Leviticus 25:8 ¶ And thou
shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and
the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine
years. 9 Then shalt thou cause the
trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in
the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.
10 And ye shall hallow the fiftieth
year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the
inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every
man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. 11 A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto
you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor
gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. 12 For it is the jubile; it shall be holy
unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field. 13 In the year of this jubile ye shall return
every man unto his possession. 14 And if
thou sell ought unto thy neighbour, or buyest ought of thy neighbour’s
hand, ye shall not oppress one another: 15
According to the number of years after the jubile thou shalt buy of thy
neighbour, and according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall
sell unto thee: 16 According to the
multitude of years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the
fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price of it: for according to
the number of the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee. 17 Ye shall not therefore oppress one another;
but thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the LORD your God. 18 Wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep
my judgments, and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety. 19 And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye
shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety. 20 And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the
seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase: 21 Then I will command my blessing upon you in
the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. 22 And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet
of old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat of
the old store.
Here are the instructions for the Jubilee. This is the forty ninth
year or seven times seven from which it is not incorrect to say the fiftieth
year. Once the year 49 arrives you are now in the 50th year. Every
man’s possession is returned and servants are returned. It was a Sabbath year
when the land would not be worked, the seventh Sabbath of years but a special
Sabbath of years in that property and persons were to be returned. Although
participants in the American institution of slavery often claimed that slavery
was Biblical I am not aware of anyone being returned to Africa in the first
generation of slaves or being reunited with their families after 49 years when
families were broken up and sold apart as they often were. Over a thousand
advertisements are being currently studied and more added to the list of former
slaves making appeals in black newspapers after the American Civil War for
anyone who might have information on their spouses or children who were torn
from them and sold away by their owners.[1]
In addition, on this interesting side note in the American version
of slavery before the Civil War advocates of the institution often claimed it
was no different than the ancient Biblical practice. In disagreement to that
excuse for American racial, chattel slavery a slaveowner’s wife who fled the
institution noted in her 1839 diary that;
In Louisiana and the new Southwestern Slave States, I believe,
task labor does not prevail; but it is in those that the condition of the poor
human cattle was most deplorable, as you know it was there that the humane
calculation was not only made, but openly and unhesitatingly avowed, that the
planters found it upon the whole of their most profitable plan to work off
(kill with labor), their whole number of slaves about once in seven years, and
renew the whole stock. By the bye, the Jewish institution of slavery is much
insisted upon by the Southern upholders of the system; perhaps this is their
notion of the Jewish jubilee, when the slaves by Moses strict enactment were to
be all set free.[2]
There will be other gaping differences between the slavery
referred to in the Bible and the more modern versions which I will note when
they come up.
In this command noted beginning in this passage God makes
provision for the year they do not sow and for the time they will have to wait
for their labors to bear fruit again. God promised fruit of the land in the
sixth year’s harvest for three years and that they would eat of the old store until the ninth year. God
continues to warn them to follow His measures to live in the land and live in
safety.
This liberty that was to be proclaimed represented God’s mercy and
peace made with Him. The returning of land and persons represented that peace
with God. A trumpet announcing the Jubilee in the day of atonement was a
glorious thing. To have peace with God is greater than any other peace. The
whole foundation of the Bible is peace with our Maker, our Creator, our God.
There is no greater experience than to know that God has offered us peace and
made peace with us.
Having afflicted their souls for sin, as Matthew Henry put it,
they rejoiced to hear a sound of joy and gladness.
Romans 5:1 ¶ Therefore
being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
2 By whom also we have access by faith
into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Jesus
quoted this passage in Isaiah in Luke 4.
Isaiah 61:1 ¶ The Spirit of
the Lord GOD is upon me;
because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath
sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and
the opening of the prison to them that
are bound; 2 To proclaim the
acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort
all that mourn;
3 To appoint unto them that
mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning,
the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called
trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.
Matthew Henry pointed out how this was an extraordinary time. Not
only was there a Sabbath of rest for the land as there was every seven years
but the release of all debts.
Deuteronomy 15:2 And this is the manner of the release: Every
creditor that lendeth ought
unto his neighbour shall release it;
he shall not exact it of his
neighbour, or of his brother; because it is called the LORD’S release. 3 Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it again: but that which is thine with thy brother thine hand shall
release;4 Save when there shall be no
poor among you; for the LORD shall greatly bless thee in the land which the
LORD thy God giveth thee for an
inheritance to possess it: 5 Only if
thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all
these commandments which I command thee this day.
The property of every Israelite was to be restored that was lost
since the previous Jubilee. This preserved genealogies, the distinction of
tribes, and, as Henry noted, prevented individuals from acquiring great wealth
on the backs of other people’s folly.
Indeed, at America’s own founding this warning was given by the
famous Reverend Phillips Payson, ancestor of several notable clergymen in early
America;
“The exorbitant wealth of individuals has a most baneful influence
on public virtue, and therefore should be carefully guarded against.”[3]
It was claimed during the Gilded Age of American history in the
late 1800s after the Yankee empire had crushed the agrarian South to move on to
expand across the world that mass poverty did not exist in America before the
amassing of great fortunes with government help as railroads and shipping,
factories, mining, and financing became noteworthy emblems of America’s
economic power.
Here, God is controlling the baser parts of the Hebrew’s nature,
selfishness, a desire to dominate each other, and those inclinations all men
and women have that go against God’s plan for mankind.
If they obey His regulations on their economic activity they will
dwell in the land in safety and will not suffer want.
[1]
Kristin E. Holmes, “Families torn apart by
slavery sought lost loved ones in newly archived ads,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, (Feb. 19, 2017). https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/New-project-highlights-newspaper-ads-placed-to-find-relatives-lost-during-slavery.html
[2]
Frances Anne Kemble, Journal of a
Residence on a Georgian Plantation (1838-1839), (Bel Air, CA: Neeland Media
LLC., 18) Kindle Edition, loc 327.
[3] Phillips Payson,
“Election Sermon,” in The Pulpit of the American Revolution, or, the Political
Sermons of the Period of 1776, ed. by John Wingate Thornton (Boston: D.
Lothrop & Co. Publishers, 1876), 338.
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