Leviticus 25:1

Lev 25:1 And the LORD spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying,

Ver. 1. And the Lord spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai.] Posthuman, returning from the eastern parts, is, by Sulpitius, {a} brought in thus speaking: I saw the Red Sea, I went up Mount Sinai, the very top whereof, reaching up almost to heaven, cannot be come at.

{a} Sulp., Dial i., cap. 2.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lev 25:1. In mount Sinai — That is, in the wilderness of Sinai, or near mount Sinai, as the Hebrew particle beth frequently signifies. For they did not remove from this wilderness till the 20th day of the seventh month after their coming out of Egypt.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Fear of Jubilee

SUGGESTIVE READINGS

Lev_25:1-7.—Then shall the land keep a Sabbath unto the Lord. For a whole year the land ceased to be the property of the owner; he might not till the soil, neither gather its spontaneous produce; God asserted His ownership by this enactment, and manifested His providential sufficiency for His people by the guarantee of plenty in the harvest preceding. The fallow land acquired new productive powers by this year of rest, as man and beast gather fresh energy by the weekly sabbath. The sabbatic law is a boon to the whole word. They who would secularise the holy day are “madmen, casting firebrands, arrows, and death.” The Heaven given day’s rest is a solace to man’s fretting life: a quiet interval amid earth’s clamour for thought of his sacred interests; and a gentle admonition of his need of that spiritual rest which burdened souls should seek in Christ Jesus.

Lev_25:8-22.—Thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years. On the great day of Atonement, the tenth day of the seventh month, the sound of trumpets proclaimed the dawn of a Jubilee year of universal restitution and redemption. Prisoners were liberated, slaves were set free, debtors were absolved, ancestral heritages were restored, the land enjoyed rest from tillage, and its produce was the common lot of all. Beautiful symbolism: of the joyous proclamation of the gospel liberty and salvation following upon the sacrifice of the Redeemer; and of man’s emancipation by Christ from the tyranny of sin and Satan, and restoration to the glad liberty of a spiritual life. The restoration of inheritances effected the sharp distinction of the tribes, keeping the families intact. It also neutralised over-reaching and land greed. God’s promise of abundance (Lev_25:22-23) to compensate for the Jubilee year’s cessation of agricultural processes carries with it still the lesson that none are losers who serve God even in the face of seeming sacrifice; for “the blessing of the Lord it maketh rich” “ ’Tis mine to obey, ′tis His to provide.” The questioning spirit of distrust (Lev_25:20) is arrested by God’s assurance of prosperity following upon obedience. We may dismiss fear if intent on duty. The path of righteousness is always safe to tread, and none that trust in the Lord shall be desolate.

Let this supernatural fact in history be pondered. A miraculous year of super-abundance was guaranteed every fiftieth year, as a provision for the Jubilee Sabbath. If it had failed, what would have ensued? Moses would have been proved a deceiver. Pretending to divine inspiration as Israel’s legislator, the Jewish religion would have received utter refutation. The pledge of Lev_25:22-23 were a supernatural attestation every fifty years—easily verified or refuted—of the reality of the true religion, and of Jehovah’s personal superintendence over the order of nature and the experiences of man.

A whole nation, age after age, acted on the command to keep Jubilee because satisfied by the preceding sign that the ordinance was indeed divine.

Lev_25:23-34.—The land shall not be sold for ever, &c. The twelve tribes held the land of Canaan of Jehovah as His tenants at will, having no right or permision to barter with the soil, which was not their’s but His. It were well if all dwellers on the earth would consider that no sure or extended tenancy can be maintained by man in this transient abode. Though it is true “that the earth hath He given to the children of men,” yet “the earth is the Lord’s”: even as He gave Canaan by lots to the tribes, yet declared “the land is Mine” (Lev_25:23). Here we have no continuing city; men can call nothing their own; the day of restitution will reverse our possessions; the hour of relinquishment hastens for us all. Death will end all occupancy here. But there is “a better and more enduring substance” for us to inherit, by faith in Christ: and he only is truly rich in Heritages who “lays up for himself treasures in Heaven.”

Lev_25:35-38.—If thy brother be waxen poor. The poor always ye have with you: and the near of kin who have been unfortunate, “fallen in decay,” claim special commiseration and leniency. What have we that we have not received? Should we not, therefore, show generosity and kindness?

Lev_25:39-55.—Not compel him to serve as a bondman. An Israelite must be treated as became his dignity, however penurious and helpless he might be, for he was God’s ransomed and chosen child, a “son of Abraham.” Full redemption came with the Jubilee, from every contract and claim. And the day of our redemption draweth nigh: when “the creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom_8:21).

SECTIONAL HOMILIES

Topic: A SABBATH OF REST UNTO THE LAND (Lev_25:1-7)

Agriculturists still recognize the value of this law of one year’s rest in seven for the land. Violation of this regulation will exhaust the richest soil, and bring sterility. [See Addenda to chapter, Sabbath.] This law proclaimed,

I. DIVINE OWNERSHIP IN THE SOIL,

Just as the reservation of the “seventh day” as a Sabbath asserted God’s claim upon man’s time, so this law affirmed His right to the soil man occupies and utilizes.

II. MAN’S HIGHEST INTERESTS ARE NOT MATERIAL AND EARTHLY.

He is here for nobler pursuits and more solemn concerns than to dig and toil, to buy and sell and get gain. For a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

III. NEIGHBOURLINESS AND BENEVOLENCE SHOULD BE CULTIVATED.

A common interest in all relationships of life (Lev_25:6-7), and a helpful regard one for another would be promoted. Release from the stern occupancies of life would also awaken those social instincts and foster those healthy friendships which render intercourse cheering and elevating. Men were designed for fellowship and affection; not for exacting from each other what each can be forced to produce. Cultivate brotherliness. [See Addenda to chapter, Benevolence.]

IV. RELIANCE ON GOD, IN IMPLICIT OBEDIENCE TO HIS WILL.

To desist from effort to provide for their own maintenance would

1. Elicit their faith in the fatherly care of God

2. Summon them to a religious use of the time which God had set free from secular toils.

3. Incite them to grateful thoughts of God’s dealings with them as His people, and win them to a renewed recognition that they were “not their own,” but His, who had redeemed and still cared for them.

V. SABBATIC REST: HEAVEN’S GRACIOUS LAW FOR EARTHLY, TOILERS.

Human life becomes a toilsome drudgery, unless God interposes restraints. He would save men from grinding degradation, from absorbing labours; and give them respite and rest. Man needs the Sabbath pause, in order to realise—

That higher possibilities are opened to him by God’s grace than to be a servant of the soil on which he dwells. He may live for a “better country, even a heavenly.”

That God desires of men the devotion of fixed seasons, and leisurely hours for sacred meditation and fellowship with the skies.

Topic: THE JUBILEE YEAR: ITS FOURFOLD SIGNIFICANCE (Lev_25:8-13.)

To the Hebrew the blessings of the jubilee year were local and literal; it was a year of rest and of restitution for the land; a year of release and rejoicing to every inhabitant. Liberty was regained by the slave; possessions in the soil reverted to their owners; agricultural toils were suspended that a whole year of relaxation and repose might be enjoyed. Every home was in enjoyment of plenty, every hand ceased from weary labours, and both man and beast dwelt in quietude and peace.

Glad, indeed, was the hour when the silver trumpet tones announced the arrival of the year of rest. It was like the prelude to a joyous anthem, and that anthem was the angels’ song over Bethlehem fields—“Peace on earth, goodwill among men.”

It was a richly symbolic institute, that Year of Jubilee, whose suggestiveness finds fulfilment in three distinct directions. It points to

I. THE CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION OF GOSPEL LIBERTY AND BEST. [See Luk_4:18-21].

II. THE BELIEVER’S PRIVILEGED LIFE OF SACRED RELEASE AND JOY. [Comp. Eph_1:13-14; Heb_4:9; Heb_8:12].

III. THE MILLENNIAL AGE, OF ESTABLISHED RIGHTEOUSNESS AND PEACE. [See Isa_66:18-23; Rev_20:2-4].

IV. THE HEAVENLY STATE OF ETERNAL SECURITY AND SERENITY. [See 2Pe_3:13; Rev_14:13; Rev_21:4].

In the application of the Jubilee incidents to each of these grand fulfilments of its symbolism, the following facts stand out clearly:—

i. BOUNTY. God gave a supernatural abundance the year preceding the Jubilee, that in the enjoyment of vast supplies there should be no necessity for toil, no occasion for care—[See Lev_25:21]. And assuredly there is

1. Bounty in the provisions of the Gospel (1Ti_1:14).

2. Fulness of grace for the believer in Jesus (2Co_4:15; Tit_3:6).

3. Abundance of good to be enjoyed in the Millennial Age (Psa_72:7).

4. Limitless bliss in the Heavenly land (Psa_16:2).

ii. REST. That Sabbatic year was to be consecrated to repose; the land was to be allowed to rest; the toiler was to cease from toil. Every want was supplied without the weariness of labour. Equally true of the

1. Gospel rest which Christianity announces (Mat_11:29),

2. Believer’s rest which faith secures (Heb_4:3).

3. Millennial rest for a wearied Church (Rev_20:2-3).

4. Heavenly rest for Christ’s redeemed followers (Rev_14:13). [See Addenda to chapter, Rest].

iii. LIBERTY. All bondservants were set free the moment the Jubilee trumpet sounded (Lev_25:39-44). And assuredly, this finds verification in the

1. Liberty which Christ proclaimed to souls enslaved in sin and fear (Luk_4:18; Heb_2:15).

2. Spiritual freedom realized by faith (Rom_8:15; Joh_8:36).

3. Emancipation from thraldom which shall distinguish the Millennial reign (Isa_49:8-9).

4. Glorious liberty of the children of God in Heaven (Rom_8:21; Rev_21:24-25). [See Addenda to chapter, Liberty].

iv. RESTITUTION. If the Israelite had parted with his inheritance, its possession was restored to him in the Year of Jubilee, and that without payment (Lev_25:25-37). So

1. The redemption of Christ recovers for man all that sin had forfeited.

2. Believers in Jesus regain all the virtue, happiness, and hopes which the fall had ruined.

3. The weary and wronged world would enjoy paradisal gladness through Christ’s millennial sway.

4. Heaven will realize all which on earth had been desired, and restore all which death had desolated. [See Addenda to chapter, Possessions].

V. Let it be marked that the Jubilee, with all its blessings, was CONSQUENT UPON ATONEMENT. Not till the blood of Expiation had been shed, and the living goat had borne into the land of oblivion the sins which (ceremonially) had been transferred to it, did the silver trumpets peal forth their exultant notes, proclaiming liberty and rest, restitution and rectitude for the people. And it is because of Christ’s atonement that

1. Christianity has come to sinful man, with all its tidings of good and wealth of salvation (Joh_1:29; Eph_1:6).

2. Spiritual blessings are inherited by the believer in Jesus (Rom_5:11).

3. The Church will enjoy the Sabbatic millennial glory (Rev_19:11-14).

4. Heaven will be the eternal possession of the redeemed (Rev_8:4-7).

The cross is the source of all human good. All things are ours, because Christ has died. As the blood on the doorposts freed Israel from the plague of death in Egypt, so it is to us now and for ever the Blood of Christ which ensures all sacred good (Rev_1:5-6; Rev_5:9-10).

Topic: GLAD FACTS OF THE JUBILEE

I. GOD’S SOVEREIGN RIGHT TO THE EARTH. He determines when and whether its fields should be tilled and reaped. Man, in his pride, calls the lands his own; thinks and acts as if he were Creation’s lord. His fancy rears a throne and crowns himself the king. But this decree establishes God’s rule. We are dependant tenants of His fields. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.”

II. GOD’S POWER TO PROVIDE. He wills, and crops abound. Thus through this year of rest no want is known. The marvel grows when it is considered that the Jubilee Year succeeds a Sabbath Year, in which no seeding or reaping had gone on. But God gave forth a treble harvest in each forty-eighth year. And, as the poor widow’s meal and oil, it proved an unexhausted feast. As Joseph’s well replenished store, it fed the hungry and never failed.

