130_The Year of Jubilee
Lev 25:8-22 “You shall count seven weeks[c] of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. 9 Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. 10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan. 11 That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. 12 For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You may eat the produce of the field.[d]
13 “In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property. 14 And if you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another. 15 You shall pay your neighbor according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of years for crops. 16 If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you. 17 You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.
18 “Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then you will dwell in the land securely. 19 The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell in it securely. 20 And if you say, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ 21 I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. 22 When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives.
It was a dusty summer afternoon when a middle-aged woman walked into the small church office. She looked worn out—not just from the heat, but from life. She had just served a prison sentence, lost her home, and hadn’t seen her children in years. She sat down across from the pastor and softly said, “I don’t expect to be forgiven. I just need to know if there’s any place in this world where I can start again.”
Her words echo the cry of millions. They long for a second chance, a chance to undo what has gone wrong and start a new page. Whether it’s a burden of debt, a broken past, or a long string of bad choices, we need a reset. And that’s exactly what God built into the very rhythm of life for His people. A system that pointed beyond economics and agriculture to something far deeper: restoration. In Leviticus 25, God institutesthe Year of Jubilee—a powerful symbol of release, return, and restoration.
The word “Jubilee” comes from the Hebrew yobel, meaning “ram’s horn”—a literal blast that signaled the beginning of the fiftieth year. That year, it was to be proclaimed on the Day of Atonement, a sacred day of repentance and forgiveness. This year was the culmination of seven cycles of sabbatical years, a divine rhythm written into the very soil of Israel.
During the Jubilee year, the land was to lie fallow, as in the Sabbath years. —uncultivated and untouched. Not only the seventh year (the regular Sabbath year) but also the fiftieth was to be a sabbath to the Lord. No sowing, no reaping—just trust. From the forty-eighth year’s harvest, they were to live off God’s provision until the harvest of the fifty-first. But this commandment to trust God came with an extraordinary promise: “I will command My blessing on you in the sixth year so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years.” (Leviticus 25:21).
This wasn’t just agricultural wisdom but a test of faith. The Lord intensely desired them to trust that God was their Provider. He wanted them to understand that their rest was not the outcome of work successfully achieved, but from obedience to God’s wisdom. During the jubilee year, slaves were to be freed, land returned to its original heirs. Families were reunited. Every man went back to his clan, and what had been lost—by misfortune, bad choices, or sheer desperation— was regained during this year of grace.
The basis for such restoration was clear: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is Mine.” (v.23). In other words, the people were not owners but stewards of God’s land. The Jubilee reminded Israel that everything they had was a gift from God—and that He had the authority to restore it.
Land sales and leases were based on the nearness of the next Year of Jubilee. As Jubilee approached, the value of the land dropped, because the new “owner” would soon have to return it. What an incredible way to restrain greed and injustice! No one could accumulate vast tracts of land at the expense of the poor. God’s design limited economic disparity and provided a built-in mechanism for equity. The Jubilee taught the Israelites that their identity didn’t come from work or wealth, but from belonging to God.
The Jubilee also echoed the divine rest of Eden. The fields were open for all to freely pluck and eat. What grew without human effort was considered a gift from God—a reminder of the time before toil and thorns. In this way, the land “shared” with the people its God-given bounty.
But there was more. The Jubilee was not just about land or labor. It was about people. If someone had been forced to sell themselves into servitude, Jubilee was their hope. They did not earn their freedom, the Lord decreed their liberty. No failure was permanent. Everyone, regardless of status or sin, could start again.
Jesus Christ is our Jubilee. He declared in Luke 4:18, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me… to proclaim liberty to the captives.” He declared liberty from sin’s bondage. We return to our Father’s house as sons and daughters. Through faith, we become heirs of God, restored to our original purpose, dignity, and relationship. As Paul says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).The trumpet blast of the gospel jubilee calls everyone to come home across time and cultures.
The people of Israel rejected the call to Jubilee for nearly 500 years. Forgetting God’s command, they continued farming, hoarding, buying, and selling. So God sent them into exile, and “the land enjoyed its sabbath rests,” (2 Chronicles 36:21) for 70 years. God is not mocked. If we ignore His rhythms of trust, rest, and justice, we will face the consequences, for his word is unchangeably faithful.
Every part of our lives is not just about productivity, As one writer puts it: “Although the earth was created for man, it was not merely for him to draw out its powers for his own use, but also to be holy to the Lord, and participate in His blessed rest.”
Even in exile, though, there was hope. God brought His people back. Grace always has the final word.
Let us rejoice in our release from all spiritual debts, by our Savior who died and rose again. We are no longer slaves to sin. Similarly, let us live in the spirit of Jubilee, forgiving our debtors the financial, emotional, and relational debts they owe us. If God has forgiven our huge debt, how can we remain unforgiving to others because of their small debts?
Let us live generously. Jubilee teaches us that everything we have is God’s. As stewards, this determines how we treat the poor, the vulnerable, and the stranger. We hold our possessions loosely, ready to use them as God wills.
Finally, let us rest in God’s endless providence. In a culture of endless striving and anxious labor, Jubilee calls us back to trust. We don’t have to earn our worth and secure our future by endless toil. God knows our needs and has already commanded His blessing.
Let us celebrate the Jubilee as people who are free, forgiven, and full of hope. Let us abandon control and live open-handed. The trumpet has already sounded. The day of restoration is here. God bless.