Leviticus 25
RileyLeviticus 25:1-55
THE YEAR AND THE YEAR OF JUBILEELev_25:1-55THIS twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus contains at once the appointment and description of the Sabbatic Year and the Year of Jubilee.I invite you, therefore, to the study of “The Sabbatic Year and the Year of Jubilee” as these are set forth in the text of our proposed study.THE YEARIn the very constitution of this Sabbatic year, God again emphasized the importance of the number seven. The Roman system of numerals is based upon tens; but our God counts by sevens. Seven great period days to finish creation; seven years of plenty and seven years of famine; the seventh time they compassed Jericho; the seventh time Elijah’s servant looked for the coming cloud; seven lights in the candlestick; the seven churches; the seven spirits; seven vials; seven trumpets; and so it was seven years when the Sabbatic was reached; and at the end of seven sevens, the year of Jubilee. However, the Sabbatic year has more significance than that of showing God’s method of reckoning.By it, God expressed His supreme sovereignty.“Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard” (Leviticus 25:3-4).Notwithstanding the opening sentence of Genesis, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”, men are always being tempted to appropriate the land and call it their own, and God is always reminding them of the fact that the land is His. This Sabbatic year was only another way of saying what the Psalmist so clearly asserted,“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods” (Psalms 24:1-2).The principle reason why men have so often denied their stewardship unto God, and even Christian men called into question the idea involved in the very term “stewardship”, grows out of our having forgotten that the land is the Lord’s.
You may remember that Hood, in his volume, “Cromwell”, speaks of how, in 1563, the great warrior dissolved “The Rump”, and said concerning the departure of its members, “We did not hear a dog bark at their going”; but afterward reminds us, “Henceforth, until 1858—a brief parenthesis of time, indeed, in the history of the country—he governed the country absolutely. In a history so brief as this we shall not attempt to detail the circumstances of those troublesome years.
Alas! all the battles had been easy to win compared with the task of uniting a distracted realm.” So it would almost seem as if God had less trouble in bringing the earth into existence, and dissipating the darkness in which it was enveloped; in carpeting it with green, filling its fields and seas with all animal life, than He has had to retain His hold upon it since man was made, due to our disposition to assert claim to all that comes in sight. And yet, as Campbell Morgan has put it, “God is absolute monarch, wherever He is King at all.” He not only rules the realm; He owns it. Cromwell had changed the form of government, and the conditions of the people; but God creates both, and to deny His ownership is atheism. When He commanded the Sabbatic year, He spake only that which He had the right, and gave a needed reemphasis to His complete ownership of the earth!Again, through it He emphasized the value of times and seasons.“But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord; thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard” (Leviticus 25:4).How significant the coupling of the two suggestions—“rest from wonted labor”, and “the sabbath for the Lord”. What mind has ever yet imagined the untold benefits—physical, mental, moral, and spiritual—growing out of the fact that in the early days God set aside every seventh day as a period in which men should rest from labors, and worship before His face? We sometimes speak of the European Sabbath and the American Sabbath, and we mean by those terms that the people this side of the waters keep the Lord’s day more strictly than those who live beyond the English channel.
And we know perfectly well that our blessings have been in proportion to our Sabbath-keeping; that our civilization depends upon it, and is measured by it. There was a wisdom which belonged alone to God in the fourth commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy”; and we may believe there was equal wisdom in the Sabbatic year.
The great complaint that men are now making for excuse as a violation of the Sabbath and absence from all assemblies of God’s saints is, “We are so driven with work we have not time to attend.” But the man who says that opposes the wisdom of God with the wickedness of human folly. He has, possibly without intention, given himself over to satanic suggestion. The devil—who is the father of lies—-has deceived him into supposing that a man’s life consisteth of “the abundance of things which he possesseth”, and has led him to discredit the value of the fourth commandment, and the inspiration of Paul’s appeal to the Hebrews, “Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is”. Wise men cannot forget that our civilization is not in our mechanics, nor yet in our mental acumen. Unless it rest in morals and in the religion that is in Jesus Christ it is worthless.The Sabbatic year was well adapted to special religious privileges. If now the people were willing to give one day out of every seven, and one year out of every seven, to the worship of God in private devotions and by multiplied public assemblies, who can imagine the great moral and spiritual results, or tell the measure of improvements which would come into our civilization?
