THE SABBATIC YEAR AND THE
JUBILEE
Lev 25:1-55
THE system of annually recurring sabbatic times, as given in
chapter 23, culminated in the sabbatic seventh month. But this
remarkable system of sabbatisms extended still further, and besides
the sacred seventh day, the seventh week, and seventh month,
included also a sabbatic seventh year; and beyond that, as the,
ultimate expression of the sabbatic idea, following the seventh
seven of years, came the hallowed fiftieth year, known as the
jubilee. And the law concerning these two last-named periods is
recorded in this twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus.
First (Lev 25:1-5), is given the ordinance of the sabbatic seventh
year, in the following words: "When ye come into the land which I
give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord. Six
years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy
vineyard, and gather in the fruits thereof; but in the seventh year
shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath unto the
Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. That
which groweth of itself of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, and the
grapes of thy undressed vine thou shalt not gather: it shall be a
year of solemn rest for the land."
This sacred year is thus here described as a sabbath for the land
unto the Lord, -a sabbath shabbathon; that is, a sabbath in a
special and eminent sense. No public religious gatherings were
ordered, however, neither was labour of every kind prohibited. It
was strictly a year of rest for the land, and for the people in so
far as this was involved in that fact. There was to be no sowing or
reaping, even of what might grow of itself; no pruning of vineyard
or fruit trees, nor gathering of their fruit. These regulations thus
involved the total suspension of agricultural labour for this entire
period.
It was further ordered (Lev 25:6-7) that during this year the
spontaneous produce of the land should be equally free to all, both
man and beast:
"The sabbath of the land shall be for food for you; for thee, and
for thy servant and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant and for
thy stranger that sojourn with thee; and for thy cattle, and for the
beasts that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be for
food."
That this cannot be regarded as merely a regulation of a communistic
character, designed simply to affirm the absolute equality of all
men in right to the product of the soil, is evident from the fact
that the beasts also are included in the terms of the law. The
object was quite different, as we shall shortly see.
That it should be regarded as possible for a whole people thus to
live off the spontaneous produce of self-sowed grain may seem
incredible to us who dwell in less propitious lands; and yet
travellers tell us that in the Palestine of today, with its rich
soil and kindly climate, the various food grains continuously
propagate themselves without cultivation; and that in Albania, also,
two and three successive harvests are sometimes reaped as the result
of one sowing. So, even apart from the special blessing from the
Lord promised to them if they would obey this command, the supply of
at least the necessities of life was possible from the spontaneous
product of the sabbath of the land. Though less than usual, it might
easily be sufficient. Deu 15:1-11, it is ordered also that the
seventh year should be "a year of release" to the debtor; not indeed
as regards all debts, but loans only; nor, apparently, that even
these should be released absolutely, but that throughout the seventh
year the claim of the creditor was to be in abeyance. The regulation
may naturally be regarded as consequent upon this fundamental law
regarding the sabbath of the land. The income of the year being much
less than usual, the debtor, presumably, might often find it
difficult to pay; whence this restriction on collection of debt
during this period.
The central thought of this ordinance then is this, that man’s right
in the soil and its product, originally granted from God, during
this sabbatic year reverted to the Giver; who, again, by ordering
that all exclusive rights of individuals in the produce of their
estates should be suspended for this year, placed, for so long, the
rich and the poor on an absolute equality as regards means of
sustenance.
THE JUBILEE
Lev 25:8-12
"And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven
times seven years; and there shall be unto thee the days of seven
sabbaths of years, even forty and nine years. Then shalt thou send
abroad the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month; in
the day of atonement shall ye send abroad the trumpet throughout all
your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim
liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it
shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his
possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. A jubilee
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
the undressed vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy unto you:
ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field."
The remainder of this chapter, Lev 25:8-55, is occupied with this
ordinance of the jubilee year; an observance absolutely without a
parallel in any nation, and which has to do with the solution of
some of the most difficult social problems, not only of that time,
but also of our own. Seven weeks of years, each terminating with the
sabbatic year of solemn rest for the land, were to be numbered,
i.e., forty-nine full years, of which the last was a sabbatic year,
beginning, as always, with the feast of atonement in the tenth day
of the seventh month. And then when, at its expiration, the day of
atonement came round again, at the beginning of the fiftieth year of
this reckoning, at the close, as would appear, of the solemn
expiatory ritual of the day, throughout all the land of Israel the
loud trumpet was to be sounded, proclaiming "liberty throughout the
land unto all the inhabitants thereof." The ordinance is given in
Lev 25:8-12 above.
It appears that the liberty thus proclaimed was threefold:
(1) liberty to the man who, through the reverses of life, had become
dispossessed from his family inheritance in the land, to return to
it again;
(2) liberty to every Hebrew slave, so that in the jubilee he became
a free man again;
(3) the liberty of release from toil in the cultivation of the land,
-a feature, in this case, even more remarkable than in the sabbatic
year, because already one such sabbatic year had but just closed
when the jubilee year immediately succeeded.