None can succeed without the Lord, and none shall want who truly follow Him. Faith works when God says, Work; it rests when God says, Rest; and thrives in obedience.

III. UNIVERSAL BEST ENJOINED AND ENJOYED. No hand should toil. Tillage and harvest sleeps. Repese is the one law—for man, beast, and soil. A Year long Sabbath reigns.

Emblem of soul rest in Christ.

IV. ATONEMENT USHERS IN THIS CONSECRATED YEAR. When the scapegoat has borne sins out of sight, when the High Priest has sprinkled the mercy-seat, this holy season begins. A light here shines upon the path which leads to rest—through penitence for sin, and reliance on the Victim.

V. THE TRUMPET SOUNDS THROUGHOUT THE LAND. In every place, by every year, the long-expected notes are heard. They tell no doubtful tale. “Glad tidings” are yours to proclaim, ye ministers of Christ. O, see that your lips publish rest in Christ. “Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God.”

VI. CAUSES FOR ISRAEL’S DELIGHT. The downcast debtor was now free. The bondman cast away his yoke. All forfeited estates returned. The oppressor might no more oppress. No servant trembled at his stern lord’s voice. The former owner claimed his father’s fields. The ancient landmarks were rebuilt, and liberty resumed its sway. In every house and heart there was consciousness of relief. Sorrow and mourning fled away. So there is all-deliverance in Christ.

1. We are poor debtors. Our debts exceed the moments of our lives; But Justice must have reckoning. There is no trifling with God. But hark! the Jubilee is come! Christ avails to pay. His ransomed ones are all free. No debt remains.

2. The Jubilee relaxes the ties of bondage. Each soul, apart from Christ, is a poor slave. Tyrants are many, and their yoke is hard. But Christ liberates from fetters (Joh_8:36).

(a) Satan enchains the soul. But Jesus vanquishes this despot, and the Jubilee sets free from Satan’s power.

(b) Sin rules the captive race of men. Till expelled by Christ, it must reign. But a new passion gains the throne when Christ comes in, and shews His dying love, His blood to attone.

(c) This world is a foul tyrant. Its smiles allure, its frowns deter, its fashions force compliance, its laws exact submission: it drives its millions to a slavish toil. But the grace of Christ emancipates from the world’s enthralling snares.

(d) Death, too, is a fearful tyrant. Its chilly features terrify. The stoutest quails. None can relieve but Christ.

3. The Jubilee restores inheritance. Sin drove man from a fair abode; forced him to a wilderness of desolation. God’s smile was lost; the blessing of communion ceased. But Christ re-instates with more than Eden heritage. He places us in a land of peace, where God is our joy for ever. More is found than was lost by sin.

Christ came, lived, died, reigns, to grant this Jubilee to souls. Hear His own words (Luk_4:18-19). He becomes His people’s life, their liberty, their ransom, their peace, their joy, their hope, their glory. The trustful soul reposes in a jubilee of joy. (Arranged from Dean Law’s “Christ is All”).

Topic: THE YEAR OF JUBILEE (Lev_25:8-14.)

This was the last and most remarkable of the Hebrew festivals. It bears unmistakable marks of Divine origin, of wise and benevolent design. The trumpet of jubilee sounded on the tenth day of Tisri, immediately after the great atonement had been made by the High Priest, and the sound of it went forth throughout the whole land. Every valley and mountain resounded with the soul-stirring notes, and the people knew that the acceptable year of the Lord had come. The Jubilee taught—(a) The dependence of Israel upon the bounty of Heaven. (b) The duty of mutual kindness, forbearance, and forgiveness. (c) The unique position Israel occupied among the nations. (d) The unity of their race. By its advent was proclaimed—

I. REST FROM MANUAL LABOUR.

The ordinary law with respect to physical subsistence was, “In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread,” but in the eighth and fiftieth years the law was suspended, for no agricultural work of any kind was to be performed, the land was to lie fallow, and have perfect rest. Labour suspended for such a protracted period would restore the wasted energies of man, and secure renewed vitality to the soil. Such an arrest of the tide of busy life would suggest to the Hebrews the necessity of seeking the meat that endureth to everlasting life.

II. DELIVERANCE FROM CIVIL BONDAGE.

Liberty was to be proclaimed throughout the land, every slave was to be set free. In exceptional cases, where full freedom was not given, the condition of the most abject was ameliorated. Thus the common brotherhood of man was emphatically proclaimed, during the period of the jubilee all were on a level. This was an invaluable boon to men, and gave the dependent and downtrodden a fair and new start in secular life.

III. FORGIVENESS OF DEBTS.

Pecuniary liabilities that had been contracted in the transaction of business, and which debtors were unable to discharge, were remitted. No usury or increase was to be taken from the poor, the millstone of debt was to be removed from their necks. Thus the inequalities of social and secular life were readjusted, and society started afresh upon a reformed and revived basis.

IV. RESTITUTION OF LOST PROPERTY.

Of course, there would necessarily be inequalities in the social circumstances of the people; some would accumulate property that others would lose through misfortune or negligence, and wide gaps would be thus created between classes of the community. Those gaps would be filled up at the Jubilee, where all wicked or undue accumulation of possessions would be rectified, and a period put to boundless ambition and lawless aggression. Selfishness and greed would thus be cut up root and branch, and all men taught to be reasonable in their aims and claims.

V. REJOICING FOR THE PEOPLE.

The sounding of the trumpet, immediately upon the atonement being made, would inform the people that an acceptable offering had been presented for their sins; and that all the blessings promised in connection with the Jubilee might be enjoyed. A full tide of gladness would flow through the land, for the great national holiday had begun, and innumerable and inestimable blessings were available for all. The trumpet sound would set the joy bells in every devout Hebrew heart ringing with gladsome melody.

VI. EXEMPTION FROM CARE.

During the previous year the horn of plenty, with twofold richness, was poured into the nation’s lap, and as the people beheld the super-abundant stores provided in anticipation of their manifold wants, they would be relieved from care and anxiety while the land had the long rest. They would not need to watch the clouds, their well-filled barns and overflowing presses would calm all their anxieties and fears. In these arrangements would be seen the kind thoughtfulness of Israel’s gracious Father, the sovereignty of their eternal King.

VII. HOMECOMING OF FAMILIES.

However scattered through adverse circumstances from the old homestead, or exiled through debt, all could now return, domestic devotion and social love could now be completely restored. All this would tend to socialize and humanize the people, and foster home and national piety.

VIII. REGENERATION OF THE NATION.

Every Jubilee year the people started afresh with a renewed consciousness of the presence of the Lord in their midst, and of their intimate relationship to Him. He brought them out of Egypt, gave them the goodly fertile land; and every Jubilee they were reminded that the land was His, that it was not to be impoverished and exhausted, that the nation was not to decay or become disintegrated. The divinely appointed conditions upon which the people took possession of the land were restored, and they looked up to Jehovah as their merciful and bountiful Benefactor.

Regarding the year of Jubilee as a type of the gospel age which Christ came to proclaim, and of the latter day glory such reflections as these are suggested:—The gospel brings rest of heart for all who hear and obey its joyful sound. Deliverance from bondage of Satan, sin, and self. Recovery of our lost inheritance. Forgiveness of the debt we owe to God. Rejoicing because of good news and glad tidings of reconciliation and peace. Exemption from care about guilt of past, events of present, revelations of the future. Complete restoration to God.

It is man’s highest honour and joy to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. The day shall come when a weary world and longing Church shall be fully blest in enjoyment a Jubilee universal and perpetual.—F. W. B.

Topic: IMPORTANT PRINCIPLES CONTAINED IN THE JUBILEE REGULATIONS (Lev_25:8-28)

Not till God uttered His voice in Christ could men understand the Jewish institutions. We who have heard the voice of Christ and His apostles have come plainly to see that “the acceptable year of the Lord,” and “the times for the restitution of all things”—by which terms, and others, the year of Jubilee was described—have their fulfilment in the Gospel.

(1). The Jubilee began on the Day of Atonement, announced by trumpet blasts Following upon the expiatory services of the day, the gladness occasioned by the “joyful sound” was in accord with the truths symbolized in those expiatory services.

(2). The Jubilee was marked by a complete suspension of agricultural labour. Fear was quieted by God’s promise (Lev_25:21). God’s blessing upon the obedient is better than the sowing of the disobedient.

(3). The spontaneous fruits that grew during the suspension of agricultural operations were open to all. No man had the right to appropriate them. Thus the common dependence of all classes upon God’s bounty, and His equal regard for all was declared.

(4). The Jubilee restored to men their lost liberties (Lev_25:10). Every Hebrew whom poverty, or misfortune, or misconduct had deprived of freedom, regained all the rights and privileges of a free man.

(5). It brought back to their original or hereditary owners the family estates which had been alienated from them (Lev_25:10). Thus the consolation of misfortune, or the joy of old age, might be that one recovered at the Jubilee the home of his childhood from which he had been driven by sore stress of poverty.

Macaulay tells how Warren Hastings, “when under a tropical sun he ruled fifty millions of Asiatics,” was haunted with the wish to recover the ancestral manor of Daylesford. “He would be Hastings of Daylesford.” This purpose, formed in infancy and poverty, was steadfastly cherished. “And when his long public life, so chequered with good and evil, with glory and obloquy, had at length closed for ever, it was to Daylesford that he retired to die.”

The Jubilee recalled to the remembrance of the nation the fact that the land was God’s, and they but “strangers and sojourners” therein (Lev_25:23); and that institution gave back, as with the hand of God, to every man from whom it had been alienated the inheritance of his fathers. By the two great blessings it gave him—the recovery of his freedom and of his family inheritance—every one was given a new start in life, and the nation as a whole made a fresh beginning on an equal footing, as if they entered anew the promised land, and experienced afresh in all their fulness the privilege of the original covenant of grace.

Important principles, in their germs, were contained in this institution:—

I. MAN’S NEED OF OCCASIONAL REST FROM TOIL.

By the emphasis given to rest, God hallowed it as being a duty and a privilege. Man was not to give himself to a ceaseless course of grinding toil, or to unrelaxing endeavours to keep up riches. Such confinement to labour is deadening to the best faculties of the soul. It destroys the elasticity of the heart and the sweetness of the spirit.

Christianity repeats the old lesson. Mary pausing from her work to listen to Jesus is a better model than Martha ceaselessly toiling. “Come ye apart and est awhile.”

II. ALL MEN ARE ENTITLED TO A SHARE OF GOD’S BOUNTY.

What grew in the fields in the Jubilee year was God’s harvest, free to all. It as to be distributed, like other pure bounties of His hand, the rain and sunshine, all alike. This happened every Sabbatic year as well as in the Jubilee. It asserted that man’s share in producing any harvests is very small, that God is its chief agent, and therefore that it rightly belongs in great part to Him, and ought to be largely employed for the general weal.

Christianity endorses it. The early believers “had all things common.” christian charity urges that we contribute to the happiness of the community.

III. THE WELFARE OF SOCIETY IS IMPERILLED BY THE ACQUISITION OF LANDED ESTATES.

The operation of the Jubilee was to prevent the accumulation of land in the hands of a few. The public good demanded its general division among the people. Great Britain may be said to be suffering because of the absence of such a rule. Ireland is rocking as with an earthquake because the land is held in the grasp of a few rich landowners, while the mass of the people, stripped of their ancestral fields, are sunken in extreme poverty. Because of a similar evil the French Revolution overturned the government of France.

The doctrines of Communism find no support in the reasonings of a wise statesmanship, or in the teachings of Christianity. But Christianity suggests a remedy for the evil. Let property be held and administered on Christian principles: “Be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate.”

IV. THE DIGNITY OF MAN VIEWED AS A RANSOMED CHILD OF GOD.

The Jubilee proclaimed the equality of men in the sight of Jehovah, and forbade their tyrannizing over or holding another in slavery. The ground of the prohibition was the same as that which forbade the absolute sale of land—God’s ownership of them. “They are My servants,” etc. (Lev_25:42). The Jubilee made the slave a freeman, and the poor man a property owner.