We should not forget the declaration of Jesus Christ, “No man can serve two masters; ye cannot serve God and mammon”. And the man whose mind is so set upon money making that he dares despise God’s seventh of time for the sake of increasing his exchequer, cannot cover away his sin by crying, “I am compelled to support my family,” for he knows that a support is one thing, and laying up treasures on earth and living in luxury is another thing; and that this latter thing, indulged in in spite of God’s sacred Word, may cost him his soul.The late Dr.
A. C. Dixon told the story of that young lawyer who was a candidate for Congress, who, when approached by one of Dixon’s friends upon the matter of personal religion, said, “I am too busy to give this attention now.” Three years later a messenger, sent by this lawyer, rushed into the minister’s house, and reported his sickness and his desire to see the man of God. But when he reached his bedside it was too late. He was delirious, and in his wild delirium was raving in profane speech; and all who listened knew that he, like Judas Iscariot, had, for a few pieces of silver, surrendered his soul to the Adversary. How pertinent the question of Jesus, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul”?In this Sabbatic year God also emphasized dependence upon His Providences.
People are very prone to think they must work every year in order to live at all. But such a philosophy ignores the Scripture, “Every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down from above, from the Father of lights”.
These people were concerned at this point, and so they put the question,“What shall we eat the seventh year? behold we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase?”To which God replies,“Then I will command My blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of the old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store” (Leviticus 25:20-22).The whole philosophy of this dependence upon God was spoken when Satan tempted the Son of God to convert stones into bread, and thereby satiate His hunger. But Jesus answered, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”. In fact, the man who lives by bread alone does not live; the man who lives by the Word of God, though he may suffer a famine for bread, is yet enjoying an abundant life. The man who lives by the Word of God is in less danger of a famine for bread than the man who despises that same Word. Of those who come to me seeking material aid, for every righteous man there are five unrighteous; for every one who loves God and keeps His commands, there are ten who regard Him not and who daily transgress His decalogue.
I doubt if there is any company of people more kindly cared for than those who keep the commands of the Lord, and put their trust in His promises.Surely one of the most successful men in modern times from all standpoints—physical, mental, moral, and spiritual—was George Mueller. His physique was almost perfect, and when sick he knew how to call upon the Great Physician.
He was well into the nineties before God took him. His mental equipment was such that wherever he went on his trips around the world, he commanded great audiences. His moral character was the admiration of his fellows, while his Christian life was the crown of all, and the only adequate secret of his success. When George Mueller ceased from the question, “What shall I eat, what shall I drink, wherewithal shall I be clothed?” saying in his heart, “I will do the will of God and leave compensation entirely to Him,” he testifies to freedom from anxiety concerning his supplies, and to a sense of dependence upon an unlimited God. And one who had observed the great amounts of money which came to his hand for use in his Christian enterprises, was led to confess, “You can do such and such things, and need not to lay by, for the church in the whole of Devonshire cares about your wants.” To which Mueller replied, “Yes, the Lord can use not merely any of the saints throughout Devonshire, but those throughout the world as instruments to supply my temporal wants.”If we remembered that the very fertility of the earth, as it is quickened by rain and sunshine, is with the Lord, we might also be impressed with the fact that our best dependence is not in our industry, nor yet in our ingenuity, but in His Providence, whose promises fail not to them that trust Him. More and more am I impressed with the fact that to be a Christian, in the truest sense of that term, is to feel deeply the fact concerning every successful step we take in this life that Cromwell expressed when he announced the victory of the battle of Naseby to the Speaker of the House of Commons, “This is none other but the hand of God, and to Him alone be the glory, wherein none are to share with Him.”THE YEAR OF JUBILEEAs we have seen in the reading of this chapter, God presents not only a Sabbatic year but a year of Jubilee.
The seventh year was to be celebrated as unto Him; and at the end of seven sevens, an additional year was to be set aside as to the Lord and called “The Year of Jubilee”. The Hebrew word “yobel” means a musical instrument, and calls attention to the fact that this particular feast occurred not only at the end of the seventh seven years, but was introduced by the sound of the trumpet.
