What Does Leviticus 25:47 Mean?
And if the hand of a sojourner or one who settles beside you reaches, and your brother beside him totters and sells himself to the sojourner or one who settles beside you, or to the root of a sojourner's family.
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 sojourner or stranger wax rich by thee, and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger’s family:THE KEY
The resident stranger’s hand reaches abundance as your brother sinks low, and the verse shows how poverty can carry a person into another household’s power.
THE MEANING
When a resident stranger’s resources grow beside your poverty, your need can end in your being sold into that household. Even brotherhood does not cancel the imbalance: poverty can put a person’s freedom in another family’s hands.
THE ROOT
מָךְ
mākh
GROWS FROM
מוך
to be low, be brought low, become poor
“wax poor” in this verse is mākh. This same root recurs in this chapter when a brother becomes poor. Here, that low condition immediately precedes being sold, showing poverty as something that can reach into a person’s freedom, not only their possessions.
ALSO GROWS
yāmûkh: becomes poor, sinks low
יָמוּךְ
In Leviticus 25:25, this form describes a brother becoming poor before some of his land is sold; the root links material loss with a changed standing.
mākh: low, poor
מָךְ
Here the short form names the brother’s lowered condition just before the verse names his sale.
תַּשִּׂיג
tassig
GROWS FROM
נשׂג
to reach, attain, catch up with
“reaches” in this verse is tassig. The Hebrew phrase pictures the stranger’s hand reaching or attaining, which the KJV renders as waxing rich. That image stands beside the brother’s being brought low: one person’s reach grows while the other’s standing declines.
ALSO GROWS
hissiḡ: overtook, reached
הִשִּׂיג
In Genesis 31:25, Laban overtakes Jacob; the same root carries the sense of reaching someone who is ahead.
yassiḡ: overtakes, catches up with
יַשִּׂיג
In Deuteronomy 28:2, blessings overtake the hearer; the root can describe what reaches a person, for gain or loss.
וְנִמְכַּר
venimkar
GROWS FROM
מכר
to sell, transfer in a sale
“sell himself” in this verse is venimkar. The Hebrew uses a form meaning “be sold” or “become sold,” while the KJV’s “himself” makes the personal cost plain. The same root names a sale whose value is reckoned across years, so the verse opens onto a condition measured in time as well as money.
ALSO GROWS
mākhar: sell
מָכַר
Leviticus 25:14 uses this verb for selling property; the root makes this verse’s sale part of a wider language of transfer.
mimkār: sale, price of the sale
מִמְכָּר
Leviticus 25:50 uses this noun when the years and price of a person’s sale are reckoned, revealing the continuing terms behind the word here.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats another person’s want as a shared material condition: abundance can become provision that keeps need from taking away a person’s security.
And if your brother totters, and his hand slips beside you, then you shall take hold of him, though he be a sojourner or one who settles beside you, that he may live with you.But through evenness, that in this present season your overflow may fill their lack, and their overflow may fill your lack, that there may be evenness.Whoever has the world's means of living, and gazes upon his brother in need, and shuts his inner parts away from him, how does the love of God remain in him?THE THREAD
After he is sold, a buying back shall be for him; one of his brothers shall buy him back.The next verse opens the sale from the other side: being sold does not exhaust the brother’s possibilities, because redemption can follow. The same family relation that could not prevent the sale becomes a path by which he can be brought back.
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