John Gill Bible Commentary

And if thou sell ought unto thy neighbour,.... Any estate or possession, house or land, at any time before the year of jubilee: or buyest ought of thy neighbour's hand; of movable goods, as the Targum of Jonathan interprets it; and so other Jewish writers (z) restrain this to goods which are bought by hand, and delivered from hand to hand; and so they think that fields, and servants, which they say are like to fields, are excluded hereby; but it seems to refer to anything saleable, and chiefly to fields and vineyards, as the following verses show; wherefore Diodorus Siculus, as quoted by Grotius, must be mistaken, when he says, it was not counted lawful by the Jews to sell their inheritance, unless he means for ever, so indeed they could not: ye shall not oppress one another; the buyer giving too little, or the seller requiring too much; no advantage was to be taken, either of the necessity of the one, or the ignorance of the other, but a fair bargain was to be made, and the full value given, neither too much nor too little. The Jews by "neighbour" understand an Israelite, and not a Gentile (a); not that there might be no buying and selling at all between Jews and Gentiles, or that the former might oppress and defraud the latter, though not an Israelite; but lands and inheritances might not be sold at all to Gentiles, only to Israelites. (z) Maimon. & Bartenora in Misn. Bava Metziah, c. 4. sect. 9. (a) Jarchi in loc.