Bonar says, “Like the striking of the clock from the turret of some cathedral, announcing that the season of labor for the day is closed, so sounded the notes of the silver trumpet from the sanctuary, announcing that the great year of redemption and rest had come—the year of release and restoration throughout all Israel.” Think what it meant to hear this trumpet sound!First of all, it meant rest to the favored land. God’s care for the earth is not limited to man. When Jonah complained because Nineveh was not destroyed, Jehovah replied, “Shall not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand people that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle?” Jesus, who knew the Father best, affirmed that not a sparrow falleth in the streets, but He is moved by its agony. But this year of Jubilee takes a step further into nature and shows God’s interest in the inanimate earth. His first, but not His most important reason, for instituting the Sabbatic year, was to give a “Sabbath of rest unto the land”; that also was one of His reasons for the year of Jubilee, “Ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself, in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed” (Leviticus 25:4-5).In the study of this appointment I have been impressed, as never before, with the fact that God takes pleasure in fruitful fields, and must be correspondingly pained by the sight of worn and useless acres. In the hilly country of the South and East it is not unusual to see acres which have been cultivated by men without rest, and without any attempt to enrich the soil, until the very greed of gain has utterly destroyed the ground, and there is exposed to a burning sun a fruitless subsoil.
Every such a field is a scar on the face of God’s earth, and I believe, also, is an offence to Him who carpets the earth with grass, adorns it with trees, and exquisitely beautifies it with flowers.I heard a while ago of a farmer in Albemarle County, Virginia, who had discovered the fact that the worn-out fields would produce violets in profusion, and had bought broad acres of them for a song, and sowed them thickly with violet seeds, and was reaping for himself a fortune, while clothing the earth with beauty and filling the air with fragrance. Such an act would meet the Divine favor!
This rest for the land every seventh year, with two years of respite every half century, was God’s provision against the greed which impoverishes the very earth and mars the features of its winsome face.It provided for the release of prisoners and the oppressed. In the fiftieth year they proclaimed liberty throughout all the land unto the inhabitants thereof. That year the bond servants were set free; that year provided the advantages of the bankruptcy law, for all those who were hopelessly in debt; that year swung wide prison doors and the incarcerated walked out.Who, then, can imagine what it meant? What homecomings and happiness when the long-exiled one returned, when the captive was released, and all debts were discharged? I talked a while ago with a woman whose son was in prison. Her heart was set upon him; she mourned his condition as only a mother can.
But when I asked her how long before he would be free, a smile struck through the tears, and the sad face brightened as she replied, “It is only a year. And my attorney leads me to hope that on account of good behavior, six months will let him see the end of it.” How the mothers in Israel must have hailed with joy this year of Jubilee when their imprisoned sons were set free, and every bond-servant was given his liberty!And who can tell what it means to have debts discharged?
The poor fear debt as few other calamities, and with good occasion. The creditor may lay claim to but a few dollars and yet if one cannot furnish it, he can make his very life a burden— the days a dread, and the nights a delirium. Jehovah, our God, who is not indifferent to any form of human suffering, was familiar with all these sad facts, and by His year of Jubilee, interposed for prisoner and oppressed. When John Howard discovered that English prisons were full of people who had been put in because they owed $1.00, $2.00, $3.00, and for years had languished behind prison bars, charged with delinquency in paying such small sums, he determined, by the grace of God, to set such men at liberty. Where he could, he paid their debts; and for those whose debts were too large for him to provide, he set in motion new legislation which caused their liberty. And the reason John Howard is honored today wherever Christian men and women congregate, is because his sympathy and suggestion was in perfect line with God’s provision in the Sabbatic year and the year of Jubilee.It looked also to the restoration of families and fortunes.
One of the hardships most difficult to bear is the loss of an estate; and that is made double oppression when the estate is associated with the precious memories of an honored house in history. As things are at present constituted, any commercial shark can take advantage of a widow, and by technicalities, wrest from her riches, pauperize her, and forever despoil her children of an estate earned by the sweat of a father’s brow.
But it was not so when God’s legislation was regarded by men. The year of Jubilee would bring such an one to justice and take from his hands that which he had criminally accumulated, and turn it back again to those who receive it with all its sacred memories and enhanced values. And, in all this, there was no injustice to the man who came honestly into possession of one’s estate, for he knew perfectly that it was a temporary lease, and only paid for it accordingly.After all our statesmen have said and thought upon the subject of legislation, are we not just as far from the highest wisdom as we are removed from this Divine legislation? Would not the world be deluged with a new joy if this old law were again revived, and by its provision men began to live? How many families would be rebuilt! How many lost fortunes restored!
How many homes ring with merriment like to that of Heaven! Raymond, in his “Life of Lincoln”, tells how one day Schuyler Colfax came to the great President to plead for a boy who had been condemned and sentenced to be shot.
