Leviticus 25:1

This chapter deals exclusively with the Jubilee, the super-sabbatical year which followed the seventh sabbatical year, the same being every fiftieth year of the Jewish calendar. Its being legislated in Leviticus ties it emphatically to the ordinary sabbath and to the sabbatical years, meaning that there could not have been, in any strict sense, the keeping of the sabbath day unless these extensions of it in sabbatical years and the ultimate Jubilee were also observed. It is imperative to understand the unity of all the sabbath laws, and it is the failure of present-day sabbatarianism to receive this that utterly discredits and nullifies it. Some people in our times indeed pretend to observe the sabbath day, but they do not keep the sabbath until these Divine extensions of it are also honored. The old Israel was condemned for not observing the sabbath years, and God sent the whole nation into captivity for a period of 70 years to make up for the period of 490 years in which they had failed to observe them (2 Chronicles 36:20-21). Thus, keeping the sabbath days meant nothing unless the sabbath years were also observed.

The very name "Jubilee" is of great interest. It has come to be the name of all great celebrations such as Golden Weddings, etc.; and Queen Victoria celebrated her Jubilee on the 50th anniversary of her coming to the throne of the British Empire (1837-1887). Spelled as "Jubile" in the KJV, the word derives from the Hebrew word for "trumpet,"[1] for it was the blowing of the trumpet on the Day of Atonement that signaled the beginning of the Jubilee. In fact, Tyndale translated the word for Jubilee as "a yere of hornes blowinge," "the trompett yere," and "the horne yere" (Leviticus 25:10,15,28).[2] The word "Jubilee" is an onomatopoetic word, that is, "imitation of a joyful shout, or cry of joy, later accommodated to mean the sound of the trumpet ushering in the season of joy."[3] The word for Jubilee is a very ancient word, and along with certain instructions attending the divine regulations concerning it (as in Leviticus 25:30) suggests a time-frame during the second millennium B.C.[4] It is therefore foolish to suppose that, "The Jubilee arose after the downfall of the Judean kingdom."[5] As a matter of fact, the Jewish Scriptures affirm that it was the failure of Israel to observe the sabbatical years for a period of 490 years (seventy of them being not observed) that God sent them into captivity (2 Chronicles 36:20,21) until the land should have its 70 sabbaticals as God had commanded, hence, the duration of the captivity.

The answer of whether or not the Jews ever faithfully observed their Jubilees appears to be that they did not. There is no Biblical reference to their ever having done so, and, in fact, the Jubilee is not mentioned at all except in this chapter, six times in Leviticus 27, and once in Numbers 36:4, where it is mentioned as an event in the future. Their failure to observe it might have resulted from the difficulty they might have had in determining the date from which they were to begin counting. This would have been true because the better part of a generation was to elapse before they as a whole people actually entered Canaan, and some parts of it were occupied before other parts, and some tribes received their inheritance at different times from others. That very great and important spiritual significance lay in these instructions for the Jubilee is certain, because, when Jesus Christ began his ministry (Luke 4), there appears to be a direct reference to the Jubilee in his words: "He anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor ... to proclaim release to the captives ... to set at liberty them that are bruised ... to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke 4:18-19). Such a declaration is all but a dogmatic affirmation of the Christian dispensation as earth's Jubilee. Of course, it would be the slaves to sin who would be released, and the captives held in the service of Satan who would receive their liberty through Christ.

For other interesting observations regarding the Jubilee, see several paragraphs at the end of this chapter.

Wenham's outline divides the chapter into three divisions:

I. The Jubilee - a sabbath for the land (Leviticus 25:1-22).

II. The Jubilee - and the redemption of property (Leviticus 25:23-38).

III. The Jubilee - and the redemption of slaves (Leviticus 25:39-55).

"And Jehovah spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto Jehovah. 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 Jehovah: 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. And 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, who sojourn with thee. And for thy cattle, and for the beasts that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be for food."

"Jehovah spake unto Moses in mount Sinai ..." "This shows that all related here was delivered to Moses in the first month of the second year after their coming out of Egypt (Numbers 10:11-12).[6] Keil pointed out that the effect of this statement is that of "binding together in an inward unity the whole round of laws that Moses received from God upon the mountain, and announced gradually unto the people."[7] The same words are repeated three other times in Leviticus (Leviticus 7:38; 26:46; and Leviticus 27:34).

"The seventh year shall be a sabbath of solemn rest ..." Despite there having been a certain benefit that accrued to the soil through its lying idle on the seventh year, one cannot believe that it was merely the land's benefit that God had in mind back of the regulations in this chapter. This was an antidote for human greed and an affirmation of God's ownership of the land, and of his concern for the poor and even for the wildlife.

"That which groweth of itself ..." ("Of its own accord ..." KJV) (Leviticus 25:5). This is of interest, because "It is the only example of its in KJV being used as a neuter possessive, which in the KJV was almost always expressed by "his" as the possessive neuter pronoun. In the KJV of 1611, it is printed it; `that which groweth of it owne accorde'."[8]

"The sabbath of the land shall be for food ..." (Leviticus 25:6). This means that what grew of its own accord could be used for food, but that no reaping of the voluntary yield was allowed. Note also that a garden was not prohibited. It was the fields and vineyards upon which the prohibition lay. "Exodus 23:10f mentions only the poor and the wild beasts as beneficiaries of this institution";[9] but here the `owner' or tenant is also included.