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The Year of Jubilee

‘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. Then you shall sound the ram’s horn everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month (almost October); on the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout your land. 10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year and [a]proclaim freedom [for the slaves] throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee (year of remission) for you, and each of you shall return to his own [ancestral] property [that was sold to another because of poverty], and each of you shall return to his family [from whom he was separated by bondage]. 11 That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee for you; you shall not sow [seed], nor reap what reseeds itself, nor gather the grapes of the uncultivated vines. 12 For it is the Jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat its crops out of the field.

13 ‘In this Year of Jubilee each of you shall return to his own [ancestral] property. 14 If you sell anything to your friend or buy from your friend, you shall not wrong one another. 15 According to the number of years after the Jubilee, you shall [b]buy from your friend. And he is to sell to you according to the number of years of crops [which may be harvested before you must restore the property to him]. 16 If the years [until the next Jubilee] are many, you shall increase the price, but if the years remaining are few, you shall reduce the price, because it is the number of crops that he is selling to you. 17 You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God [with profound reverence]; for I am the Lord your God.

18 ‘Therefore you shall carry out My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them, so that you may live securely on the land. 19 Then the land will yield its produce, so that you can eat your fill and live securely on it. 20 And if you say, “What are we going to eat in the seventh year if we do not sow [seed] or gather in our crops?” 21 then [this is My answer:] I will order My [special] blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it will produce [sufficient] crops for three years. 22 When you are sowing the eighth year, you can still eat old things from the crops, eating the old until the ninth year when its crop comes in.

The Law of Redemption

23 ‘The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; you are [only] foreigners and temporary residents with Me.(A) 24 So in all the country that you possess, you are to provide for the redemption of the land [in the Year of Jubilee].

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Footnotes

  1. Leviticus 25:10 The quote on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia is from this verse and reads, “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”
  2. Leviticus 25:15 The transfer of land in Israel was more like a lease than an outright purchase. Since all property reverted to the original owner at the Jubilee year, the purchaser would pay a price only for the years of use remaining until the next Jubilee.

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