Why this year should be called a jubilee (Hebrews yobel) is a vexed
question, on which scholars are far from unanimous; but as it is of
no practical importance, there is no need to enter on the discussion
here. To suppose that these enactments should have originated, as
the radical critics claim, in post-exilian days, when, under the
existing social and political conditions, their observance was
impossible, is utterly absurd. Not only so, but in view of the
admitted neglect even of the sabbatic year, -an ordinance certainly
less difficult to carry out in practice, -during four hundred and
ninety years of Israel’s history, the supposition that the law of
the jubilee should have been first promulgated at any earlier
post-Mosaic period is scarcely less incredible.
THE JUBILEE AND THE LAND
Lev 25:13-28
"In this year of jubilee ye shall return every man unto his
possession. And if thou sell aught unto thy neighbour, or buy of thy
neighbour’s hand, ye shall not wrong one another: according to the
number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbour,
and according unto the number of years of the crops he shall sell
unto thee. According to the multitude of the years thou shalt
increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of the
years thou shalt diminish the price of it; for the number of the
crops doth he sell unto thee. And ye shall not wrong one another;
but thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the Lord your God. Wherefore
ye shall do My statutes, and keep My judgments and do them; and ye
shall dwell in the land in safety. And the land shall yield her
fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety. And
if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we
shall not sow, nor gather in our increase: then I will command My
blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit
for the three years. And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat of
the fruits, the old store; until the ninth year, until her fruits
come in, ye shall eat the old store. And the land shall not be sold
in perpetuity; for the land is Mine: for ye are strangers and
sojourners with Me. And in all the land of your possession ye shall
grant a redemption for the land. If thy brother be waxen poor, and
sell some of his possession, then shall his kinsman that is next
unto him come, and shall redeem that which his brother hath sold.
And if a man have no one to redeem it, and he be waxen rich and find
sufficient to redeem it then let him count the years of the sale
thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it;
and he shall return unto his possession. But if he be not able to
get it back for himself, then that which he hath sold shall remain
in the hand of him that hath bought it until the year of jubilee:
and in the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return unto his
possession."
The remainder of the chapter (Lev 25:13-55) deals with the practical
application of this law of the jubilee to various cases. In Lev
25:13-28 we have the application of the law to the case of property
in land; in Lev 25:29-34, to sales of dwelling houses; and the
remaining verses (Lev 25:35-55) deal with the application of this
law to the institution of slavery.
As regards the first matter, the transfers of right in land, these
in all cases were to be governed by the fundamental principle
enounced in Lev 25:23 : "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity;
for the land is Mine: for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me."
Thus in the theocracy there was no such thing as either private or
communal ownership in land. Just as in some lands today the only
owner of the land is the king, so it was in Israel; but in this case
the King was Jehovah. From this it follows evidently, that properly
speaking, according to this law, there could be no such thing in
Israel as a sale or purchase of land. All that any man could buy or
sell was the right to its products, and that, again, only for a
limited time; for every fiftieth year the land was to revert to the
family to whom its use had been originally assigned. Hence the
regulations (Lev 25:14-19) regarding such transfers of the right to
the use of the land. They are all governed by the simple and
equitable principle that the price paid for the usufruct of the land
was to be exactly proportioned to the number of years which were to
elapse between the date of the sale and the reversion of the land,
which would take place in the jubilee. Thus, the price for such
transfer of right in the first year of the jubilee period would be
at its maximum, because the sale covered the right to the produce of
the land for forty-nine years; while, on the other hand, in the case
of a transfer made in the forty-eighth year, the price would have
fallen to a very small amount, as only the product of one year’s
cultivation remained to be sold, and after the ensuing sabbatic year
the land would revert in the jubilee to the original holder. The
command to keep in mind this principle, and not wrong one another,
is enforced (Lev 25:17-19) by the injunction to do this because of
the fear of God; and by the promise that if Israel will obey this
law, they shall dwell in safety, and have abundance.
In Lev 25:24-28, after the declaration of the fundamental law that
the land belongs only to the Lord, and that they are to regard
themselves as simply His tenants, "sojourners with Him," a second
application of the law is made. First, it is ordered that in every
case, and without reference to the year of jubilee, every landholder
who through stress of poverty may be obliged to sell the usufruct of
his land shall retain the right to redeem it. Three cases are
assumed. First (Lev 25:25), it is ordered that if the poor man have
lost his land, and have a kinsman who is able to redeem it, he shall
do so. Secondly (Lev 25:26), if he have no such kinsman, but himself
become able to redeem it, it shall be his privilege to do so. In
both cases alike, "the overplus," i.e., the value of the land for
the years still remaining till the jubilee, for which the purchaser
had paid, is to be restored to him, and then the land reverts at
once, without waiting for the jubilee, to the original proprietor.
