The Seventh Year and the Jubilee

The chapter opens with the Lord speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, laying out a rhythm for the land itself. Six years for sowing and pruning, but the seventh year is to be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land—a Sabbath to the Lord. No sowing, no pruning, no reaping what grows of itself, no gathering from the undressed vines. The land itself is to rest, and what it yields in that year is for food for the owner, the servant, the maid, the hired worker, the stranger who sojourns, and for the cattle and the beasts. The rest is not abandonment; it is provision shared with all who live on the land.

Then the Lord commands a counting: seven Sabbaths of years, seven times seven years, forty-nine years. On the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement, a loud trumpet is to be sent abroad throughout all the land. The fiftieth year is to be hallowed, and liberty proclaimed to all the inhabitants. It is a jubilee. Every man returns to his possession, every man returns to his family. In that year, there is no sowing, no reaping of what grows of itself, no gathering from the undressed vines. It is holy, and the increase of the field is to be eaten directly from the land.

The jubilee resets property. If a man sells land to a neighbor, the price is calculated by the number of years until the next jubilee—the number of crops the buyer will harvest. The price rises with many years, falls with few. No one is to wrong another, but to fear God, for the Lord is their God.

The Lord promises safety and abundance to those who keep His statutes. The land will yield its fruit, and they will eat their fill and dwell in safety. But the chapter anticipates the question: What will they eat in the seventh year if they do not sow or gather? The Lord answers directly: He will command His blessing on the sixth year, and it will bring forth fruit for three years. They will sow in the eighth year and eat from the old store until the ninth year's harvest comes in.

The land itself is not to be sold in perpetuity, for the land is the Lord's. The people are strangers and sojourners with Him. In all the land of their possession, they are to grant a right of redemption. If a brother becomes poor and sells some of his possession, his nearest kinsman is to come and redeem what was sold. If the man has no kinsman but later prospers, he may reckon the years since the sale, repay the balance, and return to his possession. If he cannot redeem it, the land stays with the buyer until the jubilee, when it returns to the original owner.

Houses in walled cities have a different rule: they may be redeemed within a full year of the sale; if not redeemed, they become permanent possessions of the buyer and do not go out in the jubilee. But houses in unwalled villages are reckoned as fields and may be redeemed and return in the jubilee. The Levites have a special provision: their houses in their cities may be redeemed at any time, and if not redeemed, they return in the jubilee. The fields of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold at all, for they are their perpetual possession.

The Lord then turns to the treatment of a brother who becomes poor and his hand fails. The people are to uphold him as a stranger or sojourner would live with them. They are to take no interest or increase from him, but fear God, so that the brother may live with them. Money and food are not to be given at interest. The Lord reminds them: He is the Lord their God, who brought them out of Egypt to give them the land of Canaan and to be their God.

If a brother becomes poor and sells himself, he is not to be made a bondservant. He is to serve as a hired servant or a sojourner until the year of jubilee, when he and his children go out and return to his own family and the possession of his fathers. For the children of Israel are the Lord's servants, brought out of Egypt; they are not to be sold as bondmen. The Lord commands: do not rule over him with rigor, but fear your God.

Bondmen and bondmaids may be bought from the nations around them and from the children of strangers who sojourn among them. These may be held as possessions and passed to children as inheritance. But over the children of Israel, no one is to rule with rigor. If a stranger or sojourner becomes rich and a brother becomes poor and sells himself to that stranger, he may be redeemed by a brother, an uncle, an uncle's son, or any near kinsman. If he prospers, he may redeem himself. The price is reckoned by the number of years until the jubilee, as with a hired servant. If many years remain, he pays back a larger portion; if few, a smaller. He is to be treated as a hired servant year by year, not ruled with rigor. If not redeemed by any means, he and his children go out in the year of jubilee. For the children of Israel are the Lord's servants, brought out of Egypt. The Lord is their God.