How Christianity emphasizes this truth! It forbids contempt or oppression of any man for whom Christ died. He may be poor, ignorant, or even wicked. But for him also the scheme of redemption was planned. For his sake Christ laid aside the regalia of heaven and came down to earth. For him He made atonement for sin. For his regeneration He shed forth His Holy Spirit. There is joy in heaven when he repents; and when he dies, if he dies in faith and submission to God, he is carried by angels to the realm of the blessed.

By these things the dignity of man as man is proclaimed. He is to be treated, therefore, with consideration and kindness, with love and forbearance; and in the judgment Christ will say, “Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me.”—ALBERT H. CURRIER.

Topic: CANAAN, THE LORD’S LAND FOR EVER (Lev_25:23-24)

“The land is mine!” How decisive this claim by Jehovah on the soil, to the possessions which He secured for Israel and settled upon His people for ever! It is to be marked that the land is never called theirs; always called His; for though God gave it into their occupancy He claimed it as His peculiar possession. “He will be merciful unto His land” (Deu_33:23); “I will pluck them (Israel) up by the roots out of My land” (2Ch_7:20); “Lord, Thou hast been favourable unto (well pleased with; margin) Thy land” (Psa_85:1); “Then will the Lord be jealous for His land, and pity His people” (Joe_2:18; Psa_3:2).

I. IN THE LAND OF CANAAN JEHOVAH’S MOST WONDROUS DEEDS ALL CENTRED.

“There He set up His throne and sanctuary; there His priests stood to minister continually before Him. There the voices of His prophets were heard testifying of present ruin and future restoration and glory; there the Baptist began, continued, and ended his career as the forerunner of the Messiah; there the Blessed One was born of a woman; there He was baptised; there He preached and taught; there He laboured and died; and thence He ascended in triumph to the right hand of God; thither God the Holy Ghost descended, in Pentecostal power; and thence the overflowing tide of gospel testimony emanated to the ends of the earth; thither the Lord of glory will descend, ere long, and plant His feet “on the Mount of Olives”; there “His throne will be re-established and His worship restored.”—C. H. M.

II. OVER THE LAND OF CANAAN JEHOVAH’S MOST JEALOUS WATCHFULNESS IS EXTENDED.

There is no spot in all the earth like unto the land of Canaan in the divine estimation. His eyes and His heart are there continually; it’s dust is precious in His sight; it is the centre of all His thoughts and operations, as touching the earth; and it is His purpose to make it an eternal excellency, the joy of many generations.

III. UPON THE LAND OF CANAAN JEHOVAH’S MOST EMPHATIC CLAIM IS SEALED.

“The land is Mine.” It might not be sold for ever. It dwells in the keeping of the Omnipotent. It has been a coveted object through many ages, and by many earthly dynasties; and will yet be, if prophecy is rightly read, the scene of cruel war and sanguinary strife. But Jehovah maintains, and will perpetuate His claim. Inalienably, “the land is Mine.”

For what purpose, and for whom, does God claim and keep that land? It is to be the inheritance of His covenant people; to be re-occupied by those to whom He entrusted it by an everlasting covenant; and when “the fulness of the Gentiles” ends, and its present era of downtrodden abuse, which symbolises also the oppressed and outlawed lot of “lost” Israel and “dispersed” Judah is closed, then He who hath “not cast away His people” will require the land for Israel’s re-possession. [See Isa_66:12-23.].

Topic: EXALTED PHILANTHROPY

“Ye shall not oppress one another,” etc.”—(Lev_25:14; Lev_25:35-38).

In the Jubilee year the ambitious and affluent among the Israelites were to surrender their possessions on terms that would lift up the unfortunate, and better the condition of the poor. All overreaching and oppression were to be abandoned. What faith in God, obedience to His commands, time for thoughtful meditations, incentives to human kindness, etc., the year of Jubilee would inspire! The spontaneous produce of the land became public property, the poorest Israelite, even the stranger and the slave, enjoyed liberty and fared liberally. The poor have always been the objects of divine concern, and attention has been called to the amelioration of their condition. Let us consider.

I. SOME OF THE CAUSES OF POVERTY. Hereditary or acquired weakness, obscure origin, ignorance, extravagance, idleness, incompetencey, misfortune, calamity, or sometimes divine chastisement, as in case of Job.

II. SOME OF THE MISERIES OF POVERTY. Exacting, unremunerative labour; degrading surroundings; deficiencies in necessaries of life; indisposition for physical, mental, and moral improvement. Poverty has a bitter cry, hunger a sharp thorn. Under such circumstances life scarcely seems worth living.

III. SOME OF THE AMELIORATIONS OF POVERTY. Industry; economy; cleanliness; sobriety; sympathy; charity; above all, the uplifting, cheering influences of the gospel, which are peculiarly adapted and specially intended for the poor. The gospel will fire men with a landable ambition, which will lift them in the social scale, or will make them happy in their unavoidable, lowly circumstances. On the basis of common brotherhood, and the universal Fatherhood of God, the temporal as well as spiritual interests of the poor should be cared for and ministered unto, not by patronising indiscriminate charity which fosters idleness and begets hypocrisy, but under the guidance of sanctified intelligence and Christly charity.—F. W. B.

OUTLINES ON VERSES OF CHAPTER 25

Lev_25:3.—Theme: THE SABBATICAL YEAR.

The institution of the sabbath of the seventh year taught that the Lord was the sovereign King of the people, and the sole Proprietor of the land; very appropriate that the law concerning it should be pronounced amid all the solemn scenes and sanctions of Sinai. The Sabbatic year inculcated the lessons:

I. THAT THE LORD WAS THE SOLE PROPRIATOR OF THE LAND.

In all the promises made respecting Canaan, it was constantly kept before the people that the land was the Lord’s; and that He would give it to the people—give it as He gives all His other gifts, to be used according to His good pleasure and revealed will. The people were tenants, and must obey the Lord of the land; for, while “the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof,” Canaan was to Him the most holy place. The land would be as His most gracious land, which He would open or shut as He saw fit; and the people would see that they were in His land, and dependent upon Him, as the seasons rolled in their annual round.

II. THAT THE LAND HAD RESTING UPON IT, CONTINUALLY, THE FAVOUR OF THE LORD.

The land was to be ordinarily fertile every year; but, the sixth year was to be exceptionally fruitful, yielding enough for the seventh; so that, in it, the land, as well as the people might repose. Each sixth year would exhibit in an extraordinary manner the unfailing and inexhaustible resources of God, and show how His smile and blessing rested on the soil. Canaan would look like a second Eden, as she appeared decked in her rich and beautiful garments. When the waters of the flood subsided, God said to Noah, “I will no more curse the ground for man’s sake,” and the fertile earth shows that the Almighty crowns the year with His goodness and that His paths drop fatness.

III. THAT THE DIVINE FAVOUR PROVIDES FOR THE WELL-BEING OF EVERY LIVING THING.

This is a general and world-wide truth; but it was especially seen in the Sabbatic year. During its months, every stranger in the land, and every beast, had abundant provision in the stores laid up, and the spontaneous growth of the soil. The great God of Nature pays respect to the wants of the minutest creatures His hands have made; and the directions given about brute creation would show that He was kind to them, and would suggest to men to treat them kindly. He “is good to all and His tender mercies are over all His works”

IV. THAT OF EVERY LIVING THING, MAN IS THE NEAREST AND DEAREST TO THE GREAT CREATOR.

During the seventh year the poor were to be fed, and the bound set at liberty; thus lessons of kindness and forgiveness were taught. The year was not to be passed in luxury and idleness, but time was to be spent in reading the whole Law; it was a Sabbath to the Lord, when He could be pleased and glorified with the prayers and praises of His people. To man alone are directions given for worship—He is the offspring of God, made in His image and capable of worshipping Him. Not only one day in seven, but one year in seven, was to be kept as a sabbath, showing how God looked for man’s devoted service.

V. THAT THE GREAT CREATOR TEACHES MORAL TRUTHS TO MAN BY MEANS OF WORKS OF NATURE.

All the processes and phenomena of nature are intended to illustrate and enforce spiritual things. Hence the Bible is full of references to correspondences and analogies between the kingdoms of nature and grace. The extraordinary provision made for the Sabbatic year would inculcate lessons of faith, obedience, reverence, love. In the fulness of time the great Teacher by His inimitable parables threw a flood of light upon similitudes between the outer and inner courts of divine revelation. To devoutly study and practice these lessons will ensure exquisite pleasure and eternal profit.—F. W. B.

Lev_25:9—Theme: LESSONS OF THE JUBILEE

I. ITS PECULIAR FEATURES

1. It was a great boon to all sorrowing ones.

(1.) Every captive was liberated.

(2.) The exiled wanderer returned.

(3.) The oppressed debtor was released from his debts.

(4.) The unfortunate poor were restored to their ancestral heritage.

(5) Families that bad been separated were now re-united.

(6.) Every estate reverted to the families to whom they were originally allotted in the conquest of Canaan.

2. All this was intimately connected with the DAY OF ATONEMENT. It was on the day of atonement, every year, that the trumpet was sounded in every corner of the land, reminding the people of the year of Jubilee (Lev_25:9).

3. It was to be a year of perfect freedom from toil (Lev_25:11-12).

4. Every business transaction had reference to the year of jubilee (Lev_25:16). Prices were regulated by its nearness or distance.

II. ITS TYPICAL MEANING.

1. It had special reference to the millennial glory of Israel in the land which Jehovah keeps for them through all generations.

(1.) God claims Canaan as He does no other.

(2.) God has honoured Canaan as He has no other.

2. It is a beautiful and correct type of heaven.

(1.) Where every believer will enter upon his inheritance, and enter into his rest.

(2.) Where all exile, captivity, separation, poverty and oppression will for ever cease, and God will wipe away all tears from our eyes.

III. ITS PRACTICAL LESSONS.

1. That which the Jubilee year restores, and the rest and joy and plenty it brings, prove the graciousness of God.

(1). The sorrow, poverty, oppression, exile, etc., which occurred between two Jubilee years show the workings of human selfishness and sin.

(2). That which the Jubilee restores shows the workings of divine grace.

2. The unspeakable blessedness of the world’s Jubilee in the millennial period (Isa_25:6-12; Isa_33:23-24; Isa_35:1-10; Isa_55:13; Rom_11:25; Rom_8:18-22.).

3. The more glorious and more enduring bliss of heaven (Rev_21:1-27; Rev_22:1-15).—D. C. Hughes.

Lev_25:9-11.—Theme: THE JUBILEE A TYPE OF THE GOSPEL.

I. ITS PRIMARY PURPOSE.

1. It was kind and benevolent: showing that, by remedying the evils the Israelites entailed on themselves, God took an interest in their welfare.

2. It was wise and politic. A people thus regulated would be kept distinct as to their various tribes and families, while an affectionate and dependant spirit would be promoted

3. It was good and beneficial. The insolvent debtor delivered, &c.

II. ITS TYPICAL REFERENCE.

1. The Jubilee of grace. This finds us deeply in arrears to divine justice, and fully remits all our debt. It reverses our state of spiritual bondage, restoring to us the rights and blessings of freedom. And it invests us with a new title to our forfeited inheritance opening to us the kingdom of heaven (Act_10:43; Rom_6:14; Joh_8:36; Eph_2:12).

2. The Jubilee of glory.

III. ITS JOYFUL COMMENCEMENT.

This was announced by the sound of trumpets throughout the land on the day of atonement. Our jubilee also, which begins in the great atonement, is now proclaimed among us, and is the joyful season of God’s grace, mercy and salvation.

“Blessed are the people that know the joyful sound” (Psa_89:15).—Wm. Sleigh

Lev_25:18 Theme: THE DUTY OF OBEDIENCE.

“Wherefore ye shall do My statutes, and keep My judgments, and do them; and ye shall dwell on the land in safety.”