The third case (Lev 25:28) is that of the poor man who has no
kinsman to buy back his landholding, and never becomes able to do so
himself. In such a case, the purchaser was to hold it until the
jubilee year, when the land reverted without compensation to the
family of the poor man who had transferred it. That this was
strictly equitable is self-evident, when we remember that, according
to the law previously laid down, the purchaser had only paid for the
value of the product of the land until the jubilee year; and when he
had received its produce for that time, naturally and in strict
equity his right in the land terminated.
THE JUBILEE AND DWELLING
HOUSES
Lev 25:29-34
"And if a man sell a dwelling house in a wailed city, then he may
redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; for a full year
shall he have the right of redemption. And if it be not redeemed
within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the
walled city shall be made sure in perpetuity to him that bought it,
throughout his generations: it shall not go out in the jubilee. But
the houses of the villages which have no wall round about them shall
be reckoned with the fields of the country: they may be redeemed,
and they shall go out in the jubilee. Nevertheless the cities of the
Levites the houses of the cities of their possession, may the
Levites redeem at any time. And if one of the Levites redeem [not],
then the house that was sold, and the city of his possession, shall
go out in the jubilee: for the houses of the cities of the Levites
are their possession among the children of Israel. But the field of
the suburbs of their cities may not be sold; for it is their
perpetual possession."
In Lev 25:29-34 is considered the application of the jubilee
ordinance to the sale of dwelling houses: first (Lev 25:29-31), to
such sale in case of the people generally; secondly (Lev 25:32-34),
to sales of houses by the Levites. Under the former head we have
first the law as regards sales of dwelling houses in "walled
cities"; to which it is ordered that the law of reversion in the
jubilee shall not apply, and for which the right of redemption was
only to hold valid for one year. The obvious reason for exempting
houses in cities from the law of reversion is that the law has to do
only with land such as may be used in a pastoral or agricultural way
for man’s support. And this explains why, on the other hand, it is
next ordered (Lev 25:31) that in the case of houses in unwalled
villages the law of redemption and reversion in the jubilee shall
apply as well as to the land. For the inhabitants of the villages
were the herdsmen and cultivators of the soil; and the house was
regarded rightly as a necessary attachment to the land, without
which its use would not be possible. But inasmuch as God had
assigned no landholding to the Levites in the original distribution
of the land, -and apart from their houses they had no possession
(Lev 25:33), -in order to secure them in the privilege of a
permanent holding, such as others enjoyed in their lands, it was
ordered that in their case their houses, as being their only
possession in real estate, should be treated as were the
landholdings of members of the other tribes.
The relation, of the jubilee law to personal rights in the land
having been thus determined and expounded, in the next place (Lev
25:35-55) is considered the application of the law to slavery. Quite
naturally, this section begins (Lev 25:35-37) with a general
injunction to assist and deal mercifully with any brother who has
become poor. "If thy brother be waxen poor, and his hand fail with
thee; then thou shalt uphold him: as a stranger and a sojourner
shall he live with thee. Take thou no usury of him or increase; but
fear thy God: that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not
give him thy money upon usury, nor give him thy victuals for
increase."
The evident object of this law is to prevent, as far as possible,
that extreme of poverty which might compel a man to sell himself in
order to live. Debt is a burden in any case, to a poor man
especially; but debt is the heavier burden when to the original debt
is added the constant payment of interest. Hence, not merely "usury"
in the modern sense of excessive interest, but it is forbidden to
claim or take any interest whatever from any Hebrew debtor. On the
same principle, it is forbidden to take increase for food which may
be lent to a poor brother; as when one lets a man have twenty
bushels of wheat on condition that in due time he shall return for
it twenty-two. This command is enforced (Lev 25:38) by reminding
them from whom they have received what they have, and on what easy
terms, as a gift; from their covenant God, who is Himself their
security that by so doing they shall not lose: "I am the Lord your
God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you
the land of Canaan, to be your God." They need not therefore have
recourse to the exaction of interest and increase from their peer
brethren in order to make a living, but are to be merciful, even as
Jehovah their God is merciful.
THE JUBILEE AND SLAVERY
Lev 25:39-55
"And if thy brother be waxen poor with thee, and sell himself
unto thee; thou shalt not make him to serve as a bondservant: as a
hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee; he shall
serve with thee unto the year of jubilee: then shall he go out from
thee, he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own
family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return. For
they are My servants, which I brought forth out of the land of
Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen. Thou shalt not rule over
him with rigour; but shalt fear thy God. And as for thy bondmen, and
thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have; of the nations that are
roundabout you, of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover
of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them
shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they
have begotten in your land: and they shall be your possession. And
ye shall make them an inheritance for your children after you to
hold for a possession; of them shall ye take your bondmen forever:
but over your brethren the children of Israel ye shall not rule, one
over another, with rigour. And if a stranger or sojourner with thee
be waxen rich, and thy brother be waxen poor beside him, and sell
himself unto the stranger or sojourner with thee, or to the stock of
the stranger’s family: after that he is sold he may be redeemed; one
of his brethren may redeem him: or his uncle, or his uncle’s son,
may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family
may redeem him; or if he be waxen rich, he may redeem himself. And
he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he sold
himself to him unto the year of jubilee: and the price of his sale
shall be according unto the number of years; according to the time
of a hired servant shall he be with him. If there be yet many years,
according unto them he shall give back the price of his redemption
out of the money that he was bought for. And if there remain but few
years unto the year of jubilee, then he shall reckon with him
according unto his years shall he give back the price of his
redemption. As a servant hired year by year shall he be with him: he
shall not rule with rigour over him in thy sight. And if he be not
redeemed by these means then he shall go out in the year of jubilee,
he, and his children with him. For unto Me the children of Israel
are servants; they are My servants whom I brought forth out of the
land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God."
