Did Israel ever keep the Year Of Jubilee?
As far as I can tell, the answer would be no. In fact, reading through the section concerning it, it almost seems more like a prophecy than a statute. I think it is insightful to God's thoughts on society:
1) Agricultural basis. When people buy property so much as buying harvests. Since all the land goes back to the original owners every 50 years, a person is buying profits from harvests, not permanant farm land.
2) Middle Class. God avoids perpetual poverty and extreme excess by balancing everything. If your family has it either really good or really bad for a couple decades, the debts are erased and land returned twice a century.
3) Complete Trust in God. Being willing to turn back peoples land, cancel debts, and not plant food all takes faith. My guess is ancient Israel did not ever do the Jubilee because of a lack of faith. Modern Israel is not too different.
Can't wait to try this rule out in the Kingdom!
As far as I can tell, the answer would be no. In fact, reading through the section concerning it, it almost seems more like a prophecy than a statute. I think it is insightful to God's thoughts on society:
1) Agricultural basis. When people buy property so much as buying harvests. Since all the land goes back to the original owners every 50 years, a person is buying profits from harvests, not permanant farm land.
2) Middle Class. God avoids perpetual poverty and extreme excess by balancing everything. If your family has it either really good or really bad for a couple decades, the debts are erased and land returned twice a century.
3) Complete Trust in God. Being willing to turn back peoples land, cancel debts, and not plant food all takes faith. My guess is ancient Israel did not ever do the Jubilee because of a lack of faith. Modern Israel is not too different.
Can't wait to try this rule out in the Kingdom!
posted by Mark at 10:04 AM
3 Comments:
Hi Mark,
Israel and Judah *did* keep the Year of Jubilee. It's just that most of the time it's not mentioned, and so we don't know with what consistency it was kept. But we can't argue from silence and say it was never kept; this proves nothing.
In fact we have records concerning the Jubilee Year. By implication, Isaiah records a Sabbatical Year followed by a Jubilee Year (Isaiah 37:30; cf. 2 Kings 19:29). Both were kept in Nehemiah's time (Nehemiah 10:31, the last clause apparently referring to the release of debts on the Jubilee). Josephus records several Jubilees and at least one preceding Sabbatical Year. Jesus spoke during one of those years, 26-27 AD (Luke 4). The Second Temple fell during a Sabbatical Year (70 AD); another eight years would've gone to yet another Jubilee Year.
By the way, I have a blog myself on Blogspot. If you'd like to add it to your list, and if Amanda would like to do so, you're welcome.
http://www.musicofthebiblerevealed.com
I bought my own domain name, so if that doesn't work, you can try the older Blogspot address:
http://www.musicofthebiblerevealed.blogspot.com
Best wishes,
John Wheeler
Clarification: taking in Josephus' mention of Jubilee Years, the Jewish tradition that Second Temple Jerusalem fell in a Sabbatical year, and other chronological clues, we may establish that Jesus' message in the synagogue in Luke 4 happened during a Jubilee Year. This is important because His message related to what the Jubilee foreshadows.
jhw
One more. Had Israel and Judah NEVER kept the Sabbatical and Jubilee Years, there would have been many more than seventy years' captivity for Judah (2 Chronicles 36:20-21). How many years were missed and when (and by whom), I don't know (yet). Maybe we're not meant to know at this time. :)
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