Release & Restoration: Year of Jubilee (Lev. 25:8-17, 17-18)

11/10/2008 7:27 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time           Focus:  Release and restoration:  the year of Jubilee

Bible Reading & Meditation               Reference:  Leviticus 25:8-17, 23-24

            Message of the verses:  “8 ¶  ‘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.  9  ‘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.  10  ‘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.  11  ‘You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines.  12  ‘For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its crops out of the field.  13  ‘On this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his own property.  14  ‘If you make a sale, moreover, to your friend or buy from your friend’s hand, you shall not wrong one another.  15  ‘Corresponding to the number of years after the jubilee, you shall buy from your friend; he is to sell to you according to the number of years of crops.  16  ‘In proportion to the extent of the years you shall increase its price, and in proportion to the fewness of the years you shall diminish its price, for it is a number of crops he is selling to you.  17  ‘So you shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the LORD your God.

            23 ¶  ‘The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are but aliens and sojourners with Me.  24  ‘Thus for every piece of your property, you are to provide for the redemption of the land.”

            There are different sections under this main section written in Dr. Wiersbe’s book, “Be Holy,” which is a commentary on the book of Leviticus.  The first subsection is “repentance” and this covers verse nine, and that will be where I begin after a brief definition of what the year of Jubilee is.

            The word jubilee means “to sound the trumpets, and the Hebrew word is yobel, which means “a rams horn.”  The year of Jubilee happened every fifty years, as the Jews counted off seven Sabbath years which was forty-nine years and the next year was the beginning of the year of Jubilee.  This would mean that they would have to trust the Lord for almost three years for their food as they would not have planted for the Sabbath year and for the year of Jubilee and then they would have to wait for the crops to come in the year after the year of Jubilee.  All of this would take a lot of faith.  However there is evidence from the Scriptures that not one of these years of Jubilee were ever celebrated. 

            Repentance:  Verse nine, “9  ‘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.”  As I wrote about in and earlier SD, there were two calendars for Israel, a Religious Calendar and a Civil Calendar and the year of Jubilee began on the first day of the Civil Calendar, which is the Day of Atonement so it began with repentance, for the Day of Atonement was a day of repentance of sins and also the day the high priest would go into the holy of holies and put the blood on the mercy seat and all of Israel would look forward to their coming Messiah so that they would have forgiveness of their sins.

            Release (vv. 10, 13)  “10  ‘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.  13  ‘On this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his own property.”

            Both those who were Israelites slaves or servants to other Israelites and all of the land would return to its original owners.  This would mean that both family and land would be back together.  One of the reasons this was done was so that no one person could get all of the best land and be able to keep it and thus make a monopoly of the land in Israel.  It must be remembered that all of the land did belong to the Lord as seen in verse twenty-three.

            Rest (vv. 11-12) “11  ‘You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines.  12  ‘For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its crops out of the field.

            The children of Israel were not to plant any crops, which meant that they were to rest, along with their family, their animals, there slaves or servants, and also the land should rest.  The rest that the children of Israel came on the sevens for the Sabbath was the seventh day and also the Sabbath year was the seventh.

            There is still one more section to this that I hope to complete tomorrow.

11/10/2008 7:27 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time           Focus:  Release and restoration:  the year of Jubilee

Bible Reading & Meditation               Reference:  Leviticus 25:8-17, 23-24

            Message of the verses:  “8 ¶  ‘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.  9  ‘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.  10  ‘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.  11  ‘You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines.  12  ‘For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its crops out of the field.  13  ‘On this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his own property.  14  ‘If you make a sale, moreover, to your friend or buy from your friend’s hand, you shall not wrong one another.  15  ‘Corresponding to the number of years after the jubilee, you shall buy from your friend; he is to sell to you according to the number of years of crops.  16  ‘In proportion to the extent of the years you shall increase its price, and in proportion to the fewness of the years you shall diminish its price, for it is a number of crops he is selling to you.  17  ‘So you shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the LORD your God.

            23 ¶  ‘The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are but aliens and sojourners with Me.  24  ‘Thus for every piece of your property, you are to provide for the redemption of the land.”

            There are different sections under this main section written in Dr. Wiersbe’s book, “Be Holy,” which is a commentary on the book of Leviticus.  The first subsection is “repentance” and this covers verse nine, and that will be where I begin after a brief definition of what the year of Jubilee is.

