Published on Friday, 25 November 2011 21:52 | Written by Vernon Gillispie | | | Hits: 7157
Jubilee is begun with a blast of the trumpet/ shofar (ram's horn).
8 "In addition, you must count off seven Sabbath years, seven years times seven, adding up to forty-nine years in all.
9 Then on the Day of Atonement of the fiftieth year , blow the trumpets loud and long throughout the land. Lev 25:8-9; NIV (italics mine).
yobel
OT:3104,RAM
First, this word means "ram's horn": "When the ram's horn [v, "trumpet"] sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain" Ex 19:13 — the first occurrence. In Josh 6:5 the word is preceded by the Hebrew word for "horn," which is modified by yobel, "horn of a ram."
Second, this word signifies "jubilee year." The law concerning this institution is recorded in Lev 25:8-15; 27:16-25. In the fiftieth year on the day of Atonement jubilee was to be declared. All land was to return to the individual or family to whom it had originally belonged by inheritance, even if he (or she) were in bondservice. When land was valued in anticipation of selling it or devoting it to God, it was to be valued in terms of anticipated productivity prior to the year of jubilee.
(from Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Copyright © 1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers.)
Jubilee was a command from the Lord intended as a blessing to His chosen people.
Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan.
11 The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines.
12 For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields.
13 "'In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to his own property.
14 "'If you sell land to one of your countrymen or buy any from him, do not take advantage of each other.
15 You are to buy from your countryman on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee . And he is to sell to you on the basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops.
16 When the years are many, you are to increase the price, and when the years are few, you are to decrease the price, because what he is really selling you is the number of crops.
17 Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the LORD your God. Lev 25:10-17: NIV (italics mine).
JUBILEE
[JOO bah lee] (blowing the trumpet) - the 50 th year after seven cycles of seven years, when specific instructions about property and slavery took effect (Lev 25:8-55).
The word jubilee comes from the Hebrew yobel, which means to be "jubilant" and to "exult." The word is related to the Hebrew word for ram's horn or trumpet. The Jubilee year was launched with a blast from a ram's horn on the Day of Atonement, signifying a call to joy, liberation, and the beginning of a year for "doing justice" and "loving mercy."
(from Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Copyright © 1986, Thomas Nelson Publishers)
We know the Lord intended Jubilee as a blessing for them because it contained the following promises:
"'Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land.
19 Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety.
20 You may ask, "What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?"
21 I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years.
22 While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in. Lev 25:18-22: NIV (italics mine).
Jubilee carries several very important spiritual messages regarding freedom, redemption and the kindsman redeemer.
23 "'The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants.
24 Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.
25 "'If one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells some of his property, his nearest relative is to come and redeem what his countryman has sold.
26 If, however, a man has no one to redeem it for him but he himself prospers and acquires sufficient means to redeem it,
27 he is to determine the value for the years since he sold it and refund the balance to the man to whom he sold it; he can then go back to his own property.
28 But if he does not acquire the means to repay him, what he sold will remain in the possession of the buyer until the Year of Jubilee . It will be returned in the Jubilee , and he can then go back to his property.
Lev 25:23-28: NIV (italics and bold mine).
The scriptures above tell us that the land was never to be sold permanently. In fact, the land was never to be sold in the sense that we use the term today. If a sale was made it was really a sale of the use of the land and its crops that were sold - not the land itself.
"'If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you, do not make him work as a slave.
40 He is to be treated as a hired worker or a temporary resident among you; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee .
41 Then he and his children are to be released, and he will go back to his own clan and to the property of his forefathers.
42 Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves.
43 Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God.
Lev 25:39-43: NIV (italics mine).
Much the same rule applied to Israelites who through the desperation of poverty were forced to sell themselves into servitude. They were not to be regarded as slaves to be retained permanently or treated harshly. Land sold and Israelites sold into servitude retained the right of redemption.