Man not a machine, but a responsible, free agent; therefore conditioned on obedience. Herein, seen the dignity of man, the righteousness and holiness of God. God had right to command Israel under obligation to obey, for

I. HE WAS THEIR SOVEREIGN RULER. Lord, King, Almighty, Absolute, Eternal.

II. THEY WERE HIS DEPENDENT CREATURES They derived all from Him, were defended, delivered, by Him.

III. THE PATH OF OBEDIENCE WAS SAFE. Whatever might befal them when doing the will of God would be overruled for their real good. No weapon formed against them could prosper, while they enjoyed the approving smile of the Lord.

IV. THE ONLY CRITERION OF CHARACTER IS OBEDIENCE. Faith, love, loyalty, sincerity, consecration, evinced and vindicated by unquestioning, cheerful, self-forgetful, constant obedience. The law of Christ confirms this test, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” Revelation closes with declaration of same truth. “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.”—F. W. B.

Lev_25:25.—Theme: THE KINSMAN’S RIGHTS.

The tale is simple. One of Israel a sons in destitute His goods, his lands are torn away. The creditor demands, the claim is just, all must be yielded.

But is there some kinsman whose heart feels pity, and whose means abound? Then he has right to pay the price and buy back the forfeited estate. He may not be denied. Redeeming privilege is his.

Such is the statute of the Jewish realm. But it shows far more than civil remedy for helpless debt. It is a bright transcript of the work of Christ.

I. NO ONE BUT A KINSMAN COULD REDEEM US.

The needy ones are offspring of earth; dust is their origin, the worm their brother, the clod their home.

But to redeem requires a kindred birth.

Yet Jesus is God; an infinite distance divides Him from men. One sits enthroned in highest glory, the other grovels in earth’s lowest mire. Jesus may love, but, as God, He cannot redeem, cannot claim a kinsman’s right Are then the destitute beyond relief?

Since the Redeemer must be Man, Jesus connects Himself with human ties. A human form is marvellously framed; and the virgin mother bears the heavenly child. The God-Man becomes a kinsman to redeem.

II. THE KINSMAN ALSO NEEDS WEALTH BY WHICH TO PAY THE PRICE.

Family ties are not enough. Much is required for the redemption of souls. But His deity imparts sufficiency. The price is boundless; the payment far exceeds. “In whom we have redemption through His blood the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph_1:7).

The sinner, appalled at his debts, may approach the Saviour, and plead His near kindred, may tell Him that He is one of our family, and remind Him that He alone has the redeeming right and redeeming might.

Then, being redeemed, let your life proclaim that you are no more your own but “bought with a price.” The kinsman claims your heart, your love, your all.—Dean Law.

Lev_25:55.—Theme: ROYAL SERVICE.

“For unto me the children of Israel are servants.”

All things serve the Lord, but there are gradations of service. Man occupies a sphere only second to angels. Israel chosen to cooperate with Jehovah in communicating His will to the world, in winning back a prodigal race to Himself.

I. THE SERVICE HE EXPECTS. (a) Intelligent, higher than that rendered by inanimate and irrational things. Thoughtful, reasonable, conscientious. (b) Spontaneous. The outcome of free and deliberate choice, of preference for Him above all others. (c) Grateful. Remembering deliverances vouchsafed, benedictions bestowed. (d) Lifelong. Not spasmodic service, nor a course marked by withholdings, backslidings, shortcomings, or apostacy. He demands fidelity unto death.

II. THE REWARD HE BESTOWS. (a) His gracious approval; (b) improvement in holiness; (c) promotion to higher service here; (d) admission to perfect blessed service hereafter. In heaven His servants shall see and serve Him. Service there will be ineffable rapture and rest, because not beyond the strength, nor against the will, but in complete harmony with the renewed and immortal faculties.—F. W. B.

ILLUSTRATIVE ADDENDA TO CHAPTER 25

BENEVOLENCE

“Then none was for a party;

Then all were for the state;

Then the great man helped the poor,

And the poor man loved the great.

Then lands were fairly portioned;

Then spoils were fairly sold;

The Romans were like brothers

In the brave days of old.”

—Macaulay.

“Beneficence is a duty. He who frequently practises it, and sees his benevolent intentions realised, at length comes to love him to whom he has done good. When, therefore, it is said, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, it is not meant, Thou shalt love him first and do good in consequence of that love, but thou shalt do good to thy neighbour, and this thy beneficence will engender in thee that love to mankind which is the fullness and consummation of the inclination to do good.”—Kant.

SABBATH. “Sin keeps no Sabbaths.”—

Brooks.

“Yes, child of suffering, thou might well be sure,

He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor.’

—Holmes, Urania.

“A world without a Sabbath would be like a man without a smile, like a summer without flowers, and like a homestead without a garden. It is the joyous day of the whole week.”—H. W. Beecher.

“We never knew a man work seven days in a week who did not kill himself or kill his mind.”—Anon.

REST:

“No lamkin by its shepherd borne,

No dove its mate caressing,

No bondman freed, no pilgrim worn

The grateful shade possessing;

No child clasped to its mother’s heart,

No sick man when his pains depart,

No warrior home returning;

No man can know such perfect rest

As that which ends our weary quest,

Our gracious Lord discerning.”

—Hillier

LIBERTY

“A man, till he be in Christ, is a slave; and the more free a man thinks himself to be and labours to be, the more slave he is. Why? Because the more he sins the more he is enthralled to sin.”—Sibbes.

“The end of Christian liberty is, that being delivered from the hands of our enemies, we might serve the Lord without fear,”—Westminster Catechism

He is the freeman, whom the truth makes free,

And all are slaves besides.”

—Cowper.

POSSESSIONS

“How shocking must thy summons be. O Death!

To him that is at ease in his possessions:

Who, counting on long years of pleasure here,

Is quite unfurnished for that world to come.”

—Blair.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

FOURTH SECTION

Of the Sabbatical and Jubilee Years

“The keeping holy of the hallowed territory, the holy land, by the Sabbatical year; of the consecrated inheritance by the Jubilee Year, and thus also of those who had become impoverished, the Israelites who had fallen into servitude; the keeping holy of the outward appearance of the holy land (streets and ways); of the public Sabbath feast and of the Sanctuary of the religion of the land. Lev_25:1 to Lev_26:2.” —Lange.

Lev_25:1-55

1And the Lord spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying, 2Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shalt the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord. 3Six years thou shall sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard [fruit garden1], and gather in the fruit thereof; 4but 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 5[fruit garden1].2 That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed:3 for it is a year of rest unto the land. 6And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant,4 and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee, 7and for thy cattle, and for the beasts [animals5] that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat.

8And thou shalt number seven sabbaths6 of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths6 of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. 9Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound [cause the sound of the cornet to go through the land7] on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. 10And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile8 unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall 11return every man unto his family. A jubile8 shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the 12 grapes in it of thy vine undressed.3 For it is the jubile;8 it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field.

13In the year of this jubile8 ye shall return every man unto his possession. 14And if thou sell9 ought unto thy neighbor, or buyest ought of thy neighbor’s hand, ye shall not oppress [overreach10] one another: 15according to the number of years after the jubile8 thou shalt buy of thy neighbor, and according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee: 16according to the multitude of years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price of it: for according to the number of the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee. 17Ye shall not therefore oppress [overreach10] one another; but thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the Lord your God.

18Wherefore ye shall do my statutes and keep my judgments, and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety. 19And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety. 20And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase: 21then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. 22And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store.

23The land shall not be sold for ever:11 for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. 24And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land. 25If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold. 26And if the man have none to redeem it, and himself be 27[has become12] able to redeem it; then let him count the years of the sale thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it: that he may return unto his possession. 28But if he be not able to restore it to him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him that hath bought it until the year of jubile:8 and in the jubile8 it shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession.

29And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; within a full year [a term of days13] may he redeem it. 30And if it be not redeemed with the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be established for ever to him14 that bought it throughout his generations: it shall not go out in the jubile.8 31But the houses of the villages which have no wall round about them shall be counted15 as the fields of the country: they may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the jubile.8

32Notwithstanding [But concerning16] the cities of the Levites, and [omit and] the houses of the cities of their possession, may the Levites redeem at any time. 33And if a man purchase of the Levites,17 then the house that was sold, and [in18] the city of his possession, shall go out in the year of jubile:8 for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel. 34But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold; for it is their perpetual possession.

35And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger [poor, and his hand trembles by thee, thou shalt hold him up as a stranger19], or a sojourner; that he may live20with thee. 36Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. 37Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor 38lend him thy victuals for increase. I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.

39And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee; 40thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant: but as an hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubile:841and then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return. 42For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen. 43Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor; but shalt fear thy God. 44Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. 45Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. 46And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigor.

47And if a sojourner or stranger wax rich by thee, and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger or21 sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger’s family: 48after that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him; 49either his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin22 unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself. 50And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him unto the year of jubile:8 and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years, according to the time of an 51hired servant shall it be with him. If there be yet many years behind, according unto them he shall give again the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for. 52And if there remain but few years unto the year of jubile,8 then he shall count with him, and according unto his years shall he give him again 53the price of his redemption. And as a yearly hired servant shall he be with him: and the other shall not rule with rigor over him in thy sight. 54And if he be not redeemed in these years [by these means23], then he shall go out in the year of jubile,8 both he, and his children with him. 55For unto me the children of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

Lev_25:3-4. כֶּרֶם. See Textual Note 6 on Lev_19:10.

Lev_25:5. The Sam., LXX. and Syr. prefix the conjunction.

Lev_25:5; Lev_25:11. נָזִיר means primarily the separated (see Gen_49:26; Deu_33:16), then the consecrated. Except in the passages referred to, and in this chap, it is always used of the Nazarite. It is applied to the vine either as for this year consecrated, so LXX. ἁγιάσματος σου; or by a figure of speech, thy Nazarite vine, as having its branches unpruned like the unshorn locks of the Nazarite. The latter is generally preferred by the commentators. See Keil who refers to the Latin viridis coma, Tibull. i. 7, 34; Propert. ii. 15, 12. Ten MSS., the Syr. and Vulg. read the word in the plural.

Lev_25:6. The Sam. and Syr. read this and the three following words in the plural.

Lev_25:7. וְלַחַיָּה. See Textual Note1 on Lev_11:2.

Lev_25:8. Sabbath is used here as in Lev_23:15 (see note there) rather in a figurative way than with the definite sense of weeks.

Lev_25:9. The word יוֹבֵל = Jubile of Lev_25:10 does not occur in this verse, and there is no occasion for its insertion. The שׁוֹפַר תְרוּעָה is the loud sound, clangor, of an instrument usually translated trumpet in the A. V., but occasionally (1Ch_15:28; 2Ch_15:14; Psa_98:6, etc.) more correctly cornet. It was either the horn of an animal (according to the Mishna, of chamois or wild goat), or made of metal in the fashion of a horn. The LXX. renders σάλπιγξ, the Vulg. buccina.

Lev_25:10-13, etc. יוֹבֵל is translated throughout this chapter and Leviticus 27, jubile. So also Num_36:4. In Exo_19:13 it is rendered trumpet (marg. cornet), and in the only other places where it occurs, Jos_6:4-6; Jos_6:8; Jos_6:13, ram’s horns. Outside of the Bible the word is always spelt jubilee, but being here spelt jubile, Clark considers that it was intended to be pronounced as a dissyllable, making a close imitation of the Heb. word. Authorities differ as to its sense etymologically. See the subject discussed in Bochart, Hieroz, I. c. 43 (vol. I., pp. 463–466 ed. Rosen.), and Gesen. Thes. s. v. The LXX. renders ἄφεσις with relation to what was to be done in this year rather than as a translation of the Heb. word. Josephus (Ant. III. 12, 3) uses the Heb. word ἰωβήλος, which he explains as meaning liberty, ἐλευθερίαν δὲ σημαἰνει τοὔνομα. The Vulg. has jubileus. In Eze_46:17 it is called שְׁנַת הַדִּרוֹר = the year of liberty, from which Josephus probably derived his interpretation. This accords well with the context in Lev_25:11, and also with the derivation from יָבַל = to flow freely.

