Tanach · Rishonim on Tanach · Ibn Ezra · Torah
Ibn Ezra on Leviticus 25:33/אבן עזרא על ויקרא כ״ה:ל״ג
אובעבור שאמר גאלת עולם אמר ואשר יגאל והטעם כמו יקנה ויש אומרים אפילו אם היה הגואל לוי. וי״ו ויצא כפ״א רפה בלשון ישמעאל. בית או עיר המשפט אחד:
1Scripture reads, va-asher yigal (and if a man purchase)132 literally means to redeem. (v. 33), because our verse reads ge’ulat olam.133 and ge’ulat come from the same root. In other words, Scripture employs the word to mean to purchase for poetic reasons. The meaning of yigal is shall purchase. There are those who say va-asher yigal means even if the redeemer is a Levite.134 (and if a man purchase of the Levites) means, and if a man of the Levites purchases. In other words, if a Levite buys a house from another Levite, even in a walled city, that house goes out in the Jubilee. One might think that the law governing a purchase of a house in a Levitical city by one Levite from another is the same as that governing the sale of a house in a walled city by one Israelite from another Israelite, i.e., that the house can only be redeemed during the first year of its purchase. The vav of ve-yatza (then…shall go out) (v. 33) has the same meaning as the unaspirated fa in Arabic.135 is not to be rendered as “and” but as “then” or “the like.” For the meaning of the Arabic fa see Vol. 1, p. xvi; p. 30. A house and a city (v. 33) have one law.136 (the house…in the city), which literally means a house and a city, is to be rendered a house or a city. Both the house or the city sold by a Levite reverts to the Levite seller in the Jubilee year. See Eruvin 59a, which speaks of a city owned by an individual.