Even with the burdensomeness of debt lightened as above, it was yet
possible that a man might be reduced to poverty so extreme that he
should feel compelled to sell himself as a slave. Hence arises the
question of slavery, and its relation to the law of the jubilee.
Under this head two cases were possible: the first, where a man had
sold himself to a fellow Hebrew (Lev 25:39-46): the second, where a
man had sold himself to a foreigner resident in the land (Lev
25:47-55).
With the Hebrews and all the neighbouring peoples, slavery was, and
had been from of old, a settled institution. Regarded simply as an
abstract question of morals, it might seem as if the Lord might once
for all have abolished it by an absolute prohibition; after the
manner in which many modern reformers would deal with such evils as
the liquor traffic, etc. But the Lord was wiser than many such. As
has been remarked already, in connection with the question of
concubinage, that law is not in every case the best which may be the
best intrinsically and ideally. That law is the best which can be
best enforced in the actual moral status of the people, and
consequent condition of public opinion. So the Lord did not at once
prohibit slavery; but He ordained laws which would restrict it, and
modify and ameliorate the condition of the slave wherever slavery
was permitted to exist; laws, moreover, which have had such an
educational power as to have banished slavery from the Hebrew
people.
In the first place, slavery, in the unqualified sense of the word,
is allowed only in the case of non-Israelites. That it was permitted
to hold these as bondmen is explicitly declared (Lev 25:44-46). It
is, however, important, in order to form a correct idea of Hebrew
slavery, to observe that, according Exo 21:16, man stealing was made
a capital offence; and the law also carefully guarded from violence
and tyranny on the part of the master the non-Israelite slave
lawfully gotten, even decreeing his emancipation from his master in
extreme cases of this kind. {Exo 21:20-21; Exo 21:26-27}
With regard to the Hebrew bondman, the law recognises no property of
the master in his person; that a servant of Jehovah should be a
slave of another servant of Jehovah is denied; because they are His
servants, no other can own them (Lev 25:42, Lev 25:55). Thus, while
the case is supposed (Lev 25:39) that a man through stress of
poverty may sell himself to a fellow Hebrew as a bondservant, the
sale is held as affecting only the master’s right to his service,
but not to his person. "Thou shalt not make him to serve as a
bondservant: as a hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be
with thee."
Further, it is elsewhere provided {Exo 21:2} that in no case shall
such sale hold valid for a longer time than six years; in the
seventh year the man was to have the privilege of going out free for
nothing. And in. this chapter is added a further alleviation of the
bondage (Lev 25:40-41):
"He shall serve with thee unto the year of jubilee: then shall he go
out from thee, he and his children with him, and shall return unto
his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he
return. For they are My servants, which I brought forth out of the
land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen."
That is, if it so happened that before the six years of his
prescribed service had been completed the jubilee year came in, he
was to be exempted from the obligation to service for the remainder
of that period.
The remaining verses of this part of the law (Lev 25:44-46) provide
that the Israelite may take to himself bondmen of "the children of
the strangers" that sojourn among them; and that to such the law of
the periodic release shall not be held to apply. Such are "bondmen
forever." "Ye shall make them an inheritance for your children after
you, to hold for a possession; of them shall ye take your bondmen
forever."
It is to be borne in mind that even in such cases the law which
commanded the kind treatment of all the strangers in the land {Lev
19:33-34} would apply; so that even where permanent slavery was
allowed it was placed under humanising restriction.
In Lev 25:47-55 is taken up, finally, the case where a poor
Israelite should have sold himself as a slave to a foreigner
resident in the land. In all such cases it is ordered that the owner
of the man must recognise the right of redemption. That is, it was
the privilege of the man himself, or of any of his near kindred, to
buy him out of bondage. Compensation to the owner is, however,
enjoined in such cases according to the number of the years
remaining to the next jubilee, at which time he would be obliged to
release him (Lev 25:54), whether redeemed or not. Thus we read (Lev
25:50-52):
"He shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he sold
himself to him unto the year of jubilee: and the price of his sale
shall be according unto the number of years; according to the time
of a hired servant shall he be with him. If there be yet many years,
according unto them he shall give back the price of his redemption
out of the money that he was bought for. And if there remain but few
years unto the year of jubilee, then he shall reckon with him;
according unto his years shall he give back the price of his
redemption. As a servant hired year by year shall he be with him."
