"The Jubilee legislation found in Leviticus 25 presents a vision of social and economic reform unsurpassed in the ancient Near East."283
The year of jubilee did for the land what the Day of Atonement did for the people. This year removed the disturbance or confusion of God's will for the land that resulted from the activity of sinners eventually. During this year God brought the land back into the condition that He intended for it. The fact that the priests announced the year of jubilee on the Day of Atonement (v. 9) confirms this correspondence.
"The main purpose of these laws is to prevent the utter ruin of debtors."284
The Israelites were to observe the year of jubilee (lit. blowing the ram's horn) every fiftieth year, the year following seven seven-year periods.285On the Day of Atonement of that year a priest was to blow the ram's horn (shophar) to announce the beginning of the jubilee year. The use of the ram's horn was significant. With this horn God announced His descent on Mt. Sinai, called Israel to be His people, received them into His covenant, united them to Himself, and began to bless them (Exod. 19:13, 16, 19; 20:18).
The year began on the Day of Atonement ". . . to show that it was only with the full forgiveness of sins that the blessed liberty of the children of God could possibly commence."286
No sowing or reaping was to take place, as during the sabbatical years (v. 11). God promised to provide for His people as they rested in response to His gracious promise (vv. 18-23).
"As Israel is God's servant, so the land is Israel's servant. As Israel must cease from her daily work and be restored, so the land must cease from its annual work and be restored. Thus there is a horizontal implementation of the vertical covenant relationship; the redemption of Israelites who lost their freedom and property comes in the year of jubilee (Lev. 25:8-12, 28), the fiftieth year."287
"The Year of Jubilee is not mentioned in the Old Testament outside the Pentateuch. There is no direct biblical evidence regarding its observance in Israel's history, but if its practice was normal, there might have been no occasion to mention it. On the other hand, the apparent failure of Israelites to keep the sabbatical years during the monarchial [sic] period (cf. 26:34-35, 43; 2 Chron. 36:20-21) suggests that the Jubilee might also have been violated."288
Verse 10 is the motto on the Liberty Bell that hangs in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The people were to buy and sell property in view of the upcoming year of jubilee since in that year all property would revert to its original tribal leasees. This special year reminded the Israelites that they did not really own the land but were tenants of God, the true owner (v. 23).
"The relationship of land and people under God is of fundamental importance for understanding the Old Testament and the Jewish people. . . . The Promised Land was a gift from God, not an inalienable right of anyone's to sell or incorporate as they wished."289
Only extreme hardship was to force a tenant-owner to release (redeem, v. 24) his land. Moses gave three cases in verses 25, 26-27, and 28 that explain how the people were to do this. A kinsman redeemer could recover the lost property, the seller himself could do so, and the year of jubilee would return it to him. God granted exceptions to the normal rules of release in the cases of property in a walled city (vv. 29-30) and property of the Levites (vv. 32-34).
There are three Old Testament references to the responsibilities of a human kinsman redeemer (Heb. goel) in Israel. Additionally the psalmists and the prophets also referred to Yahweh as Israel's redeemer.
1. When a person sold himself or his property because of economic distress, his nearest kinsman should buy back (redeem) the person or his property if he could afford to do so (25:25).
2. Perhaps an Israelite could not afford to pay the ransom price so that he could keep a first-born unclean animal for his own use. In this case his nearest kinsman could do so for him if he could afford it (27:11-13).
3. When someone killed a person, the victim's kinsman redeemer could take the life of the killer under certain circumstances (Num. 35:10-29).
Bible students often confuse the levirate marriage custom with the kinsman redeemer custom. Levirate marriage involved the marriage of a widow and her husband's brother or nearest relative. This provision existed so God could raise up a male heir who could perpetuate the family line of the widow's former husband (cf. Gen. 38).
The Israelites were not to exploit one another (vv. 35-38). They were not to charge one another interest on loans (v. 37; cf. Exod. 22:25; Deut. 23:19-20). This policy would have enabled a poor farmer to buy enough seed for the next year. This law was evidently unique among the ancient Near Eastern nations though not among smaller tribal groups.290
When poor Israelites sold themselves as servants to wealthier Israelites their masters were to treat them as brothers and not as slaves (vv. 39-43).
". . . the original law in the Book of the Covenant [Exod. 21:1-6 and Deut. 15:12-18] had to do with the Hebrew' in the social, not ethnic sense, i.e., with the landless man who survived by selling his services to an Israelite household. Lev. 25:39ff., by contrast, deals with the man who is an Israelite landholder but who has been forced by poverty to mortgage it and then to sell his family and himself into the service of a fellow-Israelite."291
God permitted the Israelites to own slaves from other nations (vv. 44-46). That they were not to mistreat them goes without saying. Slavery in itself, as the Mosaic Law regulated it, did not violate basic human rights, but the abuse of slaves did.
"In the first place, for one people or person to enslave another is, by that very act, to claim the other as one's own; it is in a fundamental sense to claim another's life as belongingto oneself. Such a claim, however, flies in the face of the biblical story that we have heard thus far. If the creation narratives of Genesis tell us anything, they tell us that the sovereign source and lord of life is God--and God alone. It is in just that sense that to God--and God alone--all life, the work of his hands,' ultimately rightly belongs. Therefore, from the standpoint of these biblical narratives, anyone besides God laying such ultimate claims to another's life would in effect be arrogating to oneself another's prerogatives. In essence, such a one would be making the most presumptuous claim any human being could make--the claim to be God."292
Israelites could also buy back (redeem) their countrymen who had sold themselves as slaves to non-Israelites who were living in the land (vv. 47-55). An Israelite slave could also buy his own freedom. In these cases the Israelites were to calculate the cost of redemption in view of the approaching year of jubilee when all slaves in the land went free anyway.
"The jubilee release does not apply to foreign slaves (vv. 44-46). A theological reason underlies this discrimination: God redeemed his people from Egyptian slavery, to become his slaves (vv. 42, 55). It is unfitting, therefore, that an Israelite should be resold into slavery, especially to a foreigner (cf. Rom. 6:15-22; Gal. 4:8-9; 5:1). The jubilee law is thus a guarantee that no Israelite will be reduced to that status again, and it is a celebration of the great redemption when God brought Israel out of Egypt, so that he might be their God and they should be his people (vv. 38, 42, 55; cf. Exod. 19:4-6)."293
The provision of redemption by a kinsman (vv. 47-55) is a very important legal point in the Book of Ruth (cf. also Jer. 32:7-15). Boaz fulfilled the responsibility of a kinsman redeemer by buying Mahlon's land for Ruth. Furthermore he fulfilled the duty of a levir by marrying Ruth.294
The system of land ownership in Israel prevented complete capitalism or complete socialism economically. There was a balance of state (theocratic) ownership and private ownership.
We who live under the New Covenant also have a promise from God that if we put His will first He will provide for our physical needs (Matt. 6:25-33).295
