THE YEAR OF JUBILEE BEGINS AFTER THE SEVENTH
SABBATICAL YEAR
The remembrance
of the Sabbatical Year was to climax after seven Sabbatical Years (49 years) with
the celebration of the Year of Jubilee (50th year). Jubilee was a “super sized” celebration of
the Sabbatical Year.
“You
are also to count off seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven
years, so that you have the time of the seven Sabbaths of years, namely,
forty-nine years. You shall then sound a ram's horn abroad on the tenth day of
the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall sound a horn all through
your land.
You shall thus consecrate the fiftieth
year and proclaim a release through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall
be a jubilee for you, and each of you
shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family.
You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor reap its
after growth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines. For it is a jubilee; it
shall be holy to you.” (Lev 25:8-12)
The rabbis saw
a strong link between the precepts of the Sabbatical Year and the Year of
Jubilee,
“According
to the halakhah, all rules applicable to the Sabbatical Year, with regard to
the prohibition of land cultivation, the renunciation of ownership of produce,
and the obligation of the householder to remove all produce gathered for his
needs when that species in not found in the field, apply also to the Jubilee: ‘What
applies to the Sabbatical Year applies equally to the Jubilee’ (Sifra,
Be-Har 3:2)”[1]
In addition to the precepts of the Sabbatical
Year, the Year of Jubilee proclaimed “a
release through the land to all the inhabitants…each of you shall return to his
own property, and each of you shall return to his family.” The NIV translates the passage as “proclaim liberty throughout the land to
all the inhabitants,” (Lev 25:10). Proclaiming liberty and releasing the
inhabitants reminds the reader of God’s redemptive word saving the people out
of Egypt and bringing them into the land of Israel.
The Year of Jubilee restores each Israelite
to his own property, and his own family, “He
shall still go out in the Year of Jubilee, he and his sons with him. For the sons of Israel are My servants; they
are My servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt, I am the LORD your
God,” (Lev 25:54-55). Key aspects of the Year of Jubilee are
reflected in the popular song of Michael Card,
“The
Lord provided for a time for the slaves to be set free
For
the debts to all be canceled so His chosen ones could see
His
deep desire was for forgiveness he longed to see their liberty
And
His yearning was embodied in the Year of Jubilee” (Jubilee by Michael Card)
Israel counted
seventeen Jubilees from the time they entered the land of Israel to the time
they left (Ar. 12b), but according to the majority of sages, the sanctity of
the Year of Jubilee was not every observed.
It was the duty of the bet din (the Sanhedrin) to count the years of the
shemittah (Sabbatical Years) as one counts the days of the Omer.7 Although
there is some evidence that the Sabbatical Years were observed during the second
Temple period, there is no record that the Year of Jubilee was ever calculated
by the Sanhedrin and celebrated by the nation of Israel throughout the whole
Temple period[2].
Therefore, the exact sequence of
years is unknown.
“According
to the geonim, not only were the laws of the Jubilee not in force from the time
of the exile of these tribes, but after the destruction of the First Temple the
Jubilee Years were not even calculated only those of the Sabbatical Years” (Enclyclopaedia Judaica, Second Edition, Volume 17, page 629)
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