            The word jubilee means “to sound the trumpets, and the Hebrew word is yobel, which means “a rams horn.”  The year of Jubilee happened every fifty years, as the Jews counted off seven Sabbath years which was forty-nine years and the next year was the beginning of the year of Jubilee.  This would mean that they would have to trust the Lord for almost three years for their food as they would not have planted for the Sabbath year and for the year of Jubilee and then they would have to wait for the crops to come in the year after the year of Jubilee.  All of this would take a lot of faith.  However there is evidence from the Scriptures that not one of these years of Jubilee were ever celebrated. 

            Repentance:  Verse nine, “9  ‘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.”  As I wrote about in and earlier SD, there were two calendars for Israel, a Religious Calendar and a Civil Calendar and the year of Jubilee began on the first day of the Civil Calendar, which is the Day of Atonement so it began with repentance, for the Day of Atonement was a day of repentance of sins and also the day the high priest would go into the holy of holies and put the blood on the mercy seat and all of Israel would look forward to their coming Messiah so that they would have forgiveness of their sins.

            Release (vv. 10, 13)  “10  ‘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.  13  ‘On this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his own property.”

            Both those who were Israelites slaves or servants to other Israelites and all of the land would return to its original owners.  This would mean that both family and land would be back together.  One of the reasons this was done was so that no one person could get all of the best land and be able to keep it and thus make a monopoly of the land in Israel.  It must be remembered that all of the land did belong to the Lord as seen in verse twenty-three.

            Rest (vv. 11-12) “11  ‘You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines.  12  ‘For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its crops out of the field.

            The children of Israel were not to plant any crops, which meant that they were to rest, along with their family, their animals, there slaves or servants, and also the land should rest.  The rest that the children of Israel came on the sevens for the Sabbath was the seventh day and also the Sabbath year was the seventh.

            There is still one more section to this that I hope to complete tomorrow.

            Ok it is tomorrow and I will attempt to finish this section.

            Restoration (vv. 13-17).  “13  ‘On this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his own property.  14  ‘If you make a sale, moreover, to your friend or buy from your friend’s hand, you shall not wrong one another.  15  ‘Corresponding to the number of years after the jubilee, you shall buy from your friend; he is to sell to you according to the number of years of crops.  16  ‘In proportion to the extent of the years you shall increase its price, and in proportion to the fewness of the years you shall diminish its price, for it is a number of crops he is selling to you.  17  ‘So you shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the LORD your God.”

            Now if a person was kind of in a pinch and needed to see off some of his land he could do so, but knowing that in the year of Jubilee it would come back to him then he had to make sure that the price would be fair to both him and who he sold it to.  The land would come back to him during the year of Jubilee, for this was the plan of God:  “The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are but aliens and sojourners with Me.”  (Lev. 25:23)

            Dr. Wiersbe points out that in Isaiah 61:1-3 that the prophet is speaking about the year of Jubilee, and this is the same passage that Jesus used when speaking at the Synagogue in Nazareth, but He stopped in the middle of what is our verse two, “To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God;”  Jesus stopped at the end of the comma and did not go on about the day of vengeance of our God.  I am glade that He stopped there for it was His death that provided my salvation and we are still in the acceptable year of the Lord, but will soon be in the last part of this verse where it will be the day of vengeance of our God.  As for now it is still the “year of Jubilee,” as salvation is surely a picture of this year, for in it all who have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior have a new beginning, for all of us who have been saved were slaves to sin and now we are restored to a new position in Jesus Christ.  The Jubilee experience restores broken families and lost blessings and brings “times of refreshing” from the Lord (Acts 3:19-21).

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Michele Card has written a song about the year of Jubilee and I have just listened to it again, and in that song he sings about Jesus Christ being our Jubilee and that is what Dr. Wiersbe has written about in this section.  I am glade to be able to understand what the meaning of the Year of Jubilee is about, glade that I have been given a new life in Jesus Christ and been freed from the slave market of sin through the shed blood of Jesus Christ while on the cross.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1. To live like I am in the year of Jubilee, as I am forgiven and set free from sin.

Memory verses for the week:                                              Romans 6:1-5

1. What shall we say then?  Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
2. May it never be!  How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
3. Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
4. Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into His death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
5. For if we have been united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.

11/11/2008 9:55 AM