Read

Law of Redemption and Jubilee

Leviticus 25:8-55

Israel began as a theocracy without a human king. One ramification of this was that the two defining parts of any nation—land and people—belonged to God. The people were His and the land of Canaan was His. Therefore, no Israelite could permanently own the land or other Israelites as debtors or slaves. Laws were put in place to emphasize the fact that everything belonged to God.

God wanted His people to rest one day out of seven, so established the principle of the Sabbath rest day (Exodus 20:8-11). He also wanted the land to rest and so established a sabbath-rest year for the land—every seventh year the land was not to be tilled (Leviticus 25:1-7). (Because the people failed to observe the land's sabbath-rest years, they were sent into captivity for seventy years—one year for each seven-year cycle ignored—so the land could rest [Leviticus 26:34-35; 2 Chronicles 36:21; Jeremiah 25:11-12]).

Every fiftieth year, God allowed for a reversal of accounts in Israel—property was to be restored to original clans and families, debts were to be resolved and debtors set free, and the land was given an additional year of rest. The fiftieth year was to be a year of Jubilee: "And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family" (Leviticus 25:10). Financial settlements were calculated (prorated) on the basis of proximity to the Jubilee year; the land-rest fiftieth year constituted the last half of the 49th year and the first half of the 50th year. The Jubilee year was a way to keep money and property from accumulating in the hands of the wealthy and emphasize that everything belonged to God.

Jesus made reference to an ultimate, Messianic aspect of the Jubilee by quoting from Isaiah 61:1-2 in the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4:18-19).

Back to Leviticus