Note 13 — IX.

The “jubilee house” seems to be a reference to the institution of the jubilee year among the Hebrews,—a year in which impoverished families might redeem the property from which, at any time during fifty years previous, they had been forced to part. Thus we are told that if a man purchased of the Levites, the house that was sold should go out in the year of jubilee. Such a house might long be known in the neighborhood as the “jubilee house.” The hammering spoken of was probably connected with the repairing of some such lately redeemed house, and seems to point to an Eastern origin and locality for this narrative.—Note by Editor.