Leviticus 25:32

Summary

The verse establishes a special legal status for houses located within the cities belonging to the Levites: unlike other property regulated earlier in the chapter, these houses carry a permanent right of redemption that belongs to the Levites at all times.

Key words

• 'a.Rei ("[the] cities of", H5892B) — construct plural, opening a chain of "X of Y" relationships that link Levites, cities, and possession.
• ba.Tei ("[the] houses of", H1004B) — construct plural, the grammatical subject-topic being defined: it is the houses within Levite cities that receive this status.
• 'a.chu.za.Tam ("possession", H0272 + suffix) — construct singular with 3rd person masculine plural suffix ("their possession"), closing the chain: houses-of-cities-of-their-possession.
• ge.'u.Lat ("a right of redemption of", H1353) — construct singular feminine, functioning as the predicate noun; it governs o.Lam ("perpetuity", H5769I) to form the phrase "redemption of perpetuity."
• tih.Yeh ("it will belong", H1961) — qal imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular, agreeing with the feminine noun ge'ullat; expresses an ongoing/future state rather than a one-time event.

What the text says

The verse is built on a long construct chain: 'a.Rei ha.l.vi.Yim ("cities of the Levites") sets the topic, then ba.Tei 'a.Rei 'a.chu.za.Tam ("houses of cities of their possession") narrows the referent to houses specifically within those possessed cities. This triple stacking of construct nouns (houses / cities / possession) is a feature of Biblical Hebrew that allows precise nested specification without prepositions; a literal rendering would be "houses-of-cities-of-their-possession."

The predicate is ge'ullat 'olam, literally "redemption of perpetuity," an abstract noun phrase functioning almost adverbially to describe the kind of right in view — not an act of redemption but a permanent legal entitlement. The verb tihyeh ("it will belong/be") agrees grammatically with this feminine abstract noun as its subject, and the preposition la ("to the") assigns this entitlement to la.l.vi.Yim ("to the Levites"), the same group named at the start of the verse. The sentence thus circles back grammatically: Levites' cities → houses within them → belonging permanently, by right of redemption, to the Levites.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew abstract noun phrase ge'ullat 'olam ("redemption of perpetuity") with a concrete plural noun, λυτρωταὶ ("redeemers"), shifting from an abstract legal right to an agent-noun construction, paired with διὰ παντὸς ("continually/always"). The Vulgate uses a passive infinitive construction, semper possunt redimi ("they can always be redeemed"), making the houses the grammatical subject of a passive verb rather than expressing the Hebrew's noun-based "belongs to" structure. The Hebrew formulation, with tihyeh ("it will be/belong") and the dative la ("to the Levites"), frames this as an entitlement held by the Levites, while both LXX and Vulgate emphasize the redeemability of the houses themselves.