SUMMARY
In Leviticus 25, the Lord commands the Israelites to observe a Sabbath for the land and to observe the year of Jubilee, a time of liberation and homecoming.
ANALYSIS
The priestly writers place a special emphasis on the SabbathSabbath is a weekly day of rest, the seventh day, observed on Saturday in Judaism and on Sunday in Christianity. In the book of Genesis, God rested on the seventh day; in the Gospel accounts Jesus and his disciples are criticized by some for not... More, beginning in Genesis 2:2-3, and continuing through Exodus into the book of Leviticus. In the list of “appointed festivals” and “holy convocations” in chapter 23, the weekly Sabbath takes first place. The Israelites are to work for six days, but the seventh day is to be “a sabbath of complete rest, a holyHoly is a term that originally meant set apart for the worship or service of God. While the term may refer to people, objects, time, or places, holiness in Judaism and Christianity primarily denotes the realm of the divine More convocation” (23:3; see also 26:2). In chapter 25, even the land is granted a Sabbath rest. Every seventh year, the land is to lie fallow. No sowing of fields or pruning of vineyards is allowed in this Sabbath year. Echoing the commandment in chapter 23, it is to be “a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for the LORD” (25:4). The Israelites, their servants, their livestock, and even the wild animals are allowed to eat what the land produces of itself in that Sabbath year, as well as what they have stored from the sixth year, and the promise is that there will be enough food for all (see 25:20-22).
The text goes on to speak of a Sabbath of Sabbaths, the year of JubileeJubilee is a time of celebration and rejoicing. Hebrew law, as prescribed in Leviticus 25 and 27, declared every fiftieth year to be a jubilee year during which time slaves would be emancipated, debts would be forgiven, and even the land would be allowed to rest. More. This year is set by counting off “seven Sabbaths of years,” or seven times seven years. The 50th year, then, is to be the year of Jubilee (25:8-10). It is proclaimed with the blowing of the ram’s horn on the Day of Atonement, the tenth day of the seventh month.
The Jubilee is a time of Sabbath rest, a time of homecoming, and a time of liberation. The land is to lie fallow, as it does in the Sabbath year. Each Israelite is to return to his ancestral land and to his clan. Debts are to be forgiven, Israelite slaves are to be set free, and land is to be returned to its original owners or their descendants. In other words, if a person falls on hard times and is forced to sell his land or himself to pay off debts, the sale is not permanent. Both land and people are set free in the Jubilee.
This vision of liberation is based on two primary theological claims. The land belongs not to the one who buys it, but to the LORD: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants” (25:23). Likewise, Israelites may not be anyone’s slaves, “For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt” (25:42; see also 25:55). Both the land and the people belong to the LORD, and so both are released in the Jubilee from any other claim on them.
Leviticus 25 also provides for redemption of land and people between Jubilee years. If land or people are sold to pay off debts, the nearest relative of the debtor is to redeem the land or person by buying them back. The purchase price is to be computed according to the years until the Jubilee. That is, the buyer, either the original buyer or the redeemer, is purchasing harvests, not the land itself. The buyer is paying for people’s labor, not for the people themselves (25:15-16, 23-34, 47-55). If there is no one to redeem the land or people, both are released in the Jubilee.
This remarkable vision of the Jubilee – a vision of economic justice and liberation–has inspired people for thousands of years and has echoes in later biblical texts. (See “Bible in the World.”)