Wearied and worn, the President answered, “Some of our Generals complain that I impair the discipline and induce subordination in the army by my pardons and respites, but it makes me rested after a hard day’s work, if I can find some excuse for saving a man’s life, and I go to bed happy as I think how joyous the signing of my name will make him and his family and his friends.”Beloved, I believe one secret of the eternal equanimity of God, one reason why He can look upon all the sorrows that beset men and yet remain forever felicitous Himself, is found in the fact that He knows that He has never laid His finger to a document and sent it into the world for the legislation of human affairs; never spoken a word by the mouth of His Prophets, or uttered a sentence through the lips and the pen of His Apostles, but it has been suited to increasing human happiness in proportion as men have received and acted upon it. The Year of Jubilee was only one of His many institutions meant for the restoration of family and fortune.It impressed the exercise of justice and the spirit of generosity.“In the year of this jubilee ye shall return every man unto his possession. And if thou sell ought unto thy neighbour, or buyest ought of thy neighbour’s hand, ye shall not oppress one another. * * The sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee” (Leviticus 25:13-14; Leviticus 25:6).Who can tell what it would mean to have justice in the land? What would it mean if men ceased from oppressing one another? Who could tell what it would mean to have one-seventh of all our estates opened wide to the use of the world, so that the stranger might feed thereon? Such is God’s demand for justice that He pronounces woe upon them that “join house to house, that lay field to field, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth”.
He knows the oppression that too often attends the accumulation of property.And such is God’s appeal for generosity that every single type in the Old Testament teaches us as clearly as Paul ever penned it, “Every one of you, on the first day of the week, lay by him in store as God has prospered him”; or as John, when by inspiration, he condemns the man who “seeth his brother have need but shuts up his bowels of compassion from him”.Bancroft in his “History of the United States” tells us something of the behavior of our Puritan fathers when in Plymouth colony they discovered that the arrival of new emigrants made such a draft upon their provisions that there was not sufficient to meet the hunger; yet they shared, and shared, until Winslow tells us, “I have seen men stagger by reason of suffering for want of food.” Who wonders that such men are universally revered! Who wonders that their true descendants have been God’s choicest people!
What better type of Satan do you find than the wretched miser; and what man more often reminds you of his God than the great soul whose generosity is felt in every time of need?And yet, one cannot study this year of Jubilee and remember the Sabbatic years which precede it, and recall the tithes and offerings which God had commanded, without fearing lest the Church of modern times has fallen far below Israel in their gifts in the name of Jehovah.TYPES AND SYMBOLSIn conclusion I want to say some things concerning the types and symbols of the Sabbatic year, and the year of Jubilee. The man who attempts to interpret Leviticus without reference to types, symbols, and prophecies will prove himself a poor teacher of this mighty volume. Take the types and symbols out of Leviticus and you would practically destroy its value, and remove the very occasion of its existence:. But what of the types, symbols, and prophecies of these sacred seasons—the Sabbatic year, and the year of Jubilee?Surely the work of the Son of God is here symbolized. In the Sabbatic year liberty was proclaimed, men were released from debt, and lost fortunes were restored. How all that suggests what Jesus came to do!
Do we not remember how, when He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up,“He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto Him the Book of the Prophet Esaias.
And when He had opened the Book, He found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And He closed the Book, and He gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on Him. And He began to say unto them, This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:16-21)?It was only when Christ came that there was provision for the release of all debts, the freedom of all prisoners, the liberty of all slaves, for the great Jubilee is not that of Leviticus in the Old Testament, but the “acceptable year of the Lord” in the New Testament. And so far as discharge of debts, opening of prisons, and relief for the oppressed, that is all in the work of Jesus. “He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. * * He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed”. I believe the present joy of the redeemed is only an earnest of that which is to come.
The atoning work of Jesus is not finished when the soul is saved; it is only commenced. The day will come when the full jubilee will be ushered in by the sound of His voice, and when those who have been oppressed by disease, and those who have been long held captive by death and the grave, shall be given their liberty, for has not the Apostle written,“Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:51-55).“For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves, groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:22-23, R. V.).Dr.
Seiss, speaking of this consummation says, “When the trump of jubilee shall sound, these groanings shall cease, and these fetters all dissolve. Rocky vaults and sepulchers, sealed for ages, shall then suddenly burst open, and the doors of death fall down from their rusty hinges, and broad daylight break into the darkest tombs, and all God’s buried saints shake off their damp and mouldy prison garb to bid farewell forever to the dingy cells that now clasp their holy forms.
