In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession.
Ye shall return ... Inheritances, from whatever cause, and how frequently soever they had been alienated, came back, free of all encumbrances, into the hands of the original proprietors or their heirs. This law of entail, by which the right heir could never be excluded, was a provision of great wisdom for preserving families and tribes perfectly distinct, and their genealogies faithfully recorded, in order that all might have evidence to establish their right to the ancestral property. Hence, the tribe and family of Christ were readily discovered at his birth. Of course this agrarian law constantly affected the sale or conveyance of property, because the amount of purchase-money given for land would depend on the longer or shorter tenure of the estate. The arrival of the jubilee annulled every contract that could bar the recovery of a patrimonial possession.