Lev_25:14. The Heb. has the verb in the plural; but the Sam. has the sing in accordance with the sing, pronouns following. The word buy, קָנֹח is inf. abs., as in Gen_41:43.

Lev_25:14. אַל־תּוֹנוּ. The verb יָנָה in the Hiph. applies especially to that sort of civil oppression brought about by fraud, which is best, expressed in English by the word overreach.

Lev_25:23. לִצְמִתֻת, lit. for cutting off (as in marg. A. V.), viz. from all hope of redemption. In modern phrase, in perpetuity.

Lev_25:26. The marg. his hand hath attained and found sufficiency exactly renders the Heb.; but the text of the A. V. is a sufficiently good translation except in failing to bring out the idea that the ability to redeem has come about since the sale took place. The Jewish interpretation was accordingly correct, that the right of redemption should only accrue in case the ability to re-purchase was gained after the sale had taken place; a merely voluntary sale must hold until the jubilee year.

Lev_25:29. יָמִים תִּהְיִח גְּאֻלָּתוֹ, lit. days shall its redemption be, i.e. the right of redemption shall continue for a definite time and no longer, which time has been explained in the previous clause to be a year; it is better, however, to let the translation follow the Heb. than to paraphrase so much as has been done in the A. V.

Lev_25:30. The k’ri לוֹ for the text לֹא is also the reading of the Sam. and of thirteen MSS.

Lev_25:31. יֵחָשֵׁב is sing. The Sam., LXX. and Syr. have the plural.

Lev_25:32. On this use of the particle ו see Nordheimer’s Heb. Gr. § 1093, 6, c, h. It is evident that there is nothing said about the redemption of the cities, which the form of the A. V. would seem to imply, but only of the houses in them.

Lev_25:33. There is much diversity of opinion as to the meaning of this clause. The text of the A. V. is supported by the LXX. and by the Targums, and is defended by Keil. A difficulty arises from the use of the word יִגְאַל = redeem; but Keil maintains, on the authority of the Rabbins, that this is used in the sense of קָנָה = to buy. He grounds the usage on the fact that the Levitical cities were originally assigned to the tribes as a part of their inheritance; they relinquished the houses, or a part of the houses in them (together with pasture grounds) to the Levites for dwelling-places. When therefore one of another tribe purchased of a Levite, he was in fact redeeming the inheritance of his tribe. So Murphy. On the other hand, the reading: If one of the Levites redeems a house in the city (according to the marg. of the A. V.), is preferred by Clark following Rosenmüller, De Wette, Kranold, Herxheimer and others. The meaning will then be, that if a Levite has sold a house to one of another tribe, and another Levite redeem it, then in the Jubilee year it must revert to its original possessor. But it is more than questionable whether the Levites had any such general right of redemption on behalf of their fellow Levites as this would suppose. The Vulg. inserts a negative, Si redemptœ (sc. œdes) non fuerint, and this is sustained by Houbigant, and preferred by Woide, Ewald, Bunsen and Knobel. It is adopted by Lange in the translation and exegesis; but it is a serious objection that it would require a change in the Heb. On the whole, the text of the A. V. seems best sustained, and gives the clearest sense.

Lev_25:33. On the use of וְ in the figure Hendiadys see Gesen. s. v. 1, b.

Lev_25:35. The particle as is inserted here by the LXX., Vulg., Targums, Luther, etc., and is recognized as to be supplied by many commentators, as Keil, Clark and others. So also Riggs. On the other hand the Syr. gives just the opposite sense: thou shalt not hold him for a sojourner or foreigner; but he shall live with thee. Others, as Lange, adopt the sense expressed in the A. V.

Lev_25:35. וְחֵי according to Keil, an abbreviation for וָחַי occurring only here.

Lev_25:47. The missing conjunction is supplied in ten MSS., the LXX. and Syr.

Lev_25:49. See Textual Note4 on Lev_18:6.

Lev_25:54. The Heb. does not express the noun at all. That supplied by the marg. of the A. V. is clearly more agreeable to the context than that in the text. So Lange, following the Syr. The other ancient versions do not supply the ellipsis.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

This chapter, with the first two verses of the following one, forms another Parashah. or proper lesson of the law; the parallel lesson from the prophets is Jer_32:6-27, concerning Jeremiah’s redemption of Hanameel’s field in Anathoth. This and the following chapter, which is the conclusion of the book proper, form a single Divine communication. “The institution of the jubilee years corresponds to the institution of the day of atonement (Leviticus 16). Just as all the sins and uncleannesses of the whole congregation, which had remained unatoned for and uncleansed in the course of the year, were to be wiped away by the all-embracing expiation of the yearly recurring day of atonement, and an undisturbed relation to be restored between Jehovah and His people; so, by the appointment of the year of jubilee, the disturbance and confusion of the divinely appointed relations, which had been introduced in the course of time through the inconstancy of all human or earthly things, were to be removed by the appointment of the year of Jubilee, and the kingdom of Israel to be brought back to its original condition.” Keil. The systematic character and correspondence of the two great divisions of Leviticus are thus brought into view.

The institution of the Sabbatical year occupies the first seven verses, and that of the year of Jubilee, with its effects upon rights and property, the remainder of the chapter. The latter may be subdivided into the institution itself (Lev_25:8-12); the legal return of every man to his own land, and the effect of this on contracts (Lev_25:13-34); and finally the emancipation of the Hebrew slave with its consequences (Lev_25:35-55). “The Sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee belong to that great Sabbatical system which runs through the religious observances of the law. They were solemnly connected with the sacred Covenant.” Clark. They are therefore appropriately placed immediately after the “appointed seasons” of the previous chapter; yet they are also somewhat separated from these, as “they were distinguished by no religious ceremonies, they were accompanied by no act of religious worship. There were no sacrifices, nor Holy Convocations belonging to them.” Although forming a part of the Hebrew ecclesiastical system, they were yet chiefly marked in their effects by their civil and social relations. As the whole civil polity of Israel was fundamentally theocratic, so were these remarkable provisions in their national life placed upon a religious basis.

“There are perhaps in the whole ancient world no institutions bearing comparison with the Hebrew year of release and of Jubilee, either in comprehensiveness or in loftiness of principle. It is impossible to appreciate too highly the wonderful consistency with which the Sabbath was made the foundation of a grand series of celebrations extending from the Sabbath-day to the Sabbath-month, and the Sabbath-year, and lastly to a great Sabbath-period of years. And all these institutions were associated with ideas admirably calculated to foster both a sense of dignity and humility, both zeal in practical pursuits and spiritual elevation, both prudence and charity.” Kalisch.

“The fundamental thought is: Jehovah is the Lord of the land of Jehovah, with all its blessings, with its soil and its harvests, with its inheritances and its dwellings, with its rich and its poor, with its free and its slaves, its roads and its bye-ways, its holy seasons, the Sabbath days and its central holy place, the Tabernacle.” Lange.

Lev_25:1-7. In mount Sinai clearly means in the region about the mountain, as in Lev_7:38; Lev_26:46; Lev_27:34, etc. “Mount Sinai is emphasized to allow the immediately following ordinance to come into prominence as a prophecy of the distant future.” Lange. Neither the Sabbatical nor the Jubilee year were to be observed until the settlement of the people in the promised land. On Lev_25:4 Lange quotes Keil as follows: “The omission of sowing and reaping presupposed that the Sabbatical year commenced with the civil year, in the autumn of the sixth year of labor, and not with the ecclesiastical year, on the first of Abib (Nisan), and that it lasted till the Autumn of the seventh year, when the cultivation of the land would commence again with the preparation of the ground and the sowing of the seed for the eighth year; and with this the command to proclaim the jubilee year ‘on the tenth day of the seventh month’ throughout all the land (Lev_25:9), and the calculation in Lev_25:21-22, fully agree.” On the expression Sabbath Sabbathon of Lev_25:4, see Textual Note 2 on Lev_23:3. In Lev_25:4-7 all agricultural labor is forbidden for the Sabbatical year. Two questions arise: how were the wants of the people to be provided for during the year? and how was the time thus freed from its usual employments to be spent? In regard to the first, reference is usually made to the great productiveness of the land, and to the fact that there would be a considerable spontaneous growth of grain, while the fruit trees and the vine would of course bear nearly as usual. Greater use would also have been made of animal food by those who possessed cattle, or were able to purchase it, and the uncropped fields would have allowed of the support of herds and flocks in unusual numbers. These facts lessen the difficulty, and indeed remove it altogether for the wealthy and for the poor also during several months of the year; all this spontaneous produce was common property, and might be gathered by any one for immediate use but not stored. Undoubtedly during the time of the ripening of the various cereals there would thus be abundant provision for the wants of the whole population. But after all, the main reliance must have been upon the stores laid up previously in view of the coming on of the Sabbatical year, and this is pointed out in Lev_25:20-21. It is also to be noticed that only agriculture labor was suspended, and that the commerce of the cities went on as usual. In regard to the employment of the time: the command is given in Deu_31:10-12, that at the feast of Tabernacles in this year the law should be read in the hearing of all the people, including not merely the men who were alone required in other years to assemble at the feast, but also the women and children. This provision, joined with the analogy of the seventh day, shows that the leisure of the Sabbatical year was to be improved in acquiring a knowledge of the Divine law, and doubtless in renewing family ties and associations. It is distinguished not as an idle year, but as a year of intellectual and moral, rather than of manual occupation. Other passages in the law on this subject are Exo_23:10-11, and Deu_15:1-18. The latter is the most detailed of all, and provides for the release in that year of all debts due from Israelites, and of all Israelites in bond-service. The Sabbatical year was doubtless provided for the sake of man and its bearing upon his spiritual welfare; yet when the law pronounces (Lev_25:2) the land shall keep a Sabbath unto the LORD, we are forced to see a symbolical significance in the very rest of the land itself. “The earth was to be saved from the hand of man exhausting its power for earthly purposes as his own property, and to enjoy the holy rest with which God had blessed the earth and all its productions after the creation. From this, Israel, as the nation of God, was to learn, on the one hand, that although the earth was created for man, it was not merely created 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; and on the other hand, that the great purpose for which the congregation of the Lord existed, did not consist in the uninterrupted tilling of the earth, connected with bitter labor in the sweat of his brow (Gen_3:17; Gen_3:19), but in the peaceful enjoyment of the fruits of the earth, which the Lord their God had given them, and would give them still without the labor of their hands, if they strove to keep His covenant and satisfy themselves with His grace.” Keil. The law of the Sabbatical year was not to come into operation until after the completion of the conquest. It is hardly probable that it was actually observed until the Captivity, see 2Ch_36:21, unless possibly a few times in the very beginning of the settlement in Canaan. Later, “there are found several historical notices which imply its observance. The Jews were exempted from tribute in the Sabbatical year by Alexander the Great (Jos. Ant. xi. 8, 6), and by Julius Cæsar (ib. xiv. 10, 6). The inhabitants of Bethsura could not stand out when besieged by Antiochus Epiphanes, because they had no store of provisions owing to the Sabbatical year (1Ma_6:49), and the inhabitants of Jerusalem suffered from a like cause when they were besieged by Herod (Jos. Ant. xiv. 16, 2; xv. 1, 2).” Clark. Tacitus also mentions the Jewish “seventh year given to indolence” (Hist. v. 2, 4), and St. Paul (Gal_4:10) charges the Judaizers with observing years as well as days and months.

