Albert Barnes Commentary Leviticus 25:47-54

"And if a stranger or sojourner with thee be waxed rich, and thy brother be waxed poor beside him, and sell himself unto the stranger [or] sojourner with thee, or to the stock of the stranger`s family; after that he is sold he may be redeemed: one of his brethren may redeem him; or his uncle, or his uncle`s son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be waxed rich, he may redeem himself. And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he sold himself to him unto the year of jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years; according to the time of a hired servant shall he be with him. If there be yet many years, according unto them he shall give back the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for. And if there remain but few years unto the year of jubilee, then he shall reckon with him; according unto his years shall he give back the price of his redemption. As a servant hired year by year shall he be with him: he shall not rule with rigor over him in thy sight. And if he be not redeemed by these [means], then he shall go out in the year of jubilee, he, and his children with him." — Leviticus 25:47-54 (ASV)

A sojourner or stranger — Rather, a foreigner who has settled among you. See Leviticus 16:29, note; Exodus 20:10, note.

Leviticus 25:54

In these years — More properly, by one of these means. The extreme period of servitude in this case was six years, as when the master was a Hebrew (Exodus 21:2).

Looking at the law of the Jubilee from a simply practical point of view, its operation must have tended to remedy those evils which are always growing up in the ordinary conditions of human society. It prevented the permanent accumulation of land in the hands of a few and periodically raised those whom fault or misfortune had sunk into poverty to a position of competency. It must also have tended to keep alive family feeling and helped to preserve the family genealogies.

But in its more special character, as a law given by Yahweh to His special people, it was a standing lesson to those who would rightly regard it, on the terms upon which the enjoyment of the land of promise had been conferred upon them. All the land belonged to Yahweh as its supreme Lord; every Israelite, as His vassal, belonged to Him.

The voice of the Jubilee horns, twice in every century, proclaimed the equitable and beneficent social order appointed for the people. They sounded that acceptable year of Yahweh which was to bring comfort to all that mourned, in which the slavery of sin was to be abolished, and the true liberty of God’s children was to be proclaimed (Luke 2:25; Isaiah 61:2; Luke 4:19; Acts 3:21; Romans 8:19–23; 1 Peter 1:3–4).