Law of Moses — Leviticus 25:1-22

The laws of land rest are not limited to the Covenant, but are universal in nature. They are offered as something inherent in the natural world itself. The land itself shall keep a sabbath. Every seventh year, you shall not plant or harvest anything. However, the voluntary crops can be eaten as you pass through, grazing as it were. To be more precise, you can take enough at one time to make one meal for your household, but so can anyone else who would normally be in your village. Even the livestock were to be allowed access to the fallow croplands.

As we might expect, this placed a greater emphasis on summer fruits and wild produce. Those were always available for harvest, but there would naturally be a preference of effort for domesticated crops. The Sabbatical Year was a time of going back to the roots of faith and trusting the Lord to provide, as if one were a mere nomad in the land. This is the quintessential image of the Covenant Nation.

The law of Jubilee has been debated for centuries, and is in dispute to this day among rabbis. Was it the 7th of Sabbatical Years (49th), or was it the 50th, another year after the seventh Sabbatical? For us, it doesn’t matter that much. The whole point is that we know how every national economy needs a reset just about every generation or so. Otherwise, tyranny results and revolutions are inevitable. So God commanded Israel to do this on a schedule. The text says the fiftieth year was sacred.

In that year, all productive farm land was returned to its original clan ownership. That way no part of Israel could ever be completely alienated from their original grant from God. Property mismanagement must be forgiven at the end of the guilty generation, so that their descendants can try to learn from the mistakes of their elders. In like manner, bond-slaves must be released from their bonds. All debts must be forgiven. This formalized a schedule of redemption that, by Ancient Near Eastern custom and tradition, occurred when any new king took his throne. Instead of relying on the vagaries of how long a king might reign, it was scheduled by a set number of years.

Notice that, in effect, Israeli land cannot actually be sold, only the produce of the land for a set number of years can be leased. The price was to be adjusted, prorated on the basis of how many years were left before the next Jubilee. The same with any Hebrew bond-slave; you could only lease the labor, not keep the person as a permanent possession (barring the special ceremony previously mentioned in our study).

As for Gentiles living in the land: They were not protected by the Covenant. They could be permanently bought and sold, but the could not do the same to the hosting Hebrew people. Furthermore, nobody could abuse a Hebrew bond-servant. This was a matter of respect for the God who owned all things, land and people in particular. Also, the Levites and their land grants were given a different treatment as God’s unique personal property tribe.

Urban property was not affected by Jubilee, particularly houses (again, except for Levitical cities). The point here was productivity. The people were God’s treasure, and arable land was one’s heritage granted from God. So what would God’s people eat during the Sabbatical years? God promised to ensure that the sixth year would see the people harvest enough to last three years. That’s enough to eat that year, all year during the Sabbatical, and to eat and provide seed for that next year. That implies they were likely to grow enough to export some in any given working year, but not for those three years.

This is part of the definition of shalom: God promised reasonable prosperity for those who obeyed His revelation of how to live — “and you will dwell there in safety.”