Lev_25:8-12. The institution of the year of Jubilee. The present chapter contains the whole literature of the Jubilee year to be found in the Pentateuch, except the discussion of its effect upon fields dedicated to the Lord in Lev_27:16-25, and except also the allusion in the case of the daughters of Zelophehad, Num_36:4. Lange: “The relation of the last Sabbatical year to the Jubilee year itself creates a special difficulty. If the people did not sow or reap during two years, there would result a stoppage of four years.” [This seems to overlook the fact that the Jubilee was proclaimed on the 10th Tisri, when the whole work of the agricultural year had been rounded out and completed, so that the break of two years, serious as this was, did not extend either forward or backward in its effects beyond those years themselves.—F. G.]. “On this account it has indeed been supposed that the 49th year itself was the Jubilee year (see Keil, p. 162 [Trans. p. 458]. Art. Sabbath and Jobeljahr in Herzog’s Real-encyclopädie).” [This view was first advocated by R. Jehuda, and has been adopted by Scaliger, Usher, Petavius, Rosenmüller, and others, and hesitatingly by Clark in his commentary. It is entirely rejected by Keil as contradictory to the plain language of the text, and by Clark in his Art. Jubilee in Smith’s Bibl. Dict. The text (Lev_25:8-11) is perfectly plain, using the same forms of language as in regard to the feast of Pentecost after the completion of the seven weeks, between which and this Pentecostal year there is a clear analogy. Notwithstanding the authority of the critics above referred to, it must be considered as certain that the Jubilee followed the seventh Sabbatical year, and that thus once in every half century two fallow years were to occur together. The provisions for food were the same in the one case as in the other: no agricultural labor was to be performed, but the spontaneous productions of the earth were the common property of the whole population. Large reliance must therefore have been placed upon food previously stored and, perhaps, on foreign commerce.—F.G.] “We see from the book of Jeremiah that this feast was poorly kept in Israel, not on account of apprehended need, but in consequence of the hardening effect of proprietary relations, and the hard-heartedness of the powerful and great. (Knobel, p. 563. Jeremiah 34). But the year of Jubilee formed the culmination of the ideal relations of Israel which the law aimed at without actually reaching.… It is most full of significance that on the 10th of the 7th mouth (at the end of the seven Sabbatical years on the great day of Atonement, without doubt immediately after the full accomplishment of the propitiation) the trombone was to sound through all the land to announce the year of Jubilee as a year of freedom (דְּרוֹר), the highest feast of the laborer, and of nature, the redemption of lost inheritances, the ransom of the enslaved, the year of the restoration of all things (Isaiah 61). The instrument of the announcement is the trombone, the horn (שׁוֹפַּר), the sound of which יוֹבֵל had proclaimed also the feast of the covenant of the law.” After the solemn quiet of the day when all the people must “afflict their souls,” and when the great rites of the annual propitiation had been completed, probably at the time of the evening sacrifice, the sudden burst of sound proclaiming the year of Jubilee must have been peculiarly impressive. The proclamation of freedom was most appropriate just after the great reconciliation of the people with God had been symbolically completed. The chief allusions to this year in the prophets are Isa_61:1-2; Jer_32:6-15; Eze_7:12-13; Eze_46:16-18.

Lev_25:13-34. In the year of Jubilee every man was to return to his inherited possession. The principle on which this law is based is given in Lev_25:23 : The land was the absolute possession of Jehovah alone; He had allotted it to the families of Israel as strangers and sojourners with Him, and however these allotments might be temporarily disturbed in the exigencies of life, in the Jubilee they must all be restored again. Lev_25:14. Sell aught refers only to land and houses in the country. Personal property (except slaves) was not affected by the Jubilee as debts were by the Sabbatical year (Deu_15:1-11). The price of the land was determined (Lev_25:15-16) by the value of the harvests remaining until the Jubilee. “In the valuation of the harvest there was always opportunity for fraud; therefore the earnest warning not to oppress [overreach] one’s neighbor.” Lange. Lev_25:20-22 relate in terms to the sabbatical year, but only in regard to the supply of food. This is of course, equally applicable to the Jubilee year, and thus both cases are covered. The question arises in connection with the latter, but needs also to be answered for the former, and is therefore arranged with reference to that as the more frequently recurring. The verses stand therefore quite in their proper place; if placed, as various critics would have them, just after Lev_25:7, the Jubilee year could only be provided for by a repetition. Lev_25:23-28. Lange: “The land shall not be sold even to defeasance, i.e., completely. It shall also not be sold absolutely; the form is not an hereditary lease, once for all, but a temporary lease for a course of years.—For the land is Mine, Jehovah says, and ye are strangers and sojourners with Me.—Therefore the soil throughout the whole land was placed under the law of redemption. Also redemption could take place before the 50th year if the nearest Goel or redeemer of the impoverished man stepped in and bought back for his benefit that which had been alienated. If the redeemers (relatives, according to their degrees of relationship, having the ability and the will) failed, then the case was conceivable that the impoverished man himself might come into the possession of means before the 50th year, and then the redemption was reserved to him according to the usufruct of the yet remaining years.” If neither of these means of redemption were availed of, then the law of reversion absolutely and without consideration came into play in the Jubilee year. There could never be injustice in this, as all purchases had been made with a full knowledge of the law. The law, if thy brother be waxen poor, throughout presupposes that no Israelite would sell his inheritance except under the pressure of poverty. Comp. 1Ki_21:3.

Lev_25:29-34. The alienation and redemption of houses (a) of the people generally, Lev_25:29-31; (b) of the Levites, Lev_25:32-34. (a) Lange: “A dwelling-house within a walled city could be redeemed within the space of the first year, but not afterwards. The law could not be brought to bear upon the more fixed relations of cities without prejudice to justice and order. The reason certainly is not that the houses in the cities belonged “to the full proprietorship of their possessors.” The possessors themselves were really tenants of Jehovah.” [The law of redemption relates to land, and is based upon the original division of the land among the families of Israel. In cities the original value of the land constituted but a small part of the value of a house; the rest was the creation of human industry. The property represented by the original value of the land is recognized in the right of redemption for a year, which also concurred with the general purpose of the law in checking the sale of real estate; but beyond this the house in the city was justly treated as of the nature of personal property. Calvin also observes justly that there was not the same objection to the falling of city houses into the hands of the wealthy as of those in the country. On the one hand, the expense of maintaining them was greater, and could be better borne by the wealthy; and on the other, the possession of a house was not at all as necessary to a poor man in the city as in the country where he could scarcely otherwise find shelter.—F. G.] “But the houses in open places were put, as an appurtenance to the farm, under the law of redemption within the fiftieth year, or of reversion at the end of that period.” (b) See the Textual Notes on Lev_25:32-33. Lange, in his translation and exegesis of Lev_25:33, follows the Vulgate, and objects to the view of Keil as too subtle, and as inapplicable to the clause: and the city of his possession. The latter objection is removed by considering this as a hendiadys, and translating in the city. Lange considers that the clause “has something like these the senses: even houses of the Levites fall back again, even if they were the whole city. Or again: only by this means the Levitical cities remain guaranteed as such.” The pasturage of the Levites was absolutely inalienable, even temporarily (Lev_25:34), and the reason for extending the law of redemption to their houses in the cities is evidently that they had no other inheritance, and it was therefore necessary in this to assimilate them to the rest of the people that they might enjoy the same safeguards against hopeless poverty with their brethren. This provision applied to the priests also, who constituted one family of the Levites, and were in the same situation as their brethren in regard to landed property. It is noticeable on the one hand that this is the only mention of the Levites in this book; and on the other, that the provision of cities for them had not yet been announced. Both facts admit of the easy explanation that the whole legislation had been communicated to Moses in the Mount, so that any part of it may presuppose another; but that he was to announce it to the people in the order best adapted to their needs. The Levites are not therefore spoken of in this book, except thus incidentally in order to keep them distinct from the priests; and the law in regard to the redemption of their houses in their cities is given to complete the law of Jubilee; but the assignment of the cities themselves is reserved to the directions for the division of the land.

Lev_25:35-55. The emancipation of the Hebrew slave with its consequences. The main subject is still the law of Jubilee; but in connection with the effect of this upon the Hebrew slave, the treatment of the poor generally is spoken of.—And if thy brother,i.e. an Israelite, be waxen poor, he was not to be treated as an outcast, but with the consideration shown to a resident foreigner, who also had no landed possession. Lev_25:36-37, forbid the taking of usury of him, or increase. In the latter verse this is applied also to the furnishing of food. It is entirely clear that the prohibition is not simply of what is now commonly called usurious interest, but of any interest whatever. There was no law regulating the amount of interest; no interest was allowed to be taken of a Hebrew brother, and no limitation was put upon that which might be demanded of a foreigner. Lange, however, considers the words: a stranger or a sojourner (Lev_25:35) as in apposition with the pronoun him, and taking the view expressed in the A. V., says: “It is very noticeable that this holds good also of the foreigner.” See Textual Note 19. Lange adds: “Jehovah says this, the great Benefactor, who has delivered His Israel out of Egypt, and purposes to give him the whole land of Canaan, in order to make him, through thankfulness, like-minded with his God.” (Lev_25:38.) Lev_25:39-43. Hebrew servants to Hebrews. The law provides that such servants shall not be treated as ordinary slaves entirely dependent upon the will of their master, but rather as simply under a contract, like a hired servant. In Exo_21:1-4 it has already been provided that the term of servitude for the Israelites should not extend beyond six years, and in the seventh they should go out free; it is now further provided, as an almost necessary supplement to that law, that, whatever the number of years he might chance to have served, he should go free in the Jubilee when the land of his inheritance reverted to him, and would need his care. “Through this principle slavery was completely abolished, so far as the people of the theocracy were concerned.” Oehler. In Ex. the freedom of his wife and children is also assured, unless the wife be one given him by his master, and therefore his slave. In that case the wife and children remained the master’s, and the same qualification is doubtless to be understood of Lev_25:41 here. In Exo_21:5-6, provision is made for the case of a slave who preferred to continue with his master; it would have been unnecessary at any rate to mention this unusual exception here; but probably it applied only to the ordinary release in the seventh year of service, and was not intended to take place also at the Jubilee. If the slave freed at the Jubilee chose to go back to his master, he could of course do so, but could only devote himself to perpetual servitude after another six years’ service. Lev_25:42-43. Lange: “The Israelites were not allowed to become men’s slaves, because they were God’s slaves. The Jews could misinterpret these noble words in arrogance in opposition to the heathen (John 8); but Christian industry has read them too little.” Lev_25:44-46. Heathen slaves of Hebrew masters. The Israelites, in common with all nations of their time, were permitted to hold heathen slaves. It was a patriarchal custom of long standing, and the supply was kept up by natural descent, by purchase from foreigners, and by captives taken in war. The people were not yet prepared for the abrogation of this, and in consequence the Mosaic law permits its continuance, but in many ways mitigates its rigor (see Exo_21:16; Exo_21:21; Exo_21:26-27), especially by providing that the slave might adopt the religion of his master, and be circumcised, and thus entitled to all the privileges of a Hebrew servant (comp. Exo_12:44). This had certainly been done with all the slaves of Abraham, and probably with those of Isaac and Jacob. It is likely that no inconsiderable portion of the Israelites of the time of Moses were the descendants of slaves thus manumitted. Lev_25:47-55. Hebrew servants to foreign masters. By this addition all possible cases of servitude are covered. Lange: “The prohibition of oppressive power against an Israelite brother occurs again Lev_25:43, and again Lev_25:46. So strongly were the Israelites now bound to charitableness and to the fostering of freedom; so strongly also was the power of the stranger and foreigner coming into Israel limited in relation to heathen encroachments upon the Jewish right of freedom. If an impoverished Jew sold himself or his house to a foreigner, any one of his kindred might become his redeemer, the brother, the uncle, the uncle’s son, or any blood relation; also he might redeem himself, if he had laid by enough for the purpose. Everything breathed the tendency to freedom; but it was conditioned by law. The price of the redemption was fixed according to the years which he had yet to serve to the year of Jubilee, and according to the usual wages. In case there was no redemption, he was set free in the year of Jubilee. At the close occurs yet once more the solemn sanction of the law, Lev_25:55.” This law evidently contemplates the acquisition of wealth by foreigners residing in Israel, and their living in undisturbed prosperity. The Hebrew slave of a Hebrew was released without redemption after six years of service, and also in the year of Jubilee whenever that might occur; but apparently the law of Exodus 21 does not apply to foreign masters, and here nothing is said of release, except by redemption, until the Jubilee. This would be a strong inducement to an impoverished Hebrew to sell himself to an Israelite rather than a foreigner, and concurs with the general tendency of the law to discourage any subjection to foreigners.

