I have been writing a series of posts on living justly. In my last post I wrote about the practice of gleaning, and I proposed some ways to apply this ancient agrarian practice to our lives today. Today’s post will be on the practice and impact of Sabbath and Jubilee years. Our passage today is Leviticus 25:1-28.
25 The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai: 2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When you enter the land I am giving you, the land will observe a Sabbath to the Lord. 3 You may sow your field for six years, and you may prune your vineyard and gather its produce for six years. 4 But there will be a Sabbath of complete rest for the land in the seventh year, a Sabbath to the Lord: you are not to sow your field or prune your vineyard. 5 You are not to reap what grows by itself from your crop, or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. It is to be a year of complete rest for the land. 6 Whatever the land produces during the Sabbath year can be food for you—for yourself, your male or female slave, and the hired worker or alien who resides with you. 7 All of its growth may serve as food for your livestock and the wild animals in your land.
Every seventh year, the Israelites were to leave their fields fallow. They were not allowed to till and plant the fields but they were allowed to harvest whatever the fields produced on their own for food for people and animals. Note that the food was to be used not only for the landowner, but also for their workers, and for resident aliens. It would have been sufficient to tell the Israelites they could pick the edible crop which sprouted spontaneously, but God tells them the many categories of people who can be blessed with the food – perhaps to remind them to share. One commentator I read on these agrarian passages noted that Israelite practice was similar to the practice of the surrounding nations with one notable exception: God’s Law differed from the surrounding moral codes in the teaching to provide for foreigners. (See this post)
8 “You are to count seven sabbatical years, seven times seven years, so that the time period of the seven sabbatical years amounts to forty-nine. 9 Then you are to sound a ram’s horn loudly in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month; you will sound it throughout your land on the Day of Atonement. 10 You are to consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim freedom in the land for all its inhabitants. It will be your Jubilee, when each of you is to return to his property and each of you to his clan. 11 The fiftieth year will be your Jubilee; you are not to sow, reap what grows by itself, or harvest its untended vines. 12 It is to be holy to you because it is the Jubilee; you may only eat its produce directly from the field.
In verse 11 of chapter 25 the Lord proclaims that every fiftieth year is to be a year of Jubliee. But not only is the year of Jubilee to be a special version of the Sabbath year described in verses 1-7, but it also is a time of proclaiming freedom, and returning each person to their own property and clan. We have to read further to find out what that means.
13 “In this Year of Jubilee, each of you will return to his property. 14 If you make a sale to your neighbor or a purchase from him, do not cheat one another. 15 You are to make the purchase from your neighbor based on the number of years since the last Jubilee. He is to sell to you based on the number of remaining harvest years. 16 You are to increase its price in proportion to a greater amount of years, and decrease its price in proportion to a lesser amount of years, because what he is selling to you is a number of harvests. 17 You are not to cheat one another, but fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.
During the 49 year period between Jubilees, the Israelites have been selling and purchasing land. Those who were not prosperous and needed an influx of cash, sold some of their land to make ends meet. Perhaps they had gotten into debt, and couldn’t afford basic necessities without selling their land. In an agrarian society, land was important as a source of ongoing income, for future generations of one’s family. So while selling one’s land met the short-term need for cash flow, ultimately it was harmful to the long term financial well being of the family. Without land, how would the family produce a crop to feed themselves, trade for other necessities, or produce the seed for next year’s crop? Land was the critical asset for a family to flourish.
Those who were prosperous bought the land and became even more productive. In fear of the Lord, the Israelites were to set the purchase prices according to the number of harvests or years left until the Jubilee. That is because of what was said in verse 10 above. At the Jubilee, the property which had been sold was to revert to its original owner. What the prosperous Israelites were purchasing was not permanent ownership of the field, but the years of crops they would reap until the Jubilee.
There are multiple ways in which the laws outlined in this chapter provide a safety net for the poor and fair business practices for the society. If Israel kept these laws, they would go a long way toward preventing a huge gap between the rich and the poor in Israel and would keep a family from falling into generations of poverty because they had permanently lost their access to productive work. And in the meantime, they got a fair price for their land, because God’s law regulated or set the price.
Not only does God’s law provide for the poor, but it is also an impediment to the uncontrolled growth of wealth. God’s ideal for Israel was that each family would have its “own vine and fig tree,” symbols of food provided to each family. If a family was unable for various reasons to produce well, and got into debt, thereby needing to sell part or all of their land, gradually Israelite land would begin to be owned by fewer and fewer, wealthier and wealthier families or clans. If there were no law for the land to revert back to its original owners, the wealthy would continue to gain power and property, and the poor would continue to lose their ability to provide for themselves. They would be reduced to perpetual servitude to the large landowners. This is not a baseless fear – we have seen it happen historically over and over. As long as there is no law against the excessive accumulation of wealth, human greed will motivate people to accumulate more than they need. And a free market economy often means that the pricing of land can vary wildly, usually working to the disadvantage of those without power.