Furthermore, it is commanded (Lev 25:53) that the owner of the
Israelite, for so long time as he may remain in bondage, shall "not
rule over him with rigour"; and by the addition of the words "in thy
sight" it is intimated that God would hold the collective nation
responsible for seeing that no oppression was exercised by any alien
over any of their enslaved brethren. To which it should also be
added, finally, that the regulations for the release of the slave
carefully provided for the maintenance of the family relation.
Families were not to be parted in the emancipation of the jubilee:
the man who went out free was to take his children with him (Lev
25:41, Lev 25:54). In the case, however, where the wife had been
given him by his master, she and her children remained in bondage
after his emancipation in the seventh year; but of course only until
she had reached her seventh year of service. But if the slave
already had his wife when he became a slave, then she and their
children went out with him in the seventh year. {Exo 21:3-4} The
contrast in the spirit of these laws with that of the institution of
slavery as it formerly existed in the Southern States of America,
and elsewhere-in Christendom, is obvious.
These, then, were the regulations connected with the application of
the ordinance of the jubilee year to rights of property, whether in
real estate or in slaves. In respect to the cessation from the
cultivation of the soil which was enjoined for the year, the law was
essentially the same as that for the sabbatic year, except that,
apparently, the right of property in the spontaneous produce of the
land, which was in abeyance in the former case, was in so far
recognised in the latter that each man was allowed to "eat the
increase of the jubilee year out of the field" (Lev 25:12).
PRACTICAL OBJECTS OF THE
SABBATIC YEAR AND JUBILEE LAW
Such was this extraordinary legislation, the like of which will
be sought in vain in any other people. It is indeed true that, in
some instances, ancient lawgivers decreed that land should not be
permanently alienated, or that individuals should, not hold more
than a certain amount of land. Thus, for example, the Lacedemonians
were forbidden to sell their lands, and the Dalmatians were wont to
redistribute their lands every eight years. But laws such as these
only present accidental coincidences with single features of the
jubilee year; an agreement to be accounted for by the fact that the
aim of such lawgivers was, in so far, the same as that of the Hebrew
code, that they sought thus to guard against excessive accumulations
of property in the hands of individuals, and those consequent great
inequalities in the distribution of wealth which, in all lands and
ages, and never more clearly than in our own, have been seen to be
fraught with the gravest dangers to the highest interests of
society. Beyond this single point we shall search in vain the
history, of any other people for an analogy to these laws concerning
the sabbatic and the jubilee year.
What was the immediate object of this remarkable legislation? It is
not irrelevant to observe that in so far as regards the prescription
of a periodic rest to the land, agricultural science recognises that
this is an advantage, especially in places where it may be difficult
to obtain fertilisers for the soil in adequate amount. But it cannot
be supposed that this was the chief object of these ordinances, not
even in so far as they had respect to the land. We shall not err in
regarding them as intended, like all in the Levitical system, to
make Israel to be in reality, what they were called to be, a people
holy, i.e., fully consecrated to the Lord. The bearing of these laws
on this end is not hard to perceive.
In the first place, the law of the sabbatic year and the jubilee was
a most impressive lesson as to the relation of God to what men call
their property; and, in particular, as to His relation to man’s
property in land. By these ordinances every Israelite was to be
reminded in a most impressive way that the land which he tilled, or
on which he fed his flocks and herds, belonged, not to himself, but
to God. Just as God taught him that his time belonged to Him, by
putting in a claim for the absolute consecration to Himself of every
seventh day, so here He reminded Israel that the land belonged to
Him, by asserting a similar claim on the land every seventh year,
and twice in a century for two years in succession.
No one will pretend that the law of the sabbatic year or the jubilee
is binding on communities now. But it is a question for our times as
to whether the basal principle regarding the relation of God to
land, and by necessary consequence the right of man regarding land,
which is fundamental to these laws, is not in its very nature of
perpetual force. Surely, there is nothing in Scripture to suggest
that God’s ownership of the land was limited to the land of
Palestine, or to that land only during Israel’s occupancy of it.
Instead of this, Jehovah everywhere represents Himself as having
given the land to Israel, and therefore by necessary implication as
having a like right over it while as yet the Canaanites were
dwelling in it. Again, the purpose of God’s dealing with Egypt is
said to be that Pharaoh might know this same truth: that the earth
(or land) was the Lord’s; {Exo 9:29} and in Psa 24:1 it is stated,
as a broad truth, without qualification or restriction, that the
earth is the Lord’s, as well as that which fills it. It is true that
there is no suggestion in any of these passages that the relation of
God to the earth or to the land is different from His relation to
other property; but it is intended to emphasise the fact that in the
use of land, as of all else, we are to regard ourselves as God’s
stewards, and hold and use it as in trust from Him.
