Egyptians, and I will snatch you from their service, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments.He redeems their living soul from deceit and violence, and their blood is weighty in his eyes.And I said I would uncover your ear, saying, Buy it before those who settle, and before the elders of my people. If you will buy it back, buy it back. But if you will not buy it back, tell me, that I may know, for there is none beside you to buy it back, and I come after you. And he said, I will buy it back.THE THREAD
If your brother totters and sells some of his holding, and his nearest blood-redeemer comes to him, then he shall buy back what his brother sold.Both verses use the גאל (g-ʾ-l) word family for reclaiming what has been sold. The earlier verse names the near kinsman who may redeem land; this one gives the house’s seller one full year to reclaim it.
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