CHAPTER 25

(1491 B.C.)

THE SEVENTH YEAR

¹And the LORD spoke unto Moses in Mount Sinai, saying,

²Speak unto the Children of Israel, and say unto them, When you come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a Sabbath unto the LORD.

³Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof;

⁴But in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest unto the land, a Sabbath for the LORD: you shall neither sow your field, nor prune your vineyard. (The doctrine of this Chapter is that the people of Israel and the land of Israel belong to Jehovah, and that He, as the Divine Redeemer, has redeemed them both at the expense of His Own Precious Blood Williams.)

⁵That which grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, neither gather the grapes of your vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land (once again, this Sabbatical year, coming about every seventh year, symbolized the rest found only in Christ [Mat. 11:28-30]).

⁶And the Sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for you, and for your servant, and for your maid, and for your hired servant, and for your stranger that sojourns with you,

⁷And for your cattle, and for the beast that are in your land, shall all the increase thereof be meat. (Incidentally, in later years, Israel went about 490 years ignoring this Sabbath year, which would total 70 Sabbath years that they ignored the Command of the Lord. In respect to this, the land lay fallow for 70 years, while Israel languished in Babylon. We must understand that God says what He means, and means what He says [26:43].)

YEAR OF JUBILEE

⁸And you shall number seven Sabbaths of years unto you, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be unto you forty and nine years. (So there was a weekly Sabbath, a seventh year Sabbath, and a fiftieth year Sabbath. The fiftieth year Sabbath would actually entail two years of Sabbatical years in succession. The first one would be the seventh year of the seven year cycle, and the next one would be the fiftieth year, which was the Year of Jubilee.)

⁹Then shall you cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month (this is the Year of Jubilee, which came every fiftieth year), in the Day of Atonement shall you make the trumpet sound throughout all your land (the trumpet blowing throughout the land was done on the Great Day of Atonement, which was the first day of the Year of Jubilee).

¹⁰And you shall hallow the fiftieth year (every fiftieth year was the Year of Jubilee), and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof (at the beginning of this particular year, every prisoner went free, every debt was cancelled, and all property went back to the original owner; in fact, the Jubilee voided all contracts and released all slaves; it was symbolic of the new beginning which a person experiences when they come to Christ): it shall be a Jubilee (joy) unto you; and you shall return every man unto his possession, and you shall return every man unto his family.

¹¹A Jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you: you shall not sow, neither reap that which grows of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of your vine undressed.

¹²For it is the Jubilee; it shall be holy unto you (because it represented Christ, Who would set men free by virtue of the Cross): you shall eat the increase thereof out of the field (what grew of its own accord in the Year of Jubilee).

¹³In the year of this Jubilee you shall return every man unto his possession (all real property, such as land and houses, was to return to the original owner; so when something was purchased, it was actually only leased until the Year of Jubilee).

¹⁴And if you sell ought unto your neighbour, or buy ought of your neighbours hand, you shall not oppress one another (if somebody lost their property through foreclosure, it was to come back to them on the Year of Jubilee; this practice stopped much oppression):

¹⁵According to the number of years after the Jubilee you shall buy of your neighbour, and according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto you (all transactions were judged according to the number of years left before the Year of Jubilee):

¹⁶According to the multitude of years you shall increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years you shall diminish the price of it: for according to the number of the years of the fruits does he sell unto you.

¹⁷You shall not therefore oppress one another; but you shall fear your God: for I am the LORD your God (meaning that the Lord made these Laws, not man!).

¹⁸Wherefore you shall do My Statutes, and keep My Judgments, and do them; and you shall dwell in the land in safety (in other words, the safety of Israel depended on her abiding by the Word of the Lord).

¹⁹And the land shall yield her fruit, and you shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety (all prosperity depended on obedience to the Word of God).

²⁰And if you shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase:

²¹Then I will command My Blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years (for the sixth year; for the seventh year, which is to be a Sabbath; and then the following year, which is the fiftieth year; among other things, the Year of Jubilee taught Faith and trust in the Lord).

²²And you shall sow the eighth year (the year after the Year of Jubilee), and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in you shall eat of the old store (eat of the increase that the Lord gave on the sixth year [Vs. 21]).

²³The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me. (The Land of Israel still belongs to God, just as much as it did those thousands of years ago. The Palestinians should learn and understand that.)

REDEMPTION OF PROPERTY

²⁴And in all the land of your possession you shall grant a redemption for the land (the land could be redeemed by a near relative).

²⁵If your brother be waxed poor, and has sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold.

²⁶And if the man have none to redeem it (the original owner who lost the property), and himself be able to redeem it (the near of kin who desires to redeem it);

²⁷Then let him count the years of the sale thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it; that he may return unto his possession (the redemption price would be according to the number of years left before the Year of Jubilee).

²⁸But if he be not able to restore it to him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him who has bought it until the Year of Jubilee: and in the Jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession (it will go back to the original owner).

²⁹And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; within a full year may he redeem it (he can buy it back within a year at the price for which he sold it, if he so desires).

³⁰And if it be not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be established for ever to him who bought it throughout his generations: it shall not go out in the Jubilee (houses in cities were looked at differently; they were not to go back to the original owner on the Year of Jubilee, that is, if they were not redeemed during the first year after the sale).

³¹But the houses of the villages which have no wall round about them shall be counted as the fields of the country: they may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the Jubilee (go back to the original owner on the Year of Jubilee).

³²Notwithstanding the cities of the Levites, and the houses of the cities of their possession, may the Levites redeem at any time (the Levites were not bound by the Year of Jubilee).

³³And if a man purchase of the Levites, then the house that was sold, and the city of his possession, shall go out in the Year of Jubilee: for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the Children of Israel (at any rate, exactly as most others, all property purchased from Levites would go back to them on the Year of Jubilee).

³⁴But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold; for it is their perpetual possession (land which belonged to the Levites could not be sold, but must remain in their possession; so, if they incurred debts, that debt had to be settled another way other than confiscating their property).

REDEEMING THE POOR

³⁵And if your brother be waxed poor, and fallen in decay with you (to your knowledge); then you shall relieve him (help him): yes, though he be a stranger (Gentile), or a sojourner; that he may live with you (Gentile proselytes to the Covenant of Abraham must be treated exactly as Israelites).

³⁶Take thou no usury of him, or increase (regarding loans, no Israelite was to charge interest of another Israelite or proselyte): but fear your God; that your brother may live with you (on an equal status).

³⁷You shall not give him your money upon usury, nor lend him your victuals for increase (dont try to make money regarding one in need, but rather help him by loaning him money at no interest, etc.).

³⁸I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.

³⁹And if your brother who dwells by you be waxed poor, and be sold unto you; you shall not compel him to serve as a bondservant (you must not treat him as a slave):

⁴⁰But as an hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with you, and shall serve you unto the Year of Jubilee (ever how long that might be).

⁴¹And then shall he depart from you, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return (completely free of all obligations, whatever they may have been).

⁴²For they are My servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen (the Lord had redeemed all Israelites out of Egypt; therefore, no Israelite must make a slave of a fellow Israelite).

⁴³You shall not rule over him with rigour; but shall fear your God (in todays terminology, we must remember that every other Believer belongs to the Lord, and treat him accordingly, whether we like him or not).

⁴⁴Both your bondmen, and your bondmaids, which you shall have, shall be of the heathen who are round about you; of them shall you buy bondmen and bondmaids (of the Gentiles).

⁴⁵Moreover of the children of the strangers (Gentiles) who do sojourn among you, of them shall you buy, and of their families who are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession (but fellow Israelites must not be bought and sold as bondmen and bondmaids).

⁴⁶And you shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession (if the father bought the bondman or bondmaid, when he died, they were then to be the property of the children); they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the Children of Israel, you shall not rule one over another with rigour (while these were slaves, they were not so in the sense that we think of such presently; they were to be treated with all kindness, not like the Israelites had been treated in Egypt [Deut. 15:15]).

SERVANTS REDEEMED

⁴⁷And if a sojourner or stranger (Gentile) wax rich by you, and your brother who dwells by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner by you, or to the stock of the strangers family:

⁴⁸After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him (where a Gentile slave couldnt be redeemed and set free, an Israelite slave, who had been bought by a Gentile, could):

⁴⁹Either his uncle, or his uncles son, may redeem him or any who is near of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself.

⁵⁰And he shall reckon with him who bought him from the year that he was sold to him unto the Year of Jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years, according to the time of an hired servant shall it be with him. (The new start in business at the end of Jubilee was based upon another year of release fifty years in the future, and, thereby, increased or diminished the value of a sale or mortgage. Likewise, as the Christian realizes the nearness or remoteness of the Coming of the Lord, so he places a low or a high value on earthly things.)

⁵¹If there be yet many years behind, according unto them he shall give again the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for.

⁵²And if there remain but few years unto the Year of Jubilee, then he shall count with him, and according unto his years shall he give him again the price of his redemption (the price would be according to the number of years served, and the number of years left, before the Year of Jubilee).

⁵³And as a yearly hired servant shall he be with him: and the other shall not rule with rigour over him in your sight (a fellow Israelite, as stated, was not to be treated as a slave, but rather as a hired servant, in other words, an employee).

⁵⁴And if he be not redeemed in these years, then he shall go out in the Year of Jubilee, both he, and his children with him (set free).

⁵⁵For unto Me the Children of Israel are servants; they are My servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. (In order to save fallen man, our Saviour had to become man, in effect becoming our kinsman. He did this in order to possess the right to offer the price of Redemption [Heb. 2:14].)