The vital relation of this great truth to the burning questions of
our day regarding the rights of men in land is self-evident. It does
not indeed determine how the land question should be dealt with in
any particular country, but it does settle it that if in these
matters we will act in the fear of God, we must keep this principle
steadily before us, that, primarily, the land belongs to the Lord,
and is to be used accordingly. How, as a matter of fact, God did
order that the land should be used, in the only instance when He has
condescended Himself to order the political government of a nation,
we have already seen, and shall presently consider more fully.
It is obvious that the natural and therefore intended effect of
these regulations, if obeyed, would have been to impose a constant
and powerful check upon man’s natural covetousness and greed of
gain. Every seventh year the Hebrew was to pause in his toil for
wealth, and for one whole year he was to waive even his ordinary
right to the spontaneous produce of his fields; which year of
abstinence from sowing and reaping once in fifty years was doubled.
Add to this the strict prohibition of lending money upon interest to
a fellow Israelite, and we can see how far reaching and effective,
if obeyed, were such regulations likely to be in restraining that
insatiate greed for riches which ever grows the more by that which
feeds it.
Yet again; the law of the sabbatic year and the jubilee was adapted
to serve also as a singularly powerful discipline in that faith
toward God which is the soul of all true religion. In this practical
way every Hebrew was to be taught that "man doth not live by bread
alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
The lesson is ever hard to learn, though none the less necessary.
This thought is alluded to in Lev 25:20, where it is supposed that a
man might raise the very natural objection to these laws, "What
shall we eat the seventh year?" To which the answer is given, with
reference even to the extreme case of the jubilee year: "I will
command My blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring
forth fruit for the three years; until the ninth year ye shall eat
the old store."
But probably the most prominent and important object of the
regulations in this chapter was to secure, as far as possible, the
equal distribution of wealth, by preventing excessive accumulations
either of land or of capital in the hands of a few, while the mass
should be sunk in poverty. It is certain that these laws, if carried
out, would have had a marvellous effect in this respect. As for
capital, we all know what an important factor in the production of
wealth is accumulation by interest on loans, especially when the
interest is constantly compounded. There can be no doubt of its
immense power as an instrument for at once enriching the lender and
in proportion impoverishing the borrower. But among the Israelites,
to receive interest or its equivalent was prohibited. One other
chief cause of the excessive wealth of individuals among us, as in
all ages, is the acquirement in perpetuity by individuals of a
disproportionate amount of the public land. The condition of things
in the United Kingdom is familiar to all, with its inevitable effect
on the condition of large masses of people; and in parts of the
United States there are indications of a like tendency working
toward the similar disadvantage of many small landholders and
cultivators. But in Israel, if these laws should be carried into
effect, such a state of things, so often witnessed among other
nations, was made forever impossible. Individual ownership in the
land itself was forbidden; no man was allowed more than a leasehold
right; nor could he, even by adding largely to his lease holds,
increase his wealth indefinitely, so as to transmit a fortune to his
children, to be still further augmented by a similar process in the
next and succeeding generations; for every fifty years the jubilee
came around, and whatever leaseholds he might have acquired from
less fortunate brethren, reverted unconditionally to the original
owner or his legal heirs.
However impracticable such arrangements may seem to us under the
conditions of modern life, yet it must be confessed that in the case
of a nation just starting on its career in a new country, as was
Israel at that time, nothing could well be thought of more likely to
be effective toward securing, along with careful regard to the
rights of property, an equal distribution of wealth among the
people, than the legislation which is placed before us in this
chapter.
It deserves to be specially noticed by how exact equity the laws are
distinguished. While, on the one hand, excessive accumulations,
either of capital or of land, were thus made impossible, there is
here nothing of the destructive communism advocated by many in our
day. These laws put no premium on laziness; for if a man, through
indolence or vice, was compelled to sell out his right in his land,
he had no security of obtaining it again until the jubilee; that is
to say, upon an average, during his working lifetime. On the other
hand, encouragement was given to industry, as a man who was thrifty
might, by purchase of leaseholds, materially increase his wealth and
comfort in life. And the effect on inheritance is evident. There
could, on the one hand, be no inheritance of such colossal and
overgrown fortunes as are possible in our modern states, -no
blessing, certainly, in many cases, to the heirs; and neither, on
the other hand, could there be any inheritance of hopeless and
degrading poverty. A man might have had an indolent or a vicious
father, who had thus forfeited his landholding; but while the father
would doubtless suffer deserved poverty during his active life, the
young man, when the jubilee returned, and the lost paternal
inheritance reverted to him, would have the opportunity to see
whether he might not, with his father’s experience before him as a
warning, do better, and retrieve the fortunes of the family. In any
case, he would not start upon the work of life weighted, as are
multitudes among us, with a crushing and almost irremovable burden
of poverty.
It is certain, no doubt, that these laws are not morally binding
now: and no less certain, probably, that failing, as they did, to
secure observance in Israel, such laws, even if enacted, could not
in our day be practically carried out any more than then.
