Leviticus 25:11

A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you,.... Which, clearly shows, that not the forty ninth year was the year of jubilee, as many learned men have asserted, chiefly induced by this reason,

A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. No JFB commentary on this verse.

Though it come immediately after a seventh year, wherein also this was forbidden to you.

Leviticus 25:11 A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather [the grapes] in it of thy vine undressed.Ver. 11. A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be.] Or, That jubilee shall be unto you the year of fifty years. This first Mosaical jubilee was in 1396 BC.

(11) A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you.—According to the unanimous testimony of the authorities during the second Temple, including Philo (ii. 287-290) and Josephus (Antt. iii. 12, § 3), the jubile was observed every fiftieth year, as is plainly enjoined both in the verse before us and in Leviticus 25:10. As the forty-ninth year is the sabbatical year and the fiftieth year the jubile, there were two successive fallow years. Ye shall not sow.—As the fiftieth year is jubile, and partakes of the nature of the sabbatical year, sowing and reaping are forbidden. Neither reap that which groweth of itself in it.—That is, the spontaneous growth of this year is not to be made into a regular harvest and stored up. (See Leviticus 25:5.) Vine undressed.—See Leviticus 25:5.

Verse 11. A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be] The literal meaning of the word jubilee, יובל yobel in Hebrew, and יוביל yobil in the Samaritan, has not been well ascertained. Josephus and the rabbins have caused many to err; the former says the word signifies liberty; Ελευθεριανδεσημαινειτουνομα, Antiq., l. 3, cap. 12, edit. Haverc., vol. 1., p. 184; but the word liberty signifies rather the intention of the institution, than the meaning of the Hebrew term. The rabbins say it signifies a ram's horn, because the trumpets which were used in proclaiming this solemnity were made out of ram's horns. This meaning is adopted in a few places in our translation, but none of the ancient versions acknowledge this sense of the term, the Chaldee excepted. Some derive it from yabal, to bring, carry away, because the Israelites at this time carried away the right of repossessing their inheritances which had been forfeited or alienated. The most natural derivation is from הוביל hobil, to cause to bring back, or recall, because estates, c., which had been alienated, were then brought back to their primitive owners. This was a wise and excellent institution, but appears to have been little regarded by the Jews after the Babylonish captivity. Indeed, it is not mentioned under the second temple, and the observance must have ceased among the Jews when they were brought under a foreign yoke. The jubilee seems to have been typical, 1. Of the great time of release, the Gospel dispensation, when all who believe in Christ Jesus are redeemed from the bondage of sin - repossess the favour and image of God, the only inheritance of the human soul, having all debts cancelled, and the right of inheritance restored. To this the prophet Isaiah seems to allude, Isaiah 26:13, and particularly Isaiah 61:1-3. 2. Of the general resurrection. "It is," says Mr. Parkhurst, "a lively prefiguration of the grand consummation of time, which will be introduced in like manner by the trump of God, 1 Corinthians 15:52, when the children and heirs of God shall be delivered from all their forfeitures, and restored to the eternal inheritance allotted to them by their Father and thenceforth rest from their labours, and be supported in life and happiness by what the field of God shall supply." It is worthy of remark that the jubilee was not proclaimed till the tenth day of the seventh month, on the very day when the great annual atonement was made for the sins of the people; and does not this prove that the great liberty or redemption from thraldom, published under the Gospel, could not take place till the great Atonement, the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, had been offered up? See Leviticus 25:9.

8–17. The 50th year or year of Jubile. In each such year landed property shall revert to its original owner, and the price to be paid in buying and selling such possessions shall be estimated in accordance with the distance of the transaction from that year.

11. Ye shall not sow, neither reap — This prohibition makes the fiftieth year sabbatic, like the forty-ninth: the land being untilled two successive years.