The expecting patriarchs, from their ancient tombs, hear the thrilling call and come; and holy martyrs, whose sacred dust the winds and waters scattered o’er the earth; and slaughtered saints, whose bones lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; and poorhouse paupers, sleeping in Christ, in potter’s fields; and faithful missionaries whose hearts the savages have eaten; and sea-lost loved ones whom shipwreck left to perish on the barren rocks, or melt in the still depths of the unfathomed sea—all, all, all, shall then find their sorry fate reversed, and the power of the oppressor gone forever.” Captivity will be at an end; debts will no longer distress; labor and oppression will be things of the past when, by the work of the Son of God, we stand complete at last—body, soul, and spirit. In that day the jubilee of the ages begins!Here also the return of the Jews to Palestine is prophesied. “The land shall not be sold for ever, for the land is Mine.” And this land which is His, is promised to this people “for an everlasting possession”. Hitherto they have occupied but a part of it, and that only temporarily. So, on the authority of God’s Word, they must come again into its possession, and occupy it to its utmost borders. I know it may seem to some fanciful to say so, but I should believe it e’en were there no such wonderful indications in the present trend of the times. I should believe it even if this little spot of earth had not remained a bone of contention among the nations.
I should believe it if there were no Zionist movement on foot. I should believe it even if the Jews themselves repudiated the idea, because I believe that not one jot of all God’s words shall fail.
In the seventy years of their captivity in Babylon there was no other indication of their return to Palestine than that found in God’s promise; and yet, when He had cured them forever of their idolatry, He speedily put it into the heart of kings to co-operate with Him to this end. And He who did that in the ancient day will be abundantly able to make good His promise of peace like a river to Jerusalem, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream. For the Lord of Hosts has said,“It shall yet come to pass, that there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities: And the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts: I will go also. Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts; In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you” (Zechariah 8:20-23).It follows, therefore, that we find here also the type of the Millennial times. The year of Jubilee began just as the day of atonement was finished.
It was ushered in with the sound of the trumpet; it was characterized by freedom for all Israelites, bestowment of lost estates, rehabilitation of broken houses, the utter cancellation of all debts, and the gathering unto feasts which were pure in their appointments and provided for the whole population. That year the very land brought forth without the sweat from any man’s brow, or the careful planning of any man’s mind.
What a picture this of the Millennial Age when men shall be able to live in the presence of the Son of God; when prisons will be put away forever; when slavery will be obsolete; when the very benediction of God upon the inanimate earth shall cause “the fir tree to come up instead of the thorn”, and “instead of the briar will come up the myrtle tree”; when, as the great Prophet puts it, “Ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace. The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands”. That is the period to begin when, “The Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God. and the dead in Christ shall rise”. That is the age in which He shall sit upon the throne of thrones, and rule “from sea to sea, and from the rivers unto the ends of the earth”. That is the “Utopia” of which Thomas Moore wrote, without knowing its true name, or understanding who was to usher it in. That is the Golden Age of which all agitators speak, and for which all social and political reformers ignorantly work in unbelief.
That is the age to which the Gospel Dispensation leads, and in which all saints shall share a part. Truly, as A.
J. F. Behrends has remarked, “Everything in the Christian confession is keyed to immortality and eternal blessedness. There shall come an end to weakness and weariness, an end to pain and tears; but the songs of our pilgrimage shall swell into the unending sound of victory and joy.” Sometime ago I was talking with one about a friend who had been mightily used of God in Bible teaching, but who is now sadly afflicted by mental and physical collapse. My companion said, “I have here a poem from his pen.” The words are adapted to end this discourse: “They come! They come!Those endless years at home!Those joys unending, selfless, deep;Within the shelter all the sheep Eternal holiday to keep;No more to fear, no more to roam,Those endless years at home—They come! They come!“He lives! He lives!Who life eternal gives;Who calleth all His sheep by name,Who healeth all the blind and lame,Who loveth rich and poor the same.Whoever Christ by faith receives,Christ life eternal gives—He lives! He lives!“Make haste! Make haste!The sun is sinking fast!The door into the fold must close With night—and left without the foes,And left without alike are those Who lingered listless or unto the last— Neglecting still—till light and grace are past, O haste! O haste!”