TO REDEEM
ge'ullah OT:1353, "(right of) redemption." This word is used in regard to deliverance of persons or property that had been sold for debt. The law required that the "right of redemption" of land and of persons be protected Lev 25:24,48. The redemption price was determined by the number of years remaining until the release of debts in the year of jubilee Lev 25:27-28. The word ge'ullah also occurs in Jer 32:7: "Behold, Hanameel the son of Shallum thine uncle shall come unto thee, saying, Buy thee my field that is in Anathoth: for the right of redemption is thine to buy it."
(from Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Copyright © 1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers.)
Chapter 12 - Several Laws
3. And truly Moses gave them all these precepts, being such as were observed during his own lifetime; but though he lived now in the wilderness, yet did he make provision how they might observe the same laws when they should have taken the land of Canaan. He gave them rest to the land from ploughing and planting every seventh year, as he had prescribed to them to rest from working every seventh day; and ordered, that then what grew of its own accord out of the earth should in common belong to all that pleased to use it, making no distinction in that respect between their own countrymen and foreigners: and he ordained, that they should do the same after seven times seven years, which in all are fifty years; and that fiftieth year is called by the Hebrews The Jubilee, wherein debtors are freed from their debts, and slaves are set at liberty; which slaves became such, though they were of the same stock, by transgressing some of those laws the punishment of which was not capital, but they were punished by this method of slavery. This year also restores the land to its former possessors in the manner following: - When the Jubilee is come, which name denotes liberty, he that sold the land, and he that bought it, meet together, and make an estimate, on one hand, of the fruits gathered; and, on the other hand, of the expenses laid out upon it. If the fruits gathered come to more than the expenses laid out, he that sold it takes the land again; but if the expenses prove more than the fruits, the present possessor receives of the former owner the difference that was wanting, and leaves the land to him; and if the fruits received, and the expenses laid out, prove equal to one another, the present possessor relinquishes it to the former owners. Moses would have the same law obtain as to those houses also which were sold in villages; but he made a different law for such as were sold in a city; for if he that sold it tendered the purchaser his money again within a year, he was forced to restore it; but in case a whole year had intervened, the purchaser was to enjoy what he had bought. This was the constitution of the laws which Moses learned of God when the camp lay under Mount Sinai, and this he delivered in writing to the Hebrews.
(from Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews, PC Study Bible formatted electronic database Copyright © 2003 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)
Israelites could and did own slaves but they generally had to be foreigners - not their fellow Israelites.
"'Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves.
45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property.
46 You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.
Lev 25:44-46: NIV (italics mine).
Even if an Israelite sold himself into servitude to a foreigner living in the land among the twelve tribes the sale was not permanent. That foreigner was bound by by this command just as any Israelite would be.
"'If an alien or a temporary resident among you becomes rich and one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells himself to the alien living among you or to a member of the alien's clan,
48 he retains the right of redemption after he has sold himself. One of his relatives may redeem him:
49 An uncle or a cousin or any blood relative in his clan may redeem him. Or if he prospers, he may redeem himself.
50 He and his buyer are to count the time from the year he sold himself up to the Year of Jubilee . The price for his release is to be based on the rate paid to a hired man for that number of years.
51 If many years remain, he must pay for his redemption a larger share of the price paid for him.
52 If only a few years remain until the Year of Jubilee , he is to compute that and pay for his redemption accordingly.
53 He is to be treated as a man hired from year to year; you must see to it that his owner does not rule over him ruthlessly.
54 "'Even if he is not redeemed in any of these ways, he and his children are to be released in the Year of Jubilee ,
55 for the Israelites belong to me as servants. They are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.
Lev 25:47-55: NIV (italics mine).
The command regarding Jubilee was not the only command given by the Lord regarding the enslavement of fellow Hebrews:
"If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything.
3 If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him.
4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.
5 "But if the servant declares, 'I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,'
6 then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life. Ex 21:2-6: NIV (italics mine).
This process of marking the ear of a willing Hebrew servant symbolized the believer bring sealed by the Lord as a willing and faithful servant.
"Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God." Rev 7:3; NIV (italics mine).
Category: Tabernacle
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