Notwithstanding, the cities of the Levites,.... The six cities of refuge, and forty two others; these and the houses in them are excepted from the above law, and only they; not such as they might purchase elsewhere; wherefore it follows,
[and] the houses of the cities of their possession; which were in cities possessed by them, and which was their possession, and given them as such:
may the Levites redeem at any time; they were not restrained to a year, as houses in walled towns, but they might redeem them as they pleased or could; and if they did not redeem them within the year, they might redeem them afterwards, even years after, and any time before the year of jubilee; so it is said in the Misnah l the priests and the Levites sell always, and they redeem always, as it is said, Leviticus 25:32; on which one of the commentators says m "they sell always", not as the Israelites, who cannot sell less than two years before the jubilee; but the Levites can sell near the jubilee: "and they redeem always"; if they sell houses in walled cities, they are not confirmed at the end of the year, as the houses of Israelites; and if they sell fields, it is not necessary they should remain in the hands of the buyer two years, but they may redeem them immediately if they will: this redemption was peculiar to the Levites; for if an Israelite has an inheritance from his father's mother, a Levite, he might not redeem according to the manner Levites did, but according to Israelites; and so a Levite that inherited from his father's mother, an Israelite, was obliged to redeem as an Israelite and not as a Levite n; for this perpetual redemption respected only houses that were in the cities of the Levites.
l Eracin, c. 9. sect. 8. m Bartenora in ib. n Misn. Eracin, c. 9. sect. 8.