SEV Biblia, Chapter 25:29
Y el varón que vendiere casa de morada en ciudad cercada, tendrá facultad de redimirla hasta acabarse el año de su venta; un año será el término de poderse redimir.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Leviticus 25:29
Verse 29. Sell a dwelling house in a walled city] A very proper difference is put between houses in a city and houses in the country. If a man sold his house in the city, he might redeem it any time in the course of a year; but if it were not redeemed within that time, it could no more be redeemed, nor did it go out even in the jubilee. It was not so with a house in the country; such a house might be redeemed during any part of the interim; and if not redeemed, must go out at the jubilee. The reason in both cases is sufficiently evident; the house in the city might be built for purposes of trade or traffic merely, the house in the country was built on or attached to the inheritance which God had divided to the respective families, and it was therefore absolutely necessary that the same law should apply to the house as to the inheritance. But the same necessity did not hold good with respect to the house in the city: and as we may presume the house in the city was merely for the purpose of trade, when a man bought such a house, and got his business established there, it would have been very inconvenient for him to have removed; but as it was possible that the former owner might have sold the house rashly, or through the pressure of some very urgent necessity, a year was allowed him, that during that time he might have leisure to reconsider his rash act, or so to get through his pressing necessity as to be able to get back his dwelling. This time was sufficiently long in either of the above cases; and as such occurrences might have been the cause of his selling his house, it was necessary that he might have the opportunity of redeeming his pledge. Again, as the purchaser, having bought the house merely for the purpose of trade, manufacture, &c., must have been at great pains and expense to fit the place for his work, and establish his business, in which himself, his children, and his children's children, were to labour and get their bread; hence it was necessary that he should have some certainty of permanent possession, without which, we may naturally conjecture, no such purchases ever would be made. This seems to be the simple reason of the law in both cases.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 29. And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city , etc.] Which was so from the days of Joshua the son of Nun, as Jarchi: then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold : any time within the year he pleased, either he or any near of kin to him; and if they would, on the day it was sold, or any time after within the compass of the year, even on the day in which the year ended; in this such an house differed from fields, which could not be redeemed under two years, (see Gill on “ Leviticus 25:15”); [within] a full year may he redeem it ; from the time it was sold, paying what it was sold for: this is to be understood, Maimonides says, of a solar year, which consists of three hundred sixty five days, and within this space of time such an house might be redeemed.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 23-34 - If the land were not redeemed before the year of jubilee, it the returned to him that sold or mortgaged it. This was a figure of the free grace of God in Christ; by which, and not by any price or merit of our own, we are restored to the favour of God. Houses in walled citie were more the fruits of their own industry than land in the country which was the direct gift of God's bounty; therefore if a man sold house in a city, he might redeem it only within a year after the sale This encouraged strangers and proselytes to come and settle among them.
Original Hebrew
ואישׁ 376 כי 3588 ימכר 4376 בית 1004 מושׁב 4186 עיר 5892 חומה 2346 והיתה 1961 גאלתו 1353 עד 5704 תם 8537 שׁנת 8141 ממכרו 4465 ימים 3117 תהיה 1961 גאלתו׃ 1353