Nevertheless, so much we may safely say, that the intention and aim
of these laws as regards the equal distribution of wealth in the
community ought to be the aim of all wise legislation now. It is
certain that all good government ought to seek in all righteous and
equitable ways to prevent the formation in the community of classes,
either of the excessively rich or of the excessively poor. Absolute
equality in this respect is doubtless unattainable, and in a world
intended for purposes of moral training and discipline were even
undesirable; but extreme wealth or extreme poverty are certainly
evils to the prevention of which our legislators may well give their
minds. Only it needs also to be kept in mind that these Hebrew laws
no less distinctly teach us that this end is to be sought only in
such a way as shall neither, on the one hand, put a premium on
laziness and vice, nor, on the other, deny to the virtuous and
industrious the advantage which industry and virtue deserve, of
additional wealth, comfort, and exemption from toilsome drudgery.
In close connection with all this it will be observed that all this
legislation, while guarding the rights of the rich, is evidently
inspired by that same merciful regard for the poor which marks the
Levitical law throughout. For in all these regulations it is assumed
that there would still be poor in the land; but the law secured to
the poor great mitigations of poverty. Every seventh year the
produce of the land was to be free alike to all; if one were poor
his brother was to uphold him; when lending him, he was not to add
to the debt the burden of interest or increase. And then there was
to the poor man the ever-present assurance, which alone would take
off half the bitterness of poverty, that through the coming of the
jubilee the children at least would have a new chance, and start
life on an equality, in respect of inheritance in land, with the
sons of the richest. And when we remember the close connection
between extreme poverty and every variety of crime, it is plain that
the whole legislation is as admirably adapted to the prevention of
crime as of abject and hopeless poverty. Well might Asaph use the
words which he employs, with evident allusion to the trumpet sound
which ushered in the jubilee: "Happy the people that know the joyful
sound!" i.e., that have the blessed experience of the jubilee, that
supreme earthly sabbatism of the people of God.
Most significant and full of instruction, no less to us than to
Israel, was the ordinance that both the sabbatic and the jubilee
years should date from the day of Atonement. It was when, having
completed the solemn ritual of that day, the high priest put on
again his beautiful garments and came forth, having made atonement
for all the transgressions of Israel, that the trumpet of the
jubilee was to be sounded. Thus was Israel reminded in the most
impressive manner possible that all these social, civil, and
communal blessings were possible only on condition of reconciliation
with God through atoning blood; atonement in the highest and fullest
sense, which should reach even to the Holy of Holies, and place the
blood on the very mercy seat of Jehovah. This is true still, though
the nations have yet to learn it. The salvation of nations, no less
than that of individuals, is conditioned by national fellowship with
God, secured through the great Atonement of the Lord. Not until the
nations learn this lesson may we expect to see the crying evils of
the earth removed, or the questions of property, of land holding, of
capital and labour, justly and happily solved.
TYPICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF
THE SABBATIC AND JUBILEE YEARS
But we must not forget that the sabbatic year and the year of
jubilee, following the seventh seven of years, are the two last
members of a sabbatic system of septenary periods, namely, the
sabbath of the seventh day, the feast of Pentecost, following the
expiry of the seventh week from Passover, and then the still more
sacred seventh month, with its two great feasts, and the day of
atonement intervening. But, as we have seen, we have good scriptural
authority for regarding all these as typical. Each in succession
brings out another stage or aspect of the great Messianic
redemption, in a progressive revelation historically unfolding. In
all of these alike we have been able to trace thoughts connected
with the sabbatic idea, as pointing forward to the final rest,
redemption, and consummated restoration. the sabbatism that
remaineth to the people of God. To these preceding sabbatic periods
these last two are closely related. Both alike began on the great
day of atonement, in which all Israel was to afflict their souls in
penitence for sin; and on that day they both began when the high
priest came out from within the veil, where, from the time of his
offering the sin offering, he had been hidden from the sight of
Israel for a season; and both alike were ushered in with a trumpet
blast.
We shall hardly go amiss if we see in both of these-first in the
sabbatic year, and still more clearly in the year of jubilee-a
prophetic foreshadowing in type of that final repentance of the
children of Israel in the latter days, and their consequent
reestablishment in their land, which the prophets so fully and
explicitly predict. In that day they are to return, as the prophets
bear witness, every man to the land which the Lord gave for an
inheritance to their fathers. Indeed, one might say with truth that
even the lesser restoration from Babylon was prefigured in this
ordinance; but, without doubt, its chief and supreme reference must
be to that greater restoration still in the future, of which we
read, for example, in Isa 11:11, when "the Lord shall set His hand
again the second time to recover the remnant of His people, which
shall remain, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from the islands of
the sea."