Lange connects the first two verses of the following chapter with this section as is done in the Jewish Parashah. They seem, however, to belong to the general conclusion of the book contained in the following chapter.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

I. Lange (under Exegetical): “The chosen land, seen from a distance, appears as a paradisaical world, inexhaustible in fruitfulness.… But it is to be particularly noticed that the prescribed Sabbath rest of the land forced the people back again to the inexhaustible source of food in the breeding of cattle, and so far to simple Idyllic relations; the breaking the hardness of purchase and property relations would further the return of Idyllic simplicity, soften the differences of rank, and above all, avert the so-called proletarian relations, and glorify Jehovah as the gentle sovereign Lord and manor Lord of the families of Israel joined together in brotherhood. By this also comfort was brought to the cattle, and even to the wild animal. In later times the turbulent, restless pressing on of industry is not appeased by voluntary or legal times of rest and years of remission, but indeed by commercial crises, civil catastrophes and extraordinary helps in necessity; but the proper ideas or ideal of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years have not yet come to be clearly seen in the Christian consciousness of the time.” What is noted by H. Spencer as the rythmic flow of all things in the universe is provided for in regard to human activity in this wonderful legislation; the disastrous consequences attending its absence are noted above by Lange.

II. Lange (also under Exeg.): “The limitation of human proprietary right to the soil has also its permanent ideal significance. God challenges to Himself the royal right over terrestrial nature, as a clear idea of this is given indeed in the winter storm over the sea, the Alpine glacier and the deserts. Man is inclined, in his egotistical industry, to harass nature as his beast.”

III. “Looking at the law of Jubilee from a simply practical point of view, its operation must have tended to remedy those evils which are always growing up in the ordinary conditions of human society. It prevented the permanent accumulation of land in the hands of a few, and periodically raised those whom fault or misfortune had sunk into poverty to a position of competency. It must also have tended to keep alive family feeling, and helped to preserve the family genealogies…… But in its more special character, as a law given by Jehovah to His peculiar people, it was a standing lesson to those who would rightly regard it, on the terms upon which the enjoyment of the land of Promise had been conferred upon them. All the land belonged to Jehovah as its supreme Lord, every Israelite as His vassal belonged to Him.” Clark.

IV. The law of slavery as understood among ancient nations generally is here essentially modified and softened, the Levitical precepts tending in the same direction with those of the Gospel which, after so long a time, have now nearly effected its abolition throughout the civilized world. But in regard to the Hebrews themselves, the law went much further, and substantially abolished slavery at once, reducing it to a six years’ service, and even this interrupted by the year of Jubilee, and subject to many restrictions. It is still further to be remembered that any foreign slave might be admitted to the privileges of the Hebrew, by becoming an Israelite through the reception of circumcision. Thus strongly did the law set its face against the institution of slavery.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Lange (under Exeg.): “The Sabbath year is the germ of the Jubilee year, as this is a type of the New Testament time of deliverance, restoration and freedom (Isaiah 61; Luk_4:18), and further, a prelude and a prophecy of the heavenly and eternal Sabbath itself (Hebrews 4).”

Lange (Homiletik): “The year of Jubilee of the theocratic land. The great year of rejoicing in the theocratic community. Ideals which have been scantily and scarcely fulfilled in the letter in Israel, but which in Christianity are continually being realized in the spirit. And this indeed in the commendable care of the fields and forests; in the dread of a gross profit out of nature; in the limitation of the proprietary right of individuals over nature; in customs of gentleness; in the consecration of the social right of fellowship; the right of the poor, the right of the laboring man, the right of rent and purchase. The later dismal caricatures of these ideals. Seven years a period after which the administration of nature required a new revision; forty [fifty] years a period after which the arrangements of business required a revision. The neglect of reform a source of revolution. The Jubilee year a type of the Gospel time of deliverance (Isaiah 61; Luk_4:16). The true preaching of the Gospel always a proclamation of the true Jubilee year. The Jewish and the Christian emancipation from slavery: 1) its common foundation, 2) its greater difference, 3) its unceasing development in the world.”

As the law provided for a redeemer for the poor, so, says Wordsworth, Christ became the Redeemer for the spiritually poor, reinstating us in our lost estate, and delivering us from the bondage of sin; and this He was entitled to do because by His incarnation He took our nature and became our Kinsman.

By the prohibition of sowing and harvesting in the Sabbatical and Jubilee years was again taught that principle which the Israelites learned from the manna in the wilderness, and which the words of Christ make of perpetual validity, that “man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.”

Very full and striking are the provisions of this chapter for the loving care of the poor, not for the sake of the poor only, but for the sake of him who should show them kindness. That the blessing of this lesson might not cease with the Mosaic dispensation, God has provided that we shall have the poor always with us, and our Lord has elevated our ministrations to them into ministrations to Himself. Similarly kindness and consideration towards those who labor for us is taught by Moses, and is ever made one of the prominent practical duties of Christianity. See Eph_6:9, etc.

Footnotes:

[1]Lev_25:3-4. כֶּרֶם. See Textual Note 6 on Lev_19:10.

[2]Lev_25:5. The Sam., LXX. and Syr. prefix the conjunction.

[3]Lev_25:5; Lev_25:11. נָזִיר means primarily the separated (see Gen_49:26; Deu_33:16), then the consecrated. Except in the passages referred to, and in this chap, it is always used of the Nazarite. It is applied to the vine either as for this year consecrated, so LXX. ἁγιάσματος σου; or by a figure of speech, thy Nazarite vine, as having its branches unpruned like the unshorn locks of the Nazarite. The latter is generally preferred by the commentators. See Keil who refers to the Latin viridis coma, Tibull. i. 7, 34; Propert. ii. 15, 12. Ten MSS., the Syr. and Vulg. read the word in the plural.

[4]Lev_25:6. The Sam. and Syr. read this and the three following words in the plural.

[5]Lev_25:7. וְלַחַיָּה. See Textual Note1 on Lev_11:2.

[6]Lev_25:8. Sabbath is used here as in Lev_23:15 (see note there) rather in a figurative way than with the definite sense of weeks.

[7]Lev_25:9. The word יוֹבֵל = Jubile of Lev_25:10 does not occur in this verse, and there is no occasion for its insertion. The שׁוֹפַר תְרוּעָה is the loud sound, clangor, of an instrument usually translated trumpet in the A. V., but occasionally (1Ch_15:28; 2Ch_15:14; Psa_98:6, etc.) more correctly cornet. It was either the horn of an animal (according to the Mishna, of chamois or wild goat), or made of metal in the fashion of a horn. The LXX. renders σάλπιγξ, the Vulg. buccina.

[8]Lev_25:10-13, etc. יוֹבֵל is translated throughout this chapter and Leviticus 27, jubile. So also Num_36:4. In Exo_19:13 it is rendered trumpet (marg. cornet), and in the only other places where it occurs, Jos_6:4-6; Jos_6:8; Jos_6:13, ram’s horns. Outside of the Bible the word is always spelt jubilee, but being here spelt jubile, Clark considers that it was intended to be pronounced as a dissyllable, making a close imitation of the Heb. word. Authorities differ as to its sense etymologically. See the subject discussed in Bochart, Hieroz, I. c. 43 (vol. I., pp. 463–466 ed. Rosen.), and Gesen. Thes. s. v. The LXX. renders ἄφεσις with relation to what was to be done in this year rather than as a translation of the Heb. word. Josephus (Ant. III. 12, 3) uses the Heb. word ἰωβήλος, which he explains as meaning liberty, ἐλευθερίαν δὲ σημαἰνει τοὔνομα. The Vulg. has jubileus. In Eze_46:17 it is called שְׁנַת הַדִּרוֹר = the year of liberty, from which Josephus probably derived his interpretation. This accords well with the context in Lev_25:11, and also with the derivation from יָבַל = to flow freely.

[9]Lev_25:14. The Heb. has the verb in the plural; but the Sam. has the sing in accordance with the sing, pronouns following. The word buy, קָנֹח is inf. abs., as in Gen_41:43.

[10]Lev_25:14. אַל־תּוֹנוּ. The verb יָנָה in the Hiph. applies especially to that sort of civil oppression brought about by fraud, which is best, expressed in English by the word overreach.

[11]Lev_25:23. לִצְמִתֻת, lit. for cutting off (as in marg. A. V.), viz. from all hope of redemption. In modern phrase, in perpetuity.

[12]Lev_25:26. The marg. his hand hath attained and found sufficiency exactly renders the Heb.; but the text of the A. V. is a sufficiently good translation except in failing to bring out the idea that the ability to redeem has come about since the sale took place. The Jewish interpretation was accordingly correct, that the right of redemption should only accrue in case the ability to re-purchase was gained after the sale had taken place; a merely voluntary sale must hold until the jubilee year.

[13]Lev_25:29. יָמִים תִּהְיִח גְּאֻלָּתוֹ, lit. days shall its redemption be, i.e. the right of redemption shall continue for a definite time and no longer, which time has been explained in the previous clause to be a year; it is better, however, to let the translation follow the Heb. than to paraphrase so much as has been done in the A. V.

[14]Lev_25:30. The k’ri לוֹ for the text לֹא is also the reading of the Sam. and of thirteen MSS.

[15]Lev_25:31. יֵחָשֵׁב is sing. The Sam., LXX. and Syr. have the plural.

[16]Lev_25:32. On this use of the particle ו see Nordheimer’s Heb. Gr. § 1093, 6, c, h. It is evident that there is nothing said about the redemption of the cities, which the form of the A. V. would seem to imply, but only of the houses in them.

[17]Lev_25:33. There is much diversity of opinion as to the meaning of this clause. The text of the A. V. is supported by the LXX. and by the Targums, and is defended by Keil. A difficulty arises from the use of the word יִגְאַל = redeem; but Keil maintains, on the authority of the Rabbins, that this is used in the sense of קָנָה = to buy. He grounds the usage on the fact that the Levitical cities were originally assigned to the tribes as a part of their inheritance; they relinquished the houses, or a part of the houses in them (together with pasture grounds) to the Levites for dwelling-places. When therefore one of another tribe purchased of a Levite, he was in fact redeeming the inheritance of his tribe. So Murphy. On the other hand, the reading: If one of the Levites redeems a house in the city (according to the marg. of the A. V.), is preferred by Clark following Rosenmüller, De Wette, Kranold, Herxheimer and others. The meaning will then be, that if a Levite has sold a house to one of another tribe, and another Levite redeem it, then in the Jubilee year it must revert to its original possessor. But it is more than questionable whether the Levites had any such general right of redemption on behalf of their fellow Levites as this would suppose. The Vulg. inserts a negative, Si redemptœ (sc. œdes) non fuerint, and this is sustained by Houbigant, and preferred by Woide, Ewald, Bunsen and Knobel. It is adopted by Lange in the translation and exegesis; but it is a serious objection that it would require a change in the Heb. On the whole, the text of the A. V. seems best sustained, and gives the clearest sense.

[18]Lev_25:33. On the use of וְ in the figure Hendiadys see Gesen. s. v. 1, b.

[19]Lev_25:35. The particle as is inserted here by the LXX., Vulg., Targums, Luther, etc., and is recognized as to be supplied by many commentators, as Keil, Clark and others. So also Riggs. On the other hand the Syr. gives just the opposite sense: thou shalt not hold him for a sojourner or foreigner; but he shall live with thee. Others, as Lange, adopt the sense expressed in the A. V.

[20]Lev_25:35. וְחֵי according to Keil, an abbreviation for וָחַי occurring only here.

[21]Lev_25:47. The missing conjunction is supplied in ten MSS., the LXX. and Syr.

[22]Lev_25:49. See Textual Note4 on Lev_18:6.

[23]Lev_25:54. The Heb. does not express the noun at all. That supplied by the marg. of the A. V. is clearly more agreeable to the context than that in the text. So Lange, following the Syr. The other ancient versions do not supply the ellipsis.