In addition to providing for the poor and controlling rising inequality, God’s law also reminds His people of their need to trust Him. Resting every seventh year, trusting in the Lord to provide for food, and then giving up land they have purchased every fiftieth year all requires trust in God, and fear of Him. Psalm 121 reminds God’s people “…your protector will not slumber. Indeed, the Protector of Israel does not slumber or sleep” (Psalm 121:3b,4) God’s people needed a regular reminder that they do not provide for themselves by their own efforts. Even on the years when they are working to harvest, ultimately it is God providing for them. God makes this point even more clear in verses 19 through 22 of this chapter.
18 “You are to keep my statutes and ordinances and carefully observe them, so that you may live securely in the land. 19 Then the land will yield its fruit, so that you can eat, be satisfied, and live securely in the land. 20 If you wonder, ‘What will we eat in the seventh year if we don’t sow or gather our produce?’ 21 I will appoint my blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. 22 When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating from the previous harvest. You will be eating this until the ninth year when its harvest comes in.
God promised to sustain the Israelites physically if they would trust and obey him. In verse 21 God tells them that while they are harvesting their crops in the sixth year, by His blessing (and not their own effort) they will store enough to last three years! The Israelites would have experienced God’s earthly blessing on them as a nation if they had obeyed him. They would have been a historic proof of God’s faithfulness to his promise to bless and to provide. And watching God provide for their needs as they trusted in Him and rested would have provided regular reminders of God’s faithfulness to His word. But they did not obey His Laws and so they also provided proof to us of God’s faithfulness to His promise to send them into exile. Paul refers to the Law as a tutor for God’s people until the time of Christ (Galatians 3). We learn tangible lessons from the Israelites about trusting God, about what pleases him, and about his desire to bless us.
Now that Jesus has come, we no longer live under these literal laws. Echoing these passages under the Old Covenant, Jesus teaches his followers not to worry about future sustenance but to trust and obey Him. (Matthew 6:25-34) This is not a guarantee that we will never suffer hunger or suffering on earth as obedient Christians. But, the long term promise of God’s provision is firm: God will ultimately take care of all of His followers. And because the blood of Jesus washes away our sin and guilt, God may discipline His children for their disobedience, but He will not condemn them. His discipline teaches us to live justly and to trust him for provision of our needs.
Now returning to Leviticus 25:
23 “The land is not to be permanently sold because it is mine, and you are only aliens and temporary residents on my land. 24 You are to allow the redemption of any land you occupy. 25 If your brother becomes destitute and sells part of his property, his nearest relative may come and redeem what his brother has sold. 26 If a man has no family redeemer, but he prospers and obtains enough to redeem his land, 27 he may calculate the years since its sale, repay the balance to the man he sold it to, and return to his property. 28 But if he cannot obtain enough to repay him, what he sold will remain in the possession of its purchaser until the Year of Jubilee. It is to be released at the Jubilee, so that he may return to his property.
In this paragraph, we learn that a sale can be reversed or redeemed, even before the Jubilee. The prosperous buyer is really more a lender than a buyer. If a family member of the original owner can redeem the land for his kinsman, or the owner himself saves enough to repurchase his own land, the buyer must yield the land back to him. He holds that property only temporarily and the greater priority is clearly that the original owner would get back on his feet financially.
But notice verse 23: “The land is not to be permanently sold because it is mine (God’s), and you are only aliens …” I will write more about this in the future, but this verse teaches us a view of our “real estate” which contradicts our selfish ambitions with regard to money, possession and our very lives. God is the owner of all things and we should regard our role as stewards of what He has given us, rather than as owners of our wealth and possessions. As David said in 1 Chronicles 29: “For everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your own hand.” (1 Chronicles 29:14) Anything we can give God He already possesses! Furthermore, we learn in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 that we are not even “owners” of our own bodies because we were bought with a price (Christ’s blood).
Some applications from this passage:
We should hold our possessions with a “loose hand,” knowing that they all belong to the Lord.
We should remember that the Lord is the one who provides for us, not ourselves by our own efforts.
If we have the financial capacity to rescue someone from poverty, we should never take advantage of their predicament.
We should pay a fair price for their property.
Their restoration should take priority over my hopes for profit.
In an agrarian culture, land was the possession needed to provide for oneself and one’s family. In our culture, we should look for analogous assets or credentials through which a person becomes able to earn a living. Two that come to my mind are education and business start-up capital. As Christians, how can we work together to provide these basic assets/credentials to each person by which they can then work with human dignity to provide for themselves?
I hope you are enjoying our series on living justly! It has been encouraging to dive into the Word and see how practical and applicable it is to everyday life. While writing this post I also came across two excellent blog posts by Ed Jarrett, a retired pastor. It was encouraging to see that he wrote some very similar ideas. You can find his posts here and here.