What Does Leviticus 25:51 Mean?
If yet there are many years, according to them he shall turn back the price of his buying back, from the silver of his acquisition.
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
If there be yet many years behind, according unto them he shall give again the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for.THE KEY
The years still ahead are counted in the price of release, so a buyer’s claim does not erase a person’s future.
THE MEANING
When a person is held under a purchase claim, the years still ahead set the measure of redemption. The cost of release is calculated against that remaining time, making the person’s future part of what is reclaimed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that once a person is bound, all the years ahead belong to the one who bought them; those years still count toward redemption.
THE ROOT
גְּאֻלָּתוֹ
ge'ullato
GROWS FROM
גאל
To redeem or reclaim, often through the action of a near relative.
“buying back” in this verse is ge'ullato. The word for redemption belongs to the same family as the word for a kinsman who reclaims. Here, the price is part of a relational act that frees a person from a purchaser’s claim.
ALSO GROWS
go'el: Kinsman-redeemer; one who redeems or reclaims.
גֹּאֵל
This branch shows redemption taking shape through someone who reclaims a person or possession as a relative.
ge'ullah: Redemption; reclaiming.
גְּאֻלָּה
This is the noun form used in the verse’s phrase “price of his redemption,” joining the payment to the act of reclaiming.
יָשִׁיב
yashiv
GROWS FROM
שׁוב
To return or turn back; in this verb form, to return or restore something.
“turn back” in this verse is yashiv. The payment is expressed with a verb of returning: the amount is paid back according to the years still ahead. Redemption is pictured as restoration, with the purchase price returned as the person’s remaining time is released from the claim.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: To return or turn back.
שׁוּב
This basic form gives “give again” its sense of returning what was taken or paid.
heshiv: To bring back, restore, or repay.
הֵשִׁיב
This related form makes the restorative movement clear: something is returned to its former place or owner.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats bondage as bounded, counting the time of service and naming release as its limit.
If you buy a Hebrew servant, six years he serves, and in the seventh he goes out free for nothing.The breath of the Lord LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the bowed ones; he has sent me to bind up the broken of heart, to proclaim flowing freedom to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are chained.The breath of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the emptied. He has sent me to heal the shattered in heart, to herald release to the captives, and the return of sight for the blind, to send the crushed away into release.THE THREAD
After he is sold, a buying back shall be for him; one of his brothers shall buy him back.This verse uses the same root, גאל (ga’al, to redeem or reclaim), for both the possibility of redemption and a brother’s act of redeeming. It makes the family relation visible: the calculated payment in verse 51 belongs to a relative’s reclaiming of a person.
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