Year of Jubilee (Part 3)

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 (50^th 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)

---

[1] Enclyclopaedia Judaica, Second Edition, Volume 17, page 626

[2] Encyclopaedia Judaica, Second Edition, Volume 17, page 627

Year of Jubilee (Part 2)

“The continued dwelling in the land was dependent upon the observance of the shemittah (Sabbatical Year) and Jubilee. (Shab. 33a)”2

What is the reason for the Sabbatical Year?  Some have theorized that the Sabbatical Year is an opportunity for the land to rest for all the Sabbaths that it missed during the previous six years.  One sage observed that there are 52 weekly Sabbaths and 7 Sabbaths associated with annual festivals each year.  Six years multiplied by 59 Sabbaths equals 354 days, or the number of days in a lunar year.  While mankind is afforded the opportunity to rest on every Sabbath, the fields are growing crops and are not afforded the same opportunity.  It is only in the seventh year, the Sabbatical Year, that the fields in Israel have a chance to rest.  The future Millennial Kingdom can be seen as a time for the world to rest from the 6000 years of Sabbaths that it missed.

As far as scripture conveys, the commandments associated with the Sabbatical Year were not practiced prior to the Babylonian exile.  The failure to follow the precepts of the Sabbatical Year are given as the specific reason that the nation was exiled to Babylon for seventy years, “to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths.  All the days of its desolation it kept Sabbath until seventy years were complete,” (2 Chron 36:21).  With the return of the people back to the land of Israel came a re-commitment by the community to the application of the Torah and the laws of the Sabbatical Year.

“As for the peoples of the land who bring wares or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or a holy day; and we will forego the crops the seventh year and exaction of every debt,” (Neh 10:31)

From the time of Nehemiah until the days of Jesus, there is evidence that Israel maintained some level of observance of the Sabbatical Year. According to Josephus,

“When Alexander the Great reached Jerusalem during his march through Israel, he acceded to the high priest’s request that the Jews be exempted from paying tribute during the Sabbatical Year, when they did not work their land (Jos., Ant. 11:338).  During the Hasmonean War, the fall of Beth Zur…was attributed to a famine within the city since it was a Sabbatical Year (1 Macc. 6:49, 53-54).  Julius Caesar later reaffirmed this privilege of tax exemption during the Sabbatical Year since ‘they neither take fruit from the trees nor do they sow’ (Jos., Ant. 14:202).”[1]

In the century before Jesus, the Pharisees were concerned that Jews might harden their hearts against lending to their poorer brethren, who could not pay back in the Sabbatical Year, (Duet 15:8).  Hillel the Elder (100 B.C. – 10 A.D.), addressed this concern employing the principle of “tikkun olam” (repairing the world).  On the surface, the approach of Hillel looks like a way to circumvent the commandment.  In reality, Hillel's approach protects the well-being of the poor.

“Hillel therefore instituted the procedure know as “prozbol”. A document by which a lender transferred a debt due him into one owed to the court.  The man would bring evidence of the loan before judges who would affirm the lender’s right, as agent of the court, to collect the debt, even during and after the seventh year.  In theory, the Torah law canceling personal debts in the seventh year was still applicable; in practice, though, it was no longer observed…Hillel the Elder enacted the “prozbol…because he saw that people refrained from lending money to one another and violated what was written in the Torah, ‘lest you harbor the base thought.’” (Sifri, Re’eb 113)[2]

Since legal judgments were not negated in the Sabbatical Year, payments subject to legal judgments remained binding.  The action of Hillel supports a position that the Sabbatical Year was observed by some, if not all Jews, in the century before the coming of Jesus Christ.  “Josephus tells that in Herod’s conquest of Jerusalem in the summer of that year (i.e., 37 B.C.), the besieged in the city suffered from a food shortage because of the Sabbatical Year (Jos., Ant. 14:475).”[3]  Between the words of Josephus, the Talmud, and the actions of Hillel, we have some sense that the Sabbatical Year was kept during the days of Jesus. 

