To secure the permanence and independence of every separate tribe, a law was enacted by the authority of Heaven, providing that the landed property of every Israelite should be unalienable. Whatever encumbrances might befall the owner of a field, and whatever might be the obligations under which he placed himself to his creditor, he was released from all claims at the year of jubilee. "Ye shall hallow," said the inspired legislator, "the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a jubilee unto you, and ye shall return every man to his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. And the land shall not be sold for ever; for the land is mine, saith the Lord; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me."[14] The attentive reader of the Mosaical law will observe, that though a Hebrew could not divest himself of his land in perpetuity, he could dispose of it so far as to put another person in possession of it during a certain number of years; reserving to himself and his relations the right of redeeming it, should they ever possess the means; and having at all events the sure prospect of a reversion at the period of the jubilee. In the eye of the lawgiver this transaction was not regarded as a sale of the land, but merely of the crops for a stated number of seasons. It might indeed have been considered simply as a lease, had not the owner, as well as his nearest kinsman, enjoyed the privilege of resuming occupation whenever they could repay the sum for which the temporary use of the land had been purchased.[15] The houses which were built in fields or villages were, in regard to the principle of alienation, placed on the same footing as the lands themselves; being redeemable at all times, and destined to return to their original owners in the year of jubilee. But, on the contrary, houses in cities and large towns were, when sold, redeemable only during one year; after which the sale was held binding forever. There was indeed an exception in this case in favour of the Levites, who could at any time redeem "the houses of the cities of their possession," and who, moreover, enjoyed the full advantage of the fiftieth year.