And thou shalt count seven sabbaths of years, seven times seven years; so that the days of the seven sabbaths of years be unto thee forty-nine years.
Leviticus 25 gives Israel a calendar that spans a lifetime. Israel counts seven sets of seven years, out to forty-nine, and the fiftieth year becomes the jubilee. The count is not filler. It fixes when liberty comes, who declares it, and what it rests on.
God had already given Israel a sabbath day and a sabbath month. Here the same pattern stretches over years.
There was a sabbath day and a sabbath month. In the same way there was a sabbath year, and then one more year after seven times that year. This last one is the jubilee, and it comes when the cycle of seven sabbath years is complete. The first two concerned the people with Jehovah; the last two concerned the land... The land stands out in the sabbath year, and still more fully in the jubilee.
The verse names the multiplication — seven sevens — before it gives the total. That number is more than a sum.
Seven times seven years surely speaks of the fullness of God's time. Then the trumpet of the jubilee is blown and what happens? The captive slave is set free. The lost land is returned.
Between one jubilee and the next, land could be sold, families broken up, estates lost. One writer treats that whole span as a licence with a time limit on it.
This law tells us, if I may put it that way, that the Lord God will not let man have the last word. Man cannot take eternity into his own hand and do with it as he pleases. Man has a term of years granted him, in which it is left in his power to disturb God's order. But that licence is limited. It continues, as we have seen, only for forty-nine years. But "the land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine," says the Lord (v. 23). In the fiftieth year the Lord will assert His right and restore all things according to His own mind.
The count ends. But the trumpet waits for one particular day.
Of all the Jewish ceremonies, the jubilee seems to have been the most soul-stirring and thrilling. It was directly connected with the great day of atonement. First the blood of the victim was shed. Then the freeing sound of the jubilee trumpet rang through the hills and valleys of the land of Canaan... The reach of the jubilee was as wide as the reach of the atonement it rested on.
The jubilee touched every level of life: homes, debts, land and families.
The exile came home. The captive went free. The debtor was released. Each family opened its arms to welcome back its long-lost members. Each inheritance received back its exiled owner. The sound of the trumpet was a welcome and stirring signal. The captive could escape. The slave could throw off the chains of his slavery. The manslayer could return to his home. The ruined and the poor could rise up and take back the inheritance they had lost.
So who is the picture for? One writer draws a firm line.
The jubilee is in no way a picture of what belongs to the Christian or the church. It is a picture of Israel and the land, for the day when Jehovah brings His people into the full blessing He promised them... It has to do above all with the people and the land. Christ is to have glory everywhere, and a people suited for the earth as well as for heaven.
The name of the year itself points back to a horn and a shout.
In Lev. 25:9 the Hebrew word is teruah, "loud of sound." Everywhere else the word is yobel. It is translated "trumpet" in Ex. 19:13, "rams' horn" in Joshua 6:4-6, and "Jubilee" in Lev. 25:10-15... Fürst traces the word back to yabal, "strong": so "a he-goat, ram," then "a ram's horn," and then "a cry of joy, a joyful noise."
- Count — seven sevens is not arithmetic for its own sake. It marks the fullness of God's time.
- Cross — the trumpet sounds only after the blood of the sacrifice is shed. The reach of the liberty matches the reach of the atonement.
- Cry — yobel and teruah mean a ram's horn and a loud shout; the jubilee arrives as noise everyone can hear.
- Claim — the forty-nine years are man's limited licence to disturb God's order. In the fiftieth year God asserts that the land is His.
- Come back — people go home: the captive freed, the debtor released, the exile back, the inheritance restored to its owner.
Then shalt thou cause the loud sound of the trumpet to go forth in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month; on the day of atonement shall ye cause the trumpet to go forth throughout your land.
Israel's year of freedom opened with a trumpet blast on the Day of Atonement, the day sacrifice dealt with the nation's sins. Why tie liberty to the year's most solemn fast, and what did that sound release?
The Hebrew word in this verse is not the word used elsewhere for the jubilee.
It is a much disputed point what the word Jubilee means, or from what root it comes.
Why does the freedom year start on a fast day, and not on the first of the month?
So there is careful, clear reason for basing the jubilee on the atonement-day offering, once made and accepted. It was the most solemn sacrifice of the year. The horn was to sound so loud, and bring in the proclamation of liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It sounded not on the first of the seventh month but on the tenth… But the tenth was the fast, when no one was to work… Christ's atonement alone accounts for this. His work, His suffering for sin, explains it all.
One note changed the standing of every person in the country.
People of every rank felt the holy, refreshing influence of this most noble institution. The exile came home. The captive and the debtor went free. Each family opened its arms to receive its long-lost members once more; each inheritance received back its exiled owner. The sound of the trumpet was the welcome, stirring signal for the captive to escape and for the slave to throw off the chains of his slavery. It was the signal too for the manslayer to return home, and for the ruined and poverty-stricken to take possession of the inheritance they had forfeited.
The order of that day matters.