Despite evidence supporting observance of the Sabbatical Year in the first century, there is no reference to the Sabbatical Year in the Greek text, either in the gospel accounts, Acts, or the Epistles.  It would be reasonable to expect some reference if the majority of Jews had been keeping the Sabbatical Year.  At some point, Paul might have been compelled to gather support in the Diaspora for the brethren in Jerusalem, as Paul had done during the years of the world-wide famine, (Acts 11:27-30).  However, as the old saying goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  Most of Acts and the Epistles are written to believers living outside the land of Israel where the laws of the Sabbatical Year were not applicable.

---

[1] Enclyclopaedia Judaica, Second Edition, Volume 17, page 629

[2] Hillel: If Not Now, When?, Joseph Telushkin, 2010 Edition, page 51

[3] Enclyclopaedia Judaica, Second Edition, Volume 17, page 627

Year of Jubilee (Part 1)

THE SABBATICAL YEAR

“You shall sow your land for six years and gather in its yield, but on the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the needy of your people may eat; and whatever they leave the beast of the field may eat.  You are to do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.” (Ex 23:10-11)

Patterned after the weekly Sabbath, the LORD commanded that the land should be given a Sabbath rest every seven years, also referred to as, “A Sabbath to the LORD,” (Lev 25:2).  The LORD promised “My blessing for you in the sixth year that it will bring forth the crop for three years” (Lev 25:21).  Crops for three years would cover the original sixth, the seventh of the Sabbath rest, and eight year while waiting for the harvest.  Observance of the Sabbatical Year brought the blessing of security in the land of Israel and bounty from the fields, (Lev 25:18-19). 

According to the Talmud, the Sabbatical Year includes three positive commandments and six prohibitions.[1]  The three positive commandments are (1) “On the seventh year you shall let it (your land) rest and lie fallow, so that the needy of your people may eat,” (Ex 23:11), (2) “During the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath rest,” (Lev 25:4), (3) “At the end of every seven years you shall grant a remission of debts.  This is the manner of remission: every creditor shall release what he has loaned to his neighbor,” (Deut 15:1-2).  The six negative precepts defined by the rabbis were:

“(1) Thou shalt neither sow thy field (2) nor prune the vineyard (3) That which groweth of itself of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, (4) and the grapes of thy undressed vine thou shalt not gather’ (Lev 25:4-5). (5) ‘He shall not exact it (the loan) of his neighbor’ (Deut 15:2). (6) ‘Beware that there be not a base thought in thy heart, saying: ‘The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand’; and thine eye be evil against thy needy brother and thou give him nought’ (Deut 15:9)”[2]

The obligation to not cultivate the land is limited to the land of Israel because these laws begin with the LORD saying, “When you come into the land which I shall give you,” (Lev 25:2).  Some commentators connect the release of debt to the inability of a fellow Jew (neighbor) to farm the land during the Sabbatical Year, which was necessary to gain income to pay the debt.  The releasing of debt applied to a fellow Israelite living inside or outside of the land of Israel, but not to a foreigner, (Deut 15:3).  The rabbis also concluded that the law did not release an employer from paying a laborer, a customer from paying a shopkeeper, nor the payment requirements fixed by a court action, (Shvi’it 10:1-2).[3]  The releasing of debt was intended to free the poor restoring them to a level of financial stability.  In a debt free condition, Israelites were able to appear before their brethren as equals.

Produce that occurred naturally in the Sabbatical Year was considered holy and its use was restricted to consumption by animals and the poor.  It was not permissible to sell the produce nor remove the produce from the land of Israel.  Produce could also be utilized to produce vinegar and wine for consumption, but not for anointing.  In addition to all the commandments related to the Sabbath rest for the land, the people were commanded to assemble once every seven years, in the Sabbatical Year, to hear the Torah read,

“Then Moses commanded them, saying, ‘At the end of every seven years, at the time of the year of remission of debts, at the Feast of Booths…Assemble the people, the men and the women and children ant the alien who is in your town, in order that they may hear and learn and fear the LORD your God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law.’”

(Deut 31:10&12)

In the Sabbatical Year we see a picture of the coming Kingdom of God.  The land is given a rest, the people are feed from the previous harvest, and the people assemble to hear God’s word.  What a blessing to live in these conditions.   -- Scott

---

[1] Enclyclopaedia Judaica, Second Edition, Volume 17, page 628

[2] Enclyclopaedia Judaica, Second Edition, Volume 17, page 628

[3] Hillel: If Not Now, When?, Joseph Telushkin, 2010 Edition, page 51