But the typical reference of these sacred years of sabbatism reaches
yet beyond what pertains to Israel alone. For not only, according to
the prophets and apostles, is there to be a restoration of Israel,
but also, as the Apostle Peter declared to the Jews, {Act 3:19-21}
closely connected with and consequent on this, a "restoration of all
things." And it is in this great, final, and exceedingly glorious
restoration of the time of the end that we recognise the ultimate
antitype of these sabbatic seasons. When read in the light of later
predictions they appear to point forward with singular distinctness
to what, according to the Holy Word, shall be-when Jesus Christ, the
heavenly High Priest, shall come forth from within the veil; when
the last trumpet shall sound, and He who was "once offered to bear
the sins of many" shall appear a second time, apart from sin, to
them that wait for Him, unto salvation. {Heb 9:28}
Even in the beginning of the Pentateuch {Gen 3:17-19} it is
explicitly taught that because of Adam’s sin, the curse of God, in
some mysterious way, fell even upon the material earthly creation.
We read that the Lord said unto Adam: "Cursed is the ground for thy
sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns
also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat
the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat
bread, till thou return unto the ground." It is because of sin,
then, that man is doomed to labour, toilsome and imperfectly
requited by an unwilling soil. It lies immediately before us that
both the sabbatic year and the year of jubilee, by the ordinance
regarding the rest for the land, and the special promise of
sufficiency without exhausting labour, involved for Israel a
temporary suspension of the full operation of this curse. The
ordinance therefore points unmistakably in a prophetic way to what
the New Testament explicitly predicts-the coming of a day when, with
man redeemed, material nature also shall share the great
deliverance. In a word, in the sabbatic year, and in a yet higher
form in the year of jubilee, we have in symbol the wonderful truth
which in the most didactic language is formally declared by the
Apostle Paul in these words: {Rom 8:19-22}
"The earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing
of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of
its own will, but by reason of him who subjected. it, in hope that
the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of
corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For
we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain
together until now."
The jubilee year contained in type all this, and more. Where the
sabbatic year had typically pointed only to a coming rest of the
earth from the primeval curse, the jubilee, falling, not on a
seventh, but on an eighth year, following immediately on the
sabbatic seventh, pointed also to the permanence of this blessed
condition. It is the festival, by eminence, of the new creation, of
paradise completely and forever restored.
Moreover, as falling in the fiftieth year, and therefore on an
eighth year of the sabbatic calendar, the jubilee was to the week of
years as the Lord’s day to the week of days. Like that, it is the
festival of resurrection. This is as clearly foreshadowed in the
type as the other. For in the year of jubilee not only was the land
to rest, but every bond slave was to be released, and to return to
his inheritance and to his family. In the light of what has
preceded, and of other revelations of Scripture, we can hardly miss
of perceiving the typical meaning of this. For what is the great
event which the Apostle Paul, in the passage just cited, associates
in time with the deliverance of the earthly creation, but "the
redemption of the body," as the final issue of the atoning work of
Christ? For as yet even believers are in bondage to death and the
grave; but the day which is coming, the day of earth’s redemption,
shall bring to all that are Christ’s, all that are Israelites
indeed, deliverance "from the bondage of corruption into the liberty
of the glory of the children of God."
And as the slave who was freed in the year of jubilee therewith also
returned to his forfeited inheritance, so also shall it be in that
day. For precisely this is given us by the Holy Spirit in the New
Testament, {1Pe 1:4-5} as another aspect of the day when the
heavenly Aaron shall come forth from the Holiest. For we are
begotten unto an inheritance, reserved in heaven for us, "who by the
power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be
revealed in the last time." Cast out through death from the
inheritance of the earth, which in the beginning was given by God to
our first father, and to his seed in him, but which was lost to him
and to his children through his sin, the great jubilee of the future
shall bring us again, every man who is in Christ by faith, into the
lost inheritance, redeemed and glorified citizens of a redeemed and
glorified earth. Hence it is that in Revelation 22 we are shown in
vision, first, the new earth, delivered from the curse, and then the
New Jerusalem, the Church of the risen and glorified saints of God,
descending from God out of heaven, to assume possession of the
purchased inheritance.
And the law adds also: "Ye shall return every man unto his family";
which gives the last feature here prefigured of that supreme
sabbatism which remaineth for the people of God. {Heb 4:9} It shall
bring the reunion of those who had been parted and scattered. The
day of resurrection is accordingly spoken of {2Th 2:1} as a day of
"gathering together" of all who, though one in Christ, have been
rudely parted by death. And yet more, it will be "the day of our
gathering together unto Him," even the blessed Lord Jesus Christ,
the "Goel, " the Kinsman-Redeemer of the ruined bondsmen and their
lost inheritance: "Whom not having seen, we love," but then expect
to see even as He is, and beholding Him, be like Him, and be with
Him forever and forever. Who should not long for the day?-the day
when for the first time, this last type of Leviticus shall pass into
complete fulfilment in the antitype: the day of "the restoration of
all things"; the day of the deliverance of the material creation
from her present bondage to corruption; the day also of the release
of every true Israelite from the bondage of death, and the eternal
establishment of all such with the Elder Brother, the
First-begotten, in the enjoyment of the inheritance of the saints in
light.
"Love, rest, and home! Sweet hope! Lord! tarry not, but COME!"
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