What Does Leviticus 25:34 Mean?
But the field of the pasturelands of their cities shall not be sold, for it is their holding of the ages.
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
But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold; for it is their perpetual possession.THE KEY
The Hebrew calls this land a “holding of the ages”: it is preserved for continuity, not treated as a commodity with an expiry date.
THE MEANING
The ground around the cities is held for the community across the ages; its availability is not governed by what a buyer will pay. The verse draws a boundary around shared space: some possessions carry a continuing claim that sale cannot erase.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The assumption that anything with a price can be sold, and that ownership is absolute, dissolves here: this land’s holding persists beyond the market.
THE ROOT
אֲחֻזַּת
ʾăḥuzzat
GROWS FROM
אחז
ʾ-ḥ-z
To grasp, take hold, or possess.
The phrase is literally a “holding of the ages.” The word for possession grows from the action of taking hold, so the verse presents the land as a lasting holding rather than something whose claim ends with a sale.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāḥaz: To grasp, seize, or take hold.
אָחַז
This verb is the seed of “possession”: the land is named through the act of holding it.
neʾĕḥaz: Was caught or held fast.
נֶאֱחַז
This form shows the same root describing something secured in a hold, echoing the verse’s lasting claim on the land.
THE PATTERN
Land held to sustain a people carries obligations that exceed its sale price.
The land shall not be sold for good, for the land is mine; for you are sojourners and those who settle beside me.And Naboth said to Ahab, The LORD keep it far from me, that I should give the holding of my fathers to you.For none among them lacked, for as many as owned fields or houses sold them and carried the prices of what was sold,THE THREAD
The land shall not be sold for good, for the land is mine; for you are sojourners and those who settle beside me.Both verses use the root מָכַר (māḵar, “sell”): the fields around the cities are a specific case within a wider limit on land sale. The connected verse opens the reason behind that boundary, the land belongs to God, while people hold it as sojourners.
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