On the day of atonement that trumpet of jubilee sounds. It sounds after the scapegoat has carried away the people's sins, where they are never found again. And again, how beautifully its birthday shows its gracious character! Now the whole year is set apart as holy, and so liberty is proclaimed to all. And still Jehovah provides for all the inhabitants of the land, without limit for anyone and without cutting short the abundance. The fruits grow of themselves; there is no curse anywhere.
So who does this freedom belong to?
The "liberty" that follows at once is the answer to that work of atonement completed and accepted. It is quite different from the deliverance from the law of sin and death that we know as Christians, traced in Romans 8, 2 Corinthians 3 and Galatians 5. The jubilee is in no way a picture of what belongs to the Christian or the church. It pictures Israel and the land, when Jehovah brings His people into their full promised blessing.
How long did Israel wait between the sacrifice and the good news?
The year of jubilee only began at the evening of the day of atonement. So Israel will only know deliverance when they have learned what their sins required, and how the Lord's death met their need. Yet as the day of atonement drew to a close, the jubilee trumpet sounded, for God did not let the priest put it off till the morning. People heard the trumpet blast before night closed on the scene.
The verse asks for a loud blast across the whole land. One writer hears in that a lesson for preaching.
Some people think preachers should be very quiet… speaking in a quiet, easy-going, take-it-or-leave-it way. The trumpet of jubilee must be loud of sound. See! The priests fill their lungs with air and blow a mighty blast that rings right across Jerusalem… Blast after blast rings out, from north to south, over hill and valley. The glad news sounds on until every captive has heard that liberty is theirs, and they step out free.
- Atonement first. The freedom year rests on the day of sacrifice. The horn sounds on the tenth of the seventh month, not the first.
- Sin gone. The trumpet follows the scapegoat. Sins go first; then the year turns holy and liberty goes out to all.
- Sound loud. "Loud of sound" is the very word this verse uses. The blast had to cross the whole land until every captive heard it.
- Everyone returns. Captives freed, debts released, families reunited, forfeited inheritances restored.
- Israel's day. Commentators read the jubilee as Israel's coming blessing in the land, not the Christian's freedom. Israel will know it once the nation learns what its sins required.
And ye shall hallow the year of the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty in the land unto all the inhabitants thereof; a [year of] jubilee shall it be unto you, and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
a year of jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you ye shall not sow, neither reap its aftergrowth, nor gather [the fruit of] its undressed vines.
Leviticus 25 brings Israel's whole calendar to a climax. After seven cycles of seven years, God sets the fiftieth year apart, and its first command is that nobody plants and nobody harvests. A whole nation stopping work for a year raises two questions. What would they eat? And what was God picturing?
The word itself points to the trumpet that opened the year. Writers disagree about where it comes from:
It is a very disputed point what the word Jubilee means, or what root it comes from… Fürst traces the word from yabal, "strong": so "a he-goat, ram," then "a ram's horn," and so "a cry of joy, a joyful noise," a name for the great Jubilee feast.
The ban on sowing and reaping is not an isolated rule. It is the largest of a series of rests in Israel's calendar:
Every seventh day was a sabbatical day; every seventh year was a sabbatical year; and every seven times seven years there was a jubilee. Each of these ceremonies was a picture. All of them held before the eye of faith the happy prospect of a time when labour and sorrow would cease, when "the sweat of the brow" would no longer be needed to satisfy hunger.
For a year they ate only what the ground gave on its own — grapes from unpruned vines and whatever seeded itself. That pointed to soil which would one day stop resisting the farmer:
It is a small witness of the great change to come, when the land will no longer be barren or grudging. It will yield its full increase, to honour the great King and to greet His people — no longer small, but mighty, exalted and blessed.
The forty-ninth year was already a sabbatical year. So obedience here meant missing two harvests in a row, and the command rested on nothing but a promise:
Verse 20 expects them to ask, "What shall we eat …?" In answer they had to rely on God's pledged word that the sixth year would bring enough for three years. So they would have enough even though they did not sow in the fiftieth year as well as the forty-ninth. The question came down to this: would they take God at His word? It is an ominous fact that their history holds no record of the jubilee year ever being kept.
Only one person could stand behind such an arrangement:
What a sight it must have been. In the sabbatical year the land lay fallow everywhere. No sound of farming was heard. The plough and the harrow lay idle, nobody sowed seed, nobody watered a field. The sixth year's crop had been so large that it provided enough for three years (20-22). The people had all they needed, and there was no shortage for man or beast. Who would have thought of this? Who could make such a promise and keep it, but one? He to whom the land belonged, the Lord Jehovah, the Creator.
The trumpet did not sound on just any day. Its timing tied the whole year to a sacrifice:
It stood directly connected with the great day of atonement. When the blood of the victim was shed, the freeing sound of the jubilee trumpet rang through the hills and valleys of the land of Canaan… The scope of the jubilee was as wide as the scope of the atonement it rested on.
Stopping work was only half of it. The same year gave people back what they had lost:
The exile returned. The captive went free. The debtor was released. Each family opened its arms to welcome its long-lost members again. Each inheritance received back its exiled owner. The trumpet's sound was the welcome, stirring signal — for the captive to escape, for the slave to throw off his chains, for the manslayer to return home, for the ruined and poor to rise up and take back the inheritance they had lost.
