" 8 And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. 9 Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. 10 And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. 11 A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. 12 For it is the jubile; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field. 13 In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession. 14 And if thou sell ought unto thy neighbour, or buyest ought of thy neighbour’s hand, ye shall not oppress one another: 15 According to the number of years after the jubile thou shalt buy of thy neighbour, and according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee: 16 According to the multitude of years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price of it: for according to the number of the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee. 17 Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the LORD your God. " — Leviticus 25:8-17
Twice in each century occurred a year of renewal and restoration, in which all lands which had been alienated reverted to the families of those to whom they had been originally allotted by Joshua; all bondmen of Hebrew blood were liberated, and, according to Josephus, all debts due from one Israelite to another were remitted, as were all debts due from one Israelite to another in the sabbatical year, (Deuteronomy 15:1, 2,) an item omitted in the full account of the jubilee by Philo, and positively negatived by Maimonides and the Mishna, though the reference of the latter to the jubilee is denied by Kitto’s Cyclopaedia. There were no special sacrifices appointed, nor even the reading of the law to the people, as in the sabbatical year. It is impossible for us to conceive the general outburst of joy that gladdened all the land when the bondmen tasted again the sweets of liberty, and returned to their ancestral possessions, their families, and the graves of their sires. “In vain would sleep invite them to repose — their hearts would be too full to feel the lassitude of nature; and the night would be spent in gratitude and praise. What a lively emblem of the Gospel of Christ, which is peculiarly addressed to the poor!” — Bush. There is no mention of the jubilee in the book of Deuteronomy, and the only other reference to it in the Pentateuch is quite incidental, in the appeal of the tribe of Manasseh for some legal enactment against the alienation of their lands by heiresses marrying out of their tribe. Numbers 36:4.
8. Seven sabbaths of years — The jubilee occurred immediately after the seventh sabbatical year. Hence, as will be seen in verse 11, there were two successive years in which the land kept a sabbath. Ewald and others quote Isaiah 37:30 in proof of the jubilee succeeding the sabbath year, from which reference Gesenius dissents.
9. Cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound — Literally, thou shalt cause a horn of loud clangor to pass through the land: R.V., “Send abroad the loud trumpet.” The trumpets used in the proclamation of the jubilee appear to have been curved horns, not the long, straight trumpets represented on the arch of Titus, (see illustration, Numbers 4:7, note,) and which, according to Hengstenberg, are the only ones represented in Egyptian sculptures and paintings. See Joshua 6:4, note. Day of atonement — See chap. 16. It does not seem likely that this great fast was disturbed by the joyful sound which, probably, burst forth in the afternoon when the high priest had concluded the solemn services of atonement. This view gives a deep significance to the jubilee, as a type of that era of gospel grace which follows the propitiatory death of the Lamb of God, the great sin offering. To avoid the incongruity of the jubilee and the great national fast on the same day, Hupfield would emend the text, so as to make the jubilee occur ten days earlier, at the feast of trumpets. See chap. xxiii, 24, note. According to Maimonides the interval of eight days between the feast of trumpets and the jubilee was a sort of saturnalia or carnival to all servants. On the tenth day the great Sanhedrin directed the trumpets to be sounded, and at that instant the bondmen became free and the lands reverted to their original owners. All your land — We are not to suppose that one trumpet passed from place to place, sounding through all the land, but many trumpets were simultaneously sounded by the priests in all their cities, in accordance with Numbers 10:8. All the Jewish writers assert that trumpets were sounded extensively all over the land — in the mountains, in the streets, and at nearly every door — when the signal was given by the proper authorities, called the “House of Judgment,” or the Great Sanhedrin. The design was to reach the ear of every Hebrew who had alienated his inheritance or divested himself of liberty.
10. The fiftieth year was to be set apart for specific purposes, to be not only a year of rest but of release and restoration. To obviate the difficulty of two successive years of rest for the soil and idleness for the people, much ingenuity has been exhibited in trying to prove that the fiftieth means the forty-ninth! We prefer to let a clear, unequivocal statement, involving no inconsistency nor physical impossibility, stand as written by Moses. Thus the jubilee was strictly a pentecostal year, holding the same relation to the preceding seven sabbatical years as the pentecost day did to the seven sabbath days; substantially the same formula is used in each case. See Leviticus 23:15, 16. Proclaim liberty… unto all — Not to all Hebrews only, but “to all sitting in her,” that is, in the land. The only exception may have been those sold for theft, but even this class is not excepted in the law. See concluding note, (2.) Jubilee — The term יוֹבֵ֣ל, primarily signifies a ram or ram’s horn, and secondarily, a cry of joy, as if from the verb yabhel, to shout joyfully. Others derive it from the causative form of the same verb, with the signification to make go, hence, to restore. We cannot speak with certainty on this obscure question. See Joshua 6:4, note. His possession — The land originally allotted to his ancestor by Joshua and the land commission. See Numbers 34:17-28; Joshua 14:1, notes. His family — From this he may have been separated either by selling himself, on account of poverty, (verses 39, 47,) or by being sold by judicial decree to compensate for a theft. Exodus 22:2, 3. 11. Ye shall not sow, neither reap — This prohibition makes the fiftieth year sabbatic, like the forty-ninth: the land being untilled two successive years. The sustenance of the people in this case is provided for by the threefold productiveness of the last secular year. See verse 21. Nor gather the grapes — It is probable that this applied only to the fields, and not to the gardens attached to the houses.
2. Ye shall eat the increase — See verse 6, note.
RULES FOR THE SALE OF LAND, 14-17.
14. If thou sell aught — This relates to real estate. Ye shall not oppress — R.V., not wrong one another. The capitalist shall not make his brother’s necessity his opportunity to drive a sharp bargain and buy his field “for a song,” but he shall observe the following sliding scale in reference to the approach of the next jubilee.
15. The number of years of the fruits — The price of the usufruct of the land, not of the fee simple, was calculated on the years of tillage, exclusive of the years of rest, which would deprive the purchaser of a number of crops before the jubilee. Josephus describes the terms on which the buyer resigned the field in the year of jubilee to the original proprietor. The former produced a statement of the value of the crops and of his expenses. If the expenses exceeded in value the income, the balance was paid by the proprietor before the field was restored. But if the balance was on the other side, the proprietor simply took back the field, and the purchaser retained the profit. This arrangement would remove the objection to permanent improvements on the part of the purchaser, while it kept estates from deterioration.
17. Thou shalt fear thy God — The Hebrew religion was eminently ethical as well as devotional; it was designed for the market and the forum, to preside over trade and social intercourse, to restrain avarice and protect poverty. This element of Mosaism is incorporated by Jesus Christ into his Gospel in the golden rule. For I am the Lord — This is the perpetual watchword of the old covenant, and the ground of its obligation.
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