Proclaim Liberty
8 “‘You shall count off seven Sabbaths of years, seven times seven years; and there shall be to you the days of seven Sabbaths of years, even forty-nine years. 9 Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. 10 You shall make the fiftieth year holy, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee to you; and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family. 11 That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee to you. In it you shall not sow, neither reap that which grows of itself, nor gather from the undressed vines. 12 For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat of its increase out of the field. 13 “‘In this Year of Jubilee each of you shall return to his property. 14 “‘If you sell anything to your neighbor, or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another. 15 According to the number of years after the Jubilee you shall buy from your neighbor. According to the number of years of the crops he shall sell to you. 16 According to the length of the years you shall increase its price, and according to the shortness of the years you shall diminish its price; for he is selling the number of the crops to you. 17 You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am Yahweh your God. 18 “‘Therefore you shall do my statutes, and keep my ordinances and do them; and you shall dwell in the land in safety. 19 The land shall yield its fruit, and you shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety. 20 If you said, “What shall we eat the seventh year? Behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase;” 21 then I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, and it shall bear fruit for the three years. 22 You shall sow the eighth year, and eat of the fruits from the old store until the ninth year. Until its fruits come in, you shall eat the old store. 23 “‘The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and live as foreigners with me. 24 In all the land of your possession you shall grant a redemption for the land.
Every fiftieth year land returns to its original family and slaves go home, and the trumpet that starts it sounds on the day of atonement.
Seven sevens of years are counted, and the fiftieth is set apart. You shall make the fiftieth year holy, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants Leviticus 25:10.
Two things happen. Each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family. Land goes back to the household that originally held it, and people sold into service go home.
The timing of the announcement is the detail that gives the institution its character. The trumpet sounds on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement Leviticus 25:9.
On the day the nation's sins are removed, the nation's debts are canceled. The two are set on the same date, and nothing in the chapter explains the connection because nothing needs to: people who have just been forgiven release what they hold over others.
What the jubilee does economically is prevent permanent dispossession. In an agrarian society, debt ends with land changing hands, and land is the only means of production; within a few generations that produces a landless majority. The fiftieth year breaks the accumulation before it becomes hereditary.
And it changes what a sale is. According to the number of years after the Jubilee you shall buy from your neighbor... for he is selling the number of the crops to you Leviticus 25:15–16. Land cannot be bought outright at all. What changes hands is a number of harvests, priced by how many remain, and the buyer knows the date it reverts.
Twice in that paragraph the same warning is attached: you shall not wrong one another Leviticus 25:14 Leviticus 25:17. The obvious abuse is a strong party exploiting a weak one's ignorance of the count, and the law names it.
The ground of the whole arrangement is stated in one sentence, and it is the most important in the chapter.
“‘The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and live as foreigners with me.
Nobody in Israel owns any land. They are tenants of an owner who has not sold, and the word used of them is the same word the book uses for the resident foreigner they are commanded to love. A nation about to take a country is told, before it arrives, that it will be living there as guests.
settled What this mark means