Commentators differ on how far the picture reaches. Kelly draws a firm line: "The jubilee is in no way a type of what belongs to the Christian or the church. It is a type of Israel for the land, when Jehovah's people will be brought into their full promised blessing" (William Kelly). Others use it as an illustration for believers, while agreeing on its main reference:
I do not say that the sounding of the jubilee trumpet was a type of the Lord's coming for us. I believe it pictures the time when the Lord will appear to the Jews as their Messiah and bring His ancient people into their promised liberty. But as an illustration it is striking… It shows that the value we attach to everything here matches our sense of how far off or how near the Lord's coming is.
- Sound. The year opened with a ram's-horn blast. The name itself carries the idea of a joyful noise.
- Sacrifice. The blast came on the Day of Atonement. The freedom it announced reached as far as the sacrifice behind it.
- Silence. No sowing, no reaping, no grape-gathering: a year picturing the end of toil under the sweat of the brow.
- Supply. The command tested their trust. God pledged a triple harvest in the sixth year — a promise only the owner of the land could make.
- Restoration. Slaves went free, debts ended, families and land came back — a picture of Israel's blessing under Messiah.
For it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you; out of the field shall ye eat its produce.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
In this year of the jubilee ye shall return every man unto his possession.
The fiftieth year in Israel was not a new beginning built from nothing — it was a homecoming. Every field that had passed into another man's hands went back to the family it came from, because the land belonged to God and no sale could cancel that.
Israelites could trade with one another, but what changed hands was never the land itself. One writer looks at the buying and selling rules that follow this verse:
The year of jubilee reminded both buyer and seller that the land belonged to the Lord, and was not to be sold. "The fruits" might be sold, but that was all — the Lord could never give up the land to anyone... If the land of Canaan is not to be sold — if the Lord declares it to be His forever, then for whom does He want it? Who is to hold under Him? Those to whom He gave it by an everlasting covenant.
One writer describes the arrangement as a lease with a fixed end date:
He set up, you might say, a tenancy for forty-nine years. The trading of the occupiers disturbed everything. Then, in the fiftieth year, He returned to the land and settled it anew on His family, according to His own mind.
The jubilee handed out no fresh grants. It put people back where God had placed them at the start.
A joyful sound it must have been. But this institution really gave them nothing new. It only restored liberty to the slave, and the land to its original owner. Restoration was its special feature. That suited a failing people who had lost either their personal liberty or their family land. They lost it by one means or another, but the real root was sin.
The signal came on the Day of Atonement, the yearly day of sacrifice for the nation's sin. The timing was no accident:
It was directly connected with the great day of atonement. The trumpet only sounded once the blood of the victim had been shed. Then its freeing note rang through the hills and valleys of the land of Canaan... The jubilee reached as far as the atonement it rested on.
Another writer notes the exact day. Trumpets also sounded on the first day of that month, but the jubilee trumpet came nine days later:
See the careful concern to base the jubilee on the offering and acceptance of the atonement day. That day brought the most solemn sacrifice of the year... The "liberty" that follows right after is the answer to that work of atonement, completed and accepted.
The chapter gives two ways back to a lost inheritance.
The ordinance of the jubilee seems to set out this twofold redemption — by price and by power. At any time during the forty-nine years, a relative of the heir could buy back the lost possession of an Israelite. That redeemed it and brought it back to the family it had belonged to under God. But if no one did this, it returned to the heir in the fiftieth year, the jubilee, with no price paid.
One writer applies the same two stages to believers now — the price already paid, the jubilee still ahead:
Peace and hope live in the soul together, along with the enjoyment of the Spirit's presence. This is the peace that the completed purchase by the blood speaks of. This is the hope that the approaching jubilee, or full redemption, inspires. And this is the comfort of the indwelling Spirit, who is the seal of the peace already made and the pledge of the expected inheritance.
Commentators differ on who the jubilee pictures. Some limit it to Israel and the land:
The jubilee is in no way a picture of what belongs to the Christian or the church. It is a picture of Israel and the land, when the Lord brings His people into their full promised blessing.
Others agree, but still draw a wider lesson from it. One writer says the trumpet points to the time when the Lord appears to the Jews as their Messiah and gives every tribe its own possession. "But as an illustration it is striking," he adds, for the blessings His coming brings (H H Snell). In the synagogue Jesus read Isaiah's words about liberty for captives and "the acceptable year of the Lord." Of that reading a dictionary entry says, "there may be an allusion to the year of Jubilee... But the grace given by the Lord brought lasting blessings for their souls" (Morrish Bible Dictionary).
- Owner — The land was God's; men could sell its crops for a term of years, never the ground itself.
- Loss — Israelites lost their family land, and sometimes their freedom, and at root that loss was the fruit of sin.
- Blood — The trumpet only sounded once the Day of Atonement was complete. Liberty answers an accepted sacrifice.
- Return — A relative could buy the inheritance back during the forty-nine years. If no one did, the fiftieth year gave it back with no price paid.
- Restitution — Most writers apply the picture to Israel restored to the land under their Messiah. Some also find in it peace and hope for believers now.