A Sabbath year
25
📚And the LORD spoke to Moses in Mount Sinai, saying, 2 📚“Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, When you enter the land which I am giving you, then the land is to observe a Sabbath to the LORD. 3 📚For six years you may sow your field, and for six years you may prune your vineyard, and gather in its fruit; 4 📚but the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest for the land, a Sabbath to the LORD; you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard.25:4 From the point of view of agriculture, regular times of rest for the land was good for it.🪶
5 📚You shall not reap that which grows of itself after your harvest, or gather the grapes of your untrimmed vines; for it is a year of rest for the land. 6 📚And the Sabbath of the land shall be food for you, for you, and for your manservant and for your maid and for your hired man and for the foreigner who stays with you, 7 and for your cattle, and for the animals that are in your land; all the produce of the land shall be for food.
Year of Jubilee
8 📚“And you shall count off seven Sabbaths of years for yourselves, seven times seven years; so the seven Sabbaths of years come to forty-nine years for you. 9 📚Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, you shall cause the trumpet to sound. You shall sound the trumpet throughout your whole land on the tenth day of the seventh month on the Day of Atonement. 10 📚And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you, and each one of you shall return to his family property, and each one of you shall return to his family. 11 📚That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee for you. In that year you shall not sow, or reap that which grows of itself, or gather the grapes of your untrimmed vines. 12 📚For it is the Jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You shall eat its produce of the field.
13 📚“In the year of this Jubilee each one of you shall return to his family property.
25:8-13 For meaning of the time of jubilee see notes v 54,55 below.🪶
14 📚“And if you sell any land to your neighbour, or buy any from your neighbour, you shall not wrong one another. 15 📚You shall buy from your neighbor according to the number of years after the Jubilee and according to the number of years of the produce he sells to you; 16 📚you shall increase its price for a higher number of years, and you shall decrease the price for fewer years; for he sells it to you according to the number of the years of its crops. 17 📚So you shall not wrong one another, but fear your God; for I am the LORD your God.
18 📚“Therefore you shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; then you will live in the land in safety. 19 📚And the land will yield its produce, and you shall eat your fill, and live in it in safety.
25:18-19 Only God can cause His people to live in safety and security. And for that they must be obedient to Him (Deut 12:10; 33:12, 28; Ps 4:8; 12:5; Prov 21:31).🪶
20 📚And you may say, ‘What will we eat in the seventh year? Look, we will not be sowing or gathering in our crops.’
25:20 This was a question sure to occur especially to an unbelieving mind.🪶
21 📚But I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, and it will produce enough of a crop for three years. 22 📚And you shall sow the eighth year, and still eat of old crops until the ninth year; you shall eat of the old crop until its crop comes in.
25:21-22 To a believing and obedient people God is able to give all they could possibly need (Ps 37:25; Matt 6:31-33; 2 Cor 9:8; Phil 4:19).🪶
23 📚“The land shall not be permanently sold, for the land is mine, and you are foreigners and temporary settlers with me.
25:23 The whole earth is the Lord’s, but the land of Canaan is His in a special sense (Ex 19:5; Deut 11:12; 2 Chron 7:20). Israel was there as God’s guest, as a tenant to look after the land for Him. The history of the world is full of wars for land between nations, and struggles for land between individuals. How few ever realize that it is all God’s property, and behave as if it were so.🪶
24 📚And throughout the whole land which you possess you are to provide for redemption for the land.
25 📚“If your brother has become poor and sold away some of his property, then his nearest relative 📖 is to come and redeem what his brother sold. 26 📚And if the man has no one to redeem it, and he himself is able to redeem it, 27 then let him count up the years from its sale and refund the balance to the man to whom he sold it, so that he may return to his property. 28 📚But if he is not able to refund it to him, then that which was sold shall remain in the hands of the one who bought it until the year of Jubilee; and in the Jubilee it is to be returned to the seller, and he shall return to his property.
29 “And if a man sells a house situated in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a full year after it was sold; his right of redemption lasts a full year. 30 And if it is not redeemed inside that full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall become the permanent possession of the one who bought it and his offspring; it shall not be returned in the Jubilee. 31 📚But the houses of villages which have no wall around them shall be regarded as the fields of the country; they may be redeemed, and shall be returned in the Jubilee.
32 📚“As for the cities of the Levites, the Levites may redeem at any time the houses in the cities they possess. 33 📚And if a man purchases a house from the Levites, then the house that was sold in the city in their possession shall be returned in the year of Jubilee; for the houses in the cities of the Levites are their property among the children of Israel. 34 📚But the fields of the suburbs of their cities are not to be sold; for it is their permanent property.
35 📚“And if your brother becomes poor, and his means of support fails among you, then you are to help him as though he were a foreigner, or a settler, so that he may live among you. 36 📚Do not take any usury or interest from him, but fear your God so that your brother may live among you. 37 You shall not lend him your money at usury, or sell him your food at interest. 38 📚I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.
39 📚“And if your brother who lives among you becomes poor and sells himself to you, you shall not compel him to serve like a slave, 40 📚but he is to be like a hired man and be with you like a settler, and shall serve you until the year of Jubilee. 41 📚Then he is to leave you, both he and his children with him, and return to his own family, and go back to his family property. 42 📚For they are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves.
25:42 Those whom God has redeemed are His special property and must be regarded as such.🪶
43 📚You shall not rule over him with severity, but shall fear your God.
44 📚“Both your slaves and your slave women whom you have, shall be from the nations that are around you; you may buy slaves and slave women from them. 45 📚Also you may buy from the sons of the foreigners who stay among you, and from their families who are with you whom they beget in your land; and they will be your possession. 46 📚And you may bequeath them to your children after you to have as an inheritance. They will be your slaves forever, but you shall not rule over your brethren the children of Israel with severity.
47 📚“And if a settler or a foreigner among you becomes rich, and your brother who lives near him becomes poor and sells himself to the foreigner or settler among you, or to the descendants of a foreigner’s family, 48 📚he may be redeemed after he has been sold; one of his brothers may redeem him, 49 📚or his uncle or his uncle’s son may redeem him, or any of his close family relatives may redeem him, or, if he is able, he may redeem himself. 50 📚And he together with the one who bought him shall calculate from the year that he was sold to him to the year of Jubilee, and the price of his sale shall be according to the number of years. It is to be with him like the time of a hired man. 51 If there are still many years remaining, he shall pay the price of his redemption corresponding to the amount of his purchase. 52 And if only a few years remain to the year of Jubilee, then he shall calculate together with him, and according to these years he shall refund to him the price of his redemption. 53 📚And he is to be with him like a man hired yearly, and the other man must not rule over him with severity in your sight.
54 📚“And if he is not redeemed during those years, then he shall be released in the year of Jubilee, both he and his children with him. 55 📚For the children of Israel are my servants; they are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.
25:54,55 The year of Jubilee which came every fiftieth year is referred to 14 times in this chapter. On the year of Jubilee certain things were to take place – everyone was to return to his family property (v 10), and the family property to him (v 28; Lev 27:24). It was a year of rest for the land (v 11); it was to be counted a holy year (v 12); liberty was proclaimed to all Israelites (v 10,39,40). In other words it was a year of the restitution of all property, release and freedom to those under the control of others, and a great Sabbath rest. As practically everything else in Leviticus the year of Jubilee has symbolic meanings. The author of these notes thinks it signifies the time of the restitution of all things (Acts 3:19-21); freedom from all bondage to the whole creation and to God’s people (Rom 8:19-23); and the great Sabbath rest God has promised (Heb 4:9).🪶