Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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alienationem--It is unjust to prevent free men from alienating their own possessions.
Yet it is agreed in the books that if the king grant lands to a man in fee upon condition he shall not alienate, the condition is good. Now God would show his people Israel that their land was his, and they were his tenants; and therefore he ties them up that they shall not have power to sell, but only to make leases for any term of years, not going beyond the next jubilee. By this means it was provided,
[1.] That their genealogies should be carefully preserved, which would be of use for clearing our Saviour's pedigree.
[2.] That the distinction of tribes should be kept up; for, though a man might purchase lands in another tribe, yet he could not retain them longer than till the year of jubilee, and then they would revert of course.
[3.] That none should grow exorbitantly rich, by laying house to house, and field to field (Isa 5:8), but should rather apply themselves to the cultivating of what they had than the enlarging of their possessions. The wisdom of the Roman commonwealth sometimes provided that no man should be master of above 500 acres.
[4.] That no family should be sunk and ruined, and condemned to perpetual poverty. This particular care God took for the support of the honour of that people, and the preserving, not only of that good land to the nation in general, but of every man's share to his family in particular, for a perpetual inheritance, that it might the better typify that good part which shall never be taken away from those that have it.
(2.) The liberty which every man was born to, if it were sold or forfeited, should likewise return at the year of jubilee: