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Author
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Topic: The Sabbath Year And The Year of Jubilee
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Carol Swenson
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Joshua 14:5 (NLT)
So the land was distributed in strict accordance with the LORD’s commands to Moses.
quote:
Originally posted by Eden:
In Communist Soviet Union, they found that the people worked their tiny little personal plot a lot harder than the communal plot.
God is a lot smarter than the Communists.
Deuteronomy 30:15 - 20 (NLT)
15“Now listen! Today I am giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster. 16For I command you this day to love the LORD your God and to keep his commands, decrees, and regulations by walking in his ways. If you do this, you will live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you and the land you are about to enter and occupy. 17“But if your heart turns away and you refuse to listen, and if you are drawn away to serve and worship other gods, 18then I warn you now that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live a long, good life in the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy. 19“Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! 20You can make this choice by loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life. And if you love and obey the LORD, you will live long in the land the LORD swore to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
You quoted Wiersbe:
quote:
"The Lord owned the land and only loaned it to His people. He wanted them to have a sense of proprietorship and responsibility in caring for His property. People usually take care of what they themselves own."
And you commented
quote:
So, if we say that the LORD owned the land and only "loaned" it to His people, how then can they also have had a sense of "proprietorship" if they knew that the LORD owned the land, and not they? For, as Wiersbe said above, "People usually take care of what they themselves own."
You quoted only half of his paragraph. What he really wrote is:
"Any property that was sold since the last Year of Jubilee would revert to its original owner, for the Lord wanted His land to remain with the tribes, clans, and families to which it had been allotted. For parents to care for their families, they had to have land to cultivate, and the private ownership of property gave stability to the economy. The Lord owned the land and only loaned it to His people. He wanted them to have a sense of proprietorship and responsibility in caring for His property. People usually take care of what they themselves own."
As for the Lord owning the land, it goes without saying that He created everything, and He owns everything. That includes all of your stuff. Do you neglect your stuff because you know that He actually owns everything?
Posts: 6787 | From: Colorado | Registered: Dec 2007
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Eden
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But I was curious about this statement by Wiersbe: quote:
The Lord owned the land and only loaned it to His people. He wanted them to have a sense of proprietorship and responsibility in caring for His property. People usually take care of what they themselves own.
In Communist Soviet Union, they found that the people worked their tiny little personal plot a lot harder than the communal plot.
So, if we say that the LORD owned the land and only "loaned" it to His people, how then can they also have had a sense of "proprietorship" if they knew that the LORD owned the land, and not they? For, as Wiersbe said above, "People usually take care of what they themselves own."
But the people were TAUGHT that the land belonged to the LORD and not to them, so "how can they have taken care of what they own" when they clearly KNEW that they did NOT own it?
love, Eden
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Eden
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But I do like this part of Wiersbe's article quote:
In my pastoral ministry, I’ve met people who robbed God of tithes and offerings, only to end up paying extra money for medical bills or car repairs. I recall one church member bringing his family budget book to my office, just to show me how God had begun to bless him when he stopped robbing the Lord. His figures showed that every dollar he took from God had to be spent on some emergency need, and he never got to use that money himself.
I totally agree with that.
love, Eden
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Eden
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Wiersbe's article, as posted by Carol Swenson, said quote:
We have no biblical evidence that the Jews ever celebrated the Sabbath Year ...
Wiersbe should have said "the Israelites" instead of "the Jews". "The Jews" were only the people of the kingdom of Judah.
Wiersbe continued quote:
God sent Israel into Babylonian exile for seventy years in order to give the land the rest it needed (Jer. 25:8-11; 29:10).
No, God sent the kingdom of Judah into exile in Babylon. Only the northern 10-tribed kingdom was called "Israel" and "Israel" was taken into "Assyrian" captivity, not into "Babylonian" captivity.
And lastly, Wiersbe said quote:
This suggests that for nearly 500 years, the Jews had disobeyed God’s law concerning the Sabbath Year.
Not just "the Jews", but "Israel" also had disobeyed God’s law concerning the Sabbath Year.
love, Eden
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Carol Swenson
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Rest for the land: the Sabbath Year (Lev. 25:1-7, 18-22)
When we studied Leviticus 23, we noted that the Jewish calendar was based on a series of sevens. There were seven annual feasts, three of them in the seventh month, and the seventh day of the week was the Sabbath, a day of rest. Now we learn that the seventh year was to be a year of rest for the land, the people, and their animals.
During the Sabbath Year, the people were not to work the fields or have organized harvests, but were to take from the fields the food they needed as it grew of itself. The people, including the poor and the aliens, could gather from the fields and be God’s “guests” (Ex. 23:10-12).
Not only did the land rest, but also the people and the farm animals rested. The men certainly took care of the routine tasks that keep buildings from falling down, but they were not to engage in the normal activities of an agricultural society, like plowing, sowing, and harvesting. This prohibition also included the servants and the animals, all of whom were given a year of rest from their normal duties.
Deuteronomy 15:1-11 informs us that personal debts were also remitted during the Sabbath Year and that indentured servants were set free. The word “release” in Deuteronomy 15:1 means “to let loose, to drop.” It involves the canceling of debts and the freeing of slaves. As the people shared with the poor and with their liberated servants, they were to be generous and openhanded. Three motives were to govern what the people did: appreciation for God’s blessings (Lev. 25:4, 6, 10, 14), appreciation for God’s deliverance of the nation from Egypt (v. 15), and simple obedience to the command of God (v. 5). What God commanded was for the good of all the people, and nobody had the right to disobey Him. During the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, King Zedekiah proclaimed a release for the slaves, but he later rescinded it (Jer. 34:8ff).
The Sabbath Year was also the occasion for a “Bible conference” when the priests read and explained the Book of Deuteronomy to all the people (Deut. 31:9-13). This was done during the Annual Feast of Tabernacles, which would usher in the new year. It would take a great deal of faith for the people to trust God for their daily food, and “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17, nkjv). During that special year, the nation learned the meaning of “give us this day our daily bread.” God promised to protect them and provide for them throughout the year, if only they would trust and obey (Lev. 25:18-22).
We have no biblical evidence that the Jews ever celebrated the Sabbath Year, in fact, the Bible indicates that they didn’t: “To fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years” (2 Chron. 36:21). God sent Israel into Babylonian exile for seventy years in order to give the land the rest it needed (Jer. 25:8-11; 29:10). This suggests that for nearly 500 years, the Jews had disobeyed God’s law concerning the Sabbath Year.
It’s a basic principle of life that whatever we rob from God, we can never keep and enjoy ourselves. In my pastoral ministry, I’ve met people who robbed God of tithes and offerings, only to end up paying extra money for medical bills or car repairs. I recall one church member bringing his family budget book to my office, just to show me how God had begun to bless him when he stopped robbing the Lord. His figures showed that every dollar he took from God had to be spent on some emergency need, and he never got to use that money himself.
By disobeying the law of the Sabbath Year, the Jews robbed themselves not only of spiritual blessings but also of the strength of the land and of their servants and farm animals. By working the same land, year after year, they got their harvests, but they lost the renewal that comes from allowing the land to lie fallow and the workers to rest. They also lost the blessings that come from sharing with the needy, and they robbed God of the glory He would have received as the other nations saw how much He blessed His people. It was a costly mistake on their part, and they paid for it dearly.
Release and restoration: the Year of Jubilee (Lev. 25:8-17, 23-24)
The word “jubilee” is used five times in verses 8-17 and literally means “to sound the trumpet.” (The Heb. word is yobel, which means “a ram’s horn.”) For the people of Israel, each new year opened with the blowing of the trumpets on the first day of the seventh month,11-1 and ten days later, the people celebrated the Day of Atonement by fasting, repenting, and offering the required sacrifices. But every fiftieth year, at the close of the celebration of the Day of Atonement, the horns were blown again to announce that the Year of Jubilee had begun.
