Leviticus 27:20
וְאִם־לֹא יִגְאַל אֶת־הַשָּׂדֶה וְאִם־מָכַר אֶת־הַשָּׂדֶה לְאִישׁ אַחֵר לֹא יִגָּאֵל עֽוֹד׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וְאִם־לֹ֤א יִגְאַל֙ אֶת־הַשָּׂדֶ֔ה וְאִם־מָכַ֥ר אֶת־הַשָּׂדֶ֖ה לְאִ֣ישׁ אַחֵ֑ר לֹ֥א יִגָּאֵ֖ל עֽוֹד׃
ἐὰν δὲ μὴ λυτρῶται τὸν ἀγρόν, καὶ ἀποδῶται τὸν ἀγρὸν ἀνθρώπῳ ἑτέρῳ, οὐκέτι μὴ λυτρώσηται αὐτόν.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Sin autem noluerit redimere, sed alteri cuilibet fuerit venundatus, ultra eum qui voverat redimere non poterit.
Si decide no recuperarlo, o si ya se lo ha vendido a otro, el campo jamás podrá ser recuperado.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Mas si él no redimiere la tierra, y la tierra se vendiere á otro, no la redimirá más;
If, however, he does not redeem the field, or if he has sold it to another man, it may no longer be redeemed.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse addresses two scenarios in the redemption of a dedicated field: if the original owner fails to redeem it, or if he sells it to another man. In either case, the text states that the field can no longer be redeemed.
Key words
- yig'al ("he will redeem", H1350A) — qal imperfect, active voice, describing the owner's potential action to redeem the field himself.
- sadeh ("field", H7704G) — masculine singular noun, the object under discussion, repeated in both conditional clauses.
- makhar ("he has sold", H4376) — qal perfect, marking a completed action distinct from the ongoing/future sense of the imperfect verbs surrounding it.
- yiga'el ("it will be redeemed", H1350A) — niphal imperfect, passive voice, shifting the grammatical subject from the person (owner) to the field itself.
- od ("again", H5750) — modifies the negated verb, indicating the finality of the prohibition ("no longer", "not again").
What the text says
The verse is built on two parallel conditional clauses introduced by 'im ("if", H0518A), each governing a distinct scenario: non-redemption (lo' yig'al, "he will not redeem") and sale to another (makhar... le-'ish 'acher, "he has sold... to another man"). The first condition uses the qal imperfect yig'al, keeping the field's owner as the grammatical subject who performs (or fails to perform) the redemption. The second condition uses the qal perfect makhar, marking a completed sale as opposed to the ongoing/future framing of the surrounding clauses.
The apodosis — the consequence following both conditions — shifts to the niphal form yiga'el, a passive/reflexive stem. This changes the grammatical subject from the person to the field itself: the field "will not be redeemed," rather than "he will not redeem [it]." This shift in verbal voice, from active (qal) in the protases to passive (niphal) in the apodosis, foregrounds the field's changed status rather than any person's action. The particle od ("again", H5750) reinforces that this state is definitive, not merely temporary.
Differences between versions
The Hebrew niphal yiga'el ("it will be redeemed") places the field as grammatical subject in a passive construction. The LXX renders this with an active subjunctive, λυτρώσηται ("he might redeem"), implying a human subject rather than the passive field. Similarly, the Vulgate's redimere... non poterit ("he will not be able to redeem") uses an active infinitive with an implied human subject, diverging from the Hebrew's passive framing where the field itself is the one "not redeemed."
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.