What Christians Should Know about the Year of Jubilee

Reflecting on the Fourth Sunday in Lent, Two Days after Sunday (Year C)

Scripture

Psalter: Psalm 53

Old Testament: Leviticus 25:1-19

Epistle: Revelation 19:9-10

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Prayer

God of wilderness and water, your Son was baptized and tempted as we are. Guide us through this season, that we may not avoid struggle, but open ourselves to blessing, through the cleansing depths of repentance and the heaven-rending words of the Spirit. Amen.

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Reflection

You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month—on the day of atonement—you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, or reap the aftergrowth, or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces (Leviticus 25:8-12).

by Dave Jenkins at crosswalk.com:

Jubilee means ram’s horn in Hebrew and is defined in Leviticus 25:9 as the sabbatical year after the seven cycles of seven years, which totals to forty-nine years. The fiftieth year was to be a time of celebration and rejoicing for the Israelites. The ram’s horn was then to be blown on the tenth day of the seventh month to start the fiftieth year of redemption.

The Year of Jubilee was to be a year of rest for Israelites and the land. The Israelites were to have a year to rest from their work, and the land was to rest to produce a bountiful harvest after its rest. 

Jubilee: A Time to Rest

Got Questions explains in their article how the Jubilee Year involved a release from debt (Leviticus 25:23-38) and all types of bondage (Leviticus 25:39-55). All captives and prisoners were to be set free during this year, debts forgiven, and all property returned to the original owners. All labor was to cease for one year. The point of Jubilee’s year was that the Israelites would dedicate a year of rest to the Lord, acknowledging that He had provided for their needs. 

There were advantages to this because it not only gave the people a break, but vegetation won’t grow if people overwork the land. By the Lord's institution of a year of rest, the land had time to recover and produce a stronger harvest in the future years to come. 

One of the main reasons that the Israelites went into captivity was that they didn’t observe these resting years as commanded by the Lord (Leviticus 26). By failing to rest on the Jubilee year, the Israelites revealed they didn’t trust the Lord to provide for them, so they reaped the consequences of their disobedience.

The Year of Jubilee foreshadows the finished and sufficient work of the Lord Jesus. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, He relieves sinners from their spiritual debts and slavery to sin. Today sinners can be freed from both to have both union and communion with God the Father and enjoy fellowship with the people of God.

Why a Release from Debt?

While Jubilee’s year involved a release from a debt, we need to be careful here that we do not read our Western understanding of the release of debt into this particular situation. Art Lindsley of the Gospel Coalition explains that if “Israelite family members have a debt, they can ask the person farming their land for a lump sum payment priced according to the number of years before the Jubilee. The price would then be determined by the projected number of crops to be yielded” before the Jubilee. 

Lindsley gives the following example, if you had a debt of two hundred and fifty thousand, and there are five years before the Jubilee, and each crop is worth fifty thousand, the buyer would give you the two hundred and fifty thousand for the rights to farm the land. At Jubilee’s time, you would receive your land back because the debt had been paid off. The buyer, then, to be clear, doesn’t own the land but leases it. The debt is paid off by the crops the land produces.

It’s not possible to know how the exact price was determined for each year of crops, but it’s plausible to suggest that the price took into account some years that would be more profitable than others. At Jubilee’s time, the Israelites could rejoice the debt had been paid off, and the land returned to full use. Even so, you would not thank the leaser for forgiving your debt. The Jubilee was the equivalent of our “mortgage burning party” today, Lindsley says, “You would celebrate with friends that this significant debt was paid.”

The debt is forgiven or canceled because it is paid in full.

But why was the Year of Jubilee every 50 years?

The fiftieth year was a time in which liberty would be proclaimed to all the inhabitants of Israel. The Law was intended to benefit all the masters and the servants. The Israelites owed their life to the sovereign will of God. Only through loyalty to Him were they free and could ever hope to be free and independent from all other masters.

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