It would require a great deal of faith for the people to celebrate this special year, because the previous year—the forty-ninth—would have been a Sabbath year when the fields, vineyards, and orchards would not have been cultivated. The Jews had to trust God to provide for them for the forty-ninth and fiftieth years, and also during the fifty-first year while they waited for the harvest. God certainly wouldn’t fail them, but their faith might fail. In fact, there’s no evidence in Scripture that the nation of Israel ever celebrated the Year of Jubilee.
What elements were involved in the Year of Jubilee?
Repentance (v. 9).
It’s significant that the Year of Jubilee started with the Day of Atonement, a day when the Jews were commanded to “afflict themselves” and repent of their sins (16:29-34). They were not to enter the Year of Jubilee without the Lord first cleansing and forgiving them. If their hearts weren’t right with God, they could never release their slaves or return the land to its original owners. Our relationship with God determines how we treat other people.
Release (vv. 10, 13).
“Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof” is inscribed on the Liberty Bell, which hangs in Independence Hall in Philadelphia. At the start of the Year of Jubilee, the people were commanded to release their indentured servants so that they might return to their own lands and families. A Hebrew servant was to serve for only six years and then be set free (Ex. 21:2). How could the Jews celebrate this special year if some of their people were in bondage and separated from their loved ones and their land?
Rest (vv. 11-12).
During the Year of Jubilee, the people were forbidden to carry on their normal agricultural pursuits but had to live on whatever the land produced. This gave both them and the land an extra year of rest, since the previous year would have been a Sabbath Year. They had to rely on the Lord to keep His promises and supply sufficient food for almost three years, since they wouldn’t be able to work the land until the fifty-first year; and even then, they’d have to wait for the harvest.
Restoration (vv. 13-17).
Any property that was sold since the last Year of Jubilee would revert to its original owner, for the Lord wanted His land to remain with the tribes, clans, and families to which it had been allotted. For parents to care for their families, they had to have land to cultivate, and the private ownership of property gave stability to the economy. The Lord owned the land and only loaned it to His people. He wanted them to have a sense of proprietorship and responsibility in caring for His property. People usually take care of what they themselves own.
Whenever a piece of land was sold, the proximity of the next Year of Jubilee determined the price, for this determined how much produce the new owner could get from the soil. Since the buyer knew full well that the land would eventually revert back to the original owner, he certainly wasn’t going to pay more for the land than what he would be able to get out of it. “The land shall not be sold forever” was God’s law (Lev. 25:23).
These laws made it impossible for ruthless wealthy real estate speculators to accumulate vast land holdings and thus upset the economy. Even the poorest Israelite family received its land back, and by working the land, they could gain enough wealth to meet their needs and perhaps the needs of others. The Year of Jubilee provided a new beginning for the released slaves and the landowners, and this kept poverty and inequality to a minimum. The people were not to oppress one another (v. 17), but remember that the land was God’s and they were only His tenants (vv. 23-24).
The Prophet Isaiah saw in the Year of Jubilee a picture of the promised messianic kingdom when the Lord would release His people and restore them to their land and bless them abundantly (Isa. 61:1-3). Jesus used this Isaiah passage as the text for the sermon He preached in the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4:16-30), and He applied it to the “acceptable year of the Lord” that He was inaugurating by His death and resurrection. Jesus stopped His reading at “the acceptable year of the Lord” (“the year of the Lord’s favor,” niv) and didn’t read the part about “the day of vengeance of our God.” In Isaiah 6:2, this present “acceptable year” of God’s grace is separated from the future “day of judgment” by a comma! God’s wonderful “day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2) has lasted as long as it has because God is long-suffering and wants sinners to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9, 15).
Like the announcement of the Year of Jubilee, the Gospel is good news to the poor, because their debts have been paid and are completely forgiven (Luke 7:36-50). All they need do is receive the Savior and rejoice in a new beginning. Just as the debtors and slaves were set free to enjoy Jubilee, so sinners are set free when they trust the Lord to save them. Salvation through faith in Jesus Christ is a “Jubilee” experience, for it restores broken families and lost blessings and brings “times of refreshing” from the Lord (Acts 3:19-21).
(Wiersbe)
Posts: 6787 | From: Colorado | Registered: Dec 2007
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