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

4. The Sabbatic Year and the Year of Jubilee

CHAPTER 25

1. The Sabbatic year (Lev 25:1-7)

2. The jubilee (Lev 25:8-12)

3. The jubilee and the land (Lev 25:13-28)

4. The jubilee and the dwelling houses (Lev 25:29-34)

5. The jubilee, the poor and the bondmen (Lev 25:35-55)

This is the great restoration chapter in Leviticus. All is connected preeminently with Israel’s land. The application, which has been made, that this chapter foreshadows a universal restitution of all things, including the wicked dead and Satan as well, is unscriptural. If such a restitution were true the Bible would contradict itself. The Sabbatic year could only be kept after Israel came into the land. “When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a Sabbath unto the Lord.” And Jehovah uttered these words from Mount Sinai and not from the tabernacle (Lev 1:1). Every seventh year, the land which belongs to Jehovah, and which was not to be sold, had to enjoy complete rest. See what gracious promises Jehovah had given in connection with the Sabbatic year (Lev 25:20-22). Jehovah was the Lord of the land, the owner of the land, and Israel received the land as a gift; they were the tenants. Beautifully the Lord said: “Ye are strangers and sojourners with Me.” When Israel sinned and broke the laws of Jehovah, when they did not give the land its rest, the Lord drove the people out of the land. Read here 26:32-35. “And I will bring the land into desolation and your enemies which dwelt therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the nations, and will draw out a sword after you, and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her Sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your Sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.” This prediction has been fulfilled. Israel is scattered among the nations of the earth and the land is desolate, a witness for the Word of God. Jehovah in giving the law concerning the Sabbatic year, gave to His people a picture of that coming rest, and the assurance of joy and blessing. But they failed.

The year of jubilee shows clearly the restoration which is in store for Israel and Israel’s land. It points once more to the millennial times of blessing and glory. How blessedly is that coming age of restoration and of glory seen in the year of jubilee! Without entering into details we give a few of the divine statements. What did the jubilee year mean to Israel? Liberty was proclaimed; every man returned to his possession; every man to his family; all wrongs were righted and the redemption of the bondmen took place. Seven times the word “return” is used; and oftener the word “redeem.” It was the time of returning, the blessed time of restoration and redemption.

And how was this year of jubilee ushered in? By the sound of the trumpet of the jubilee on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement. This great year of returning and redemption began with the day of atonement. Most likely after the high priest had returned from his holy office work and sprinkling of blood; after he had put the sins of the people upon the scapegoat and that sacrificial animal bearing upon its head Israel’s sin had vanished in the wilderness, the trumpet sounded. What all this means we have seen in the annotations of the “day of atonement” chapter. The year of jubilee begins, when our Lord comes back from the Holiest and appears in the midst of His people. And this time of restoration, blessing and glory is not confined to Israel’s land. It means more than the promised blessings for that land. We have the year of jubilee in Rom 8:19-23.

We must not forget the significance of the time, the fiftieth year. The day of Pentecost came fifty days after the resurrection of Christ from among the dead. And the fiftieth day brought, as the result of the death and resurrection of Christ, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the formation of the church began. It came on the eighth day, the first day of the week. The year of jubilee may well be termed another Pentecost. On that day a great outpouring of the Spirit of God will take place (Joe 2:28). The kingdom with all its glories and blessings will be established upon the earth. And how much more might be added to these blessed foreshadowings of the good things to come!

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

THE SABBATIC YEAR AND THE JUBILEE

Lev_25:1-55

THE system of annually recurring sabbatic times, as given in chapter 23, culminated in the sabbatic seventh month. But this remarkable system of sabbatisms extended still further, and besides the sacred seventh day, the seventh week, and seventh month, included also a sabbatic seventh year; and beyond that, as the, ultimate expression of the sabbatic idea, following the seventh seven of years, came the hallowed fiftieth year, known as the jubilee. And the law concerning these two last-named periods is recorded in this twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus.

First (Lev_25:1-5), is given the ordinance of the sabbatic seventh year, in the following words: "When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruits thereof; but in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath unto the Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. That which groweth of itself of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, and the grapes of thy undressed vine thou shalt not gather: it shall be a year of solemn rest for the land."

This sacred year is thus here described as a sabbath for the land unto the Lord, -a sabbath shabbathon; that is, a sabbath in a special and eminent sense. No public religious gatherings were ordered, however, neither was labour of every kind prohibited. It was strictly a year of rest for the land, and for the people in so far as this was involved in that fact. There was to be no sowing or reaping, even of what might grow of itself; no pruning of vineyard or fruit trees, nor gathering of their fruit. These regulations thus involved the total suspension of agricultural labour for this entire period.

It was further ordered (Lev_25:6-7) that during this year the spontaneous produce of the land should be equally free to all, both man and beast:

"The sabbath of the land shall be for food for you; for thee, and for thy servant and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant and for thy stranger that sojourn with thee; and for thy cattle, and for the beasts that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be for food."

That this cannot be regarded as merely a regulation of a communistic character, designed simply to affirm the absolute equality of all men in right to the product of the soil, is evident from the fact that the beasts also are included in the terms of the law. The object was quite different, as we shall shortly see.

That it should be regarded as possible for a whole people thus to live off the spontaneous produce of self-sowed grain may seem incredible to us who dwell in less propitious lands; and yet travellers tell us that in the Palestine of today, with its rich soil and kindly climate, the various food grains continuously propagate themselves without cultivation; and that in Albania, also, two and three successive harvests are sometimes reaped as the result of one sowing. So, even apart from the special blessing from the Lord promised to them if they would obey this command, the supply of at least the necessities of life was possible from the spontaneous product of the sabbath of the land. Though less than usual, it might easily be sufficient. Deu_15:1-11, it is ordered also that the seventh year should be "a year of release" to the debtor; not indeed as regards all debts, but loans only; nor, apparently, that even these should be released absolutely, but that throughout the seventh year the claim of the creditor was to be in abeyance. The regulation may naturally be regarded as consequent upon this fundamental law regarding the sabbath of the land. The income of the year being much less than usual, the debtor, presumably, might often find it difficult to pay; whence this restriction on collection of debt during this period.

The central thought of this ordinance then is this, that mans right in the soil and its product, originally granted from God, during this sabbatic year reverted to the Giver; who, again, by ordering that all exclusive rights of individuals in the produce of their estates should be suspended for this year, placed, for so long, the rich and the poor on an absolute equality as regards means of sustenance.

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

25:1-55 Just as seven days equaled a week ending in a Sabbath day, each seven years ended with a Sabbath year. Likewise, after seven Sabbath years (i.e., 49 years total) came a special year, the Year of Jubilee. Like so many holidays, these occasions were times of reflection on Israel’s corporate identity and how they were shaped by their relationship with God. Because every Israelite, bond or free, had a part in God’s kingdom, those bound in servitude were freed in the Year of Jubilee (25:39-43). In order to curb economic hardship and foster well-being, land sales were limited to a maximum term of fifty years. The land was then to be returned to the original owner’s family or clan. The land belonged to the Lord; the Israelites were merely tenants (25:23). It is unlikely, however, that these laws saw much use; the best land fell into the hands of rich landowners (Isa 5:8-10; cp. Amos 5:11).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The law of Moses laid a great deal of stress upon the sabbath, the sanctification of which was the earliest and most ancient of all divine institutions, designed for the keeping up of the knowledge and worship of the Creator among men; that law not only revived the observance of the weekly sabbath, but, for the further advancement of the honour of them, added the institution of a sabbatical year: In the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, Lev 25:4. And hence the Jews collect that vulgar tradition that after the world has stood six thousand years (a thousand years being to God as one day) it shall cease, and the eternal sabbath shall succeed - a weak foundation on which to build the fixing of that day and hour which it is God's prerogative to know. This sabbatical year began in September, at the end of harvest, the seventh month of their ecclesiastical year: and the law was, 1. That at the seed-time, which immediately followed the end of their in-gathering, they should sow no corn in their land, and that they should not in the spring dress their vineyards, and consequently that they should not expect either harvest or vintage the next year. 2. That what their ground did produce of itself they should not claim any property or use in, otherwise than from hand to mouth, but leave it for the poor, servants, strangers, and cattle, Lev 25:5-7. It must be a sabbath of rest to the land; they must neither do any work about it, nor expect any fruit from it; all annual labours must be intermitted in the seventh year, as much as daily labours on the seventh day. The Jews say they "began not to reckon for the sabbatical year till they had completed the conquest of Canaan, which was in the eighth year of Joshua; the seventh year after that was the first sabbatical year, and so the fiftieth year was the jubilee." This year there was to be a general release of debts (Deu 15:1, Deu 15:2), and a public reading of the law in the feast (Deu 31:10, Deu 31:11), to make it the more solemn. Now, (1.) God would hereby show them that he was their landlord, and that they were tenants at will under him. Landlords are wont to stipulate with their tenants when they shall break up their ground, how long they shall till it, and when they shall let it rest: God would thus give, grant, and convey, that good land to them, under such provisos and limitations as should let them know that they were not proprietors, but dependents on their Lord. (2.) It was a kindness to their land to let it rest sometimes, and would keep it in heart (as our husbandmen express it) for posterity, whose satisfaction God would have them to consult, and not to use the ground as if it were designed only for one age. (3.) When they were thus for a whole year taken off from all country business, they would have the more leisure to attend the exercises of religion, and to get the knowledge of God and his law. (4.) They were hereby taught to be charitable and generous, and not to engross all to themselves, but to be willing that others should share with them in the gifts of God's bounty, which the earth brought forth of itself. (5.) They were brought to live in a constant dependence upon the divine providence, finding that, as man lives not by bread alone, so he has bread, not by his own industry alone, but, if God pleases, by the word of blessing from the mouth of God, without any care or pains of man, Mat 4:4. (6.) They were reminded of the easy life man lived in paradise, when he ate of every good thing, not, as since, in the sweat of his face. Labour and toil came in with sin. (7.) They were taught to consider how the poor lived, that did neither sow nor reap, even by the blessing of God upon a little. (8.) This year of rest typified the spiritual rest which all believers enter into through Christ, our true Noah, who giveth us comfort and rest concerning our work, and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed, Gen 5:29. Through him we are eased of the burden of worldly care and labour, both being sanctified and sweetened to us, and we are enabled and encouraged to live by faith. And, as the fruits of this sabbath of the land were enjoyed in common, so the salvation wrought out by Christ is a common salvation; and this sabbatical year seems to have been revived in the Christian church, when the believers had all things common, Act 2:44.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

CHAPTER XXV

The law concerning the Sabbatical or seventh year repeated,

1-7.

The law relative to the jubilee, or fiftieth year, and the

hallowing of the fiftieth, 8-12.

In the year of jubilee every one to return unto his

possessions, 13.

None to oppress another in buying and selling, 14.

Purchases to be rated from jubilee to jubilee, according to the

number of years unexpired, 15-17.

Promises to obedience, 18,19.

Promises relative to the Sabbatical year, 20-22.

No inheritance must be finally alienated, 23, 24.

No advantage to be taken of a man's poverty in buying his land,

25-28.

Ordinances relative to the selling of a house in a walled city,

29, 30;

in a village, 31.

Houses of the Levites may be redeemed at any time, 32, 33.

The fields of the Levites in the suburbs must not be sold, 34.

No usury to be taken from a poor brother, 35-38.

If an Israelite be sold to an Israelite, he must not be obliged

to serve as a slave, 39,

but be as a hired servant or as a sojourner, till the year of

jubilee, 40,

when he and his family shall have liberty to depart, 41;

because God claims all Israelites as his servants, having

redeemed them from bondage in Egypt, 42, 43.

The Israelites are permitted to have bond-men and bond-women of

the heathens, who, being bought with their money, shall be

considered as their property, 44-46.

If an Israelite, grown poor, be sold to a sojourner who has

waxed rich, he may be redeemed by one of his relatives, an

uncle or uncle's son, 47-49.

In the interim between the jubilees, he may be redeemed; but if

not redeemed, he shall go free in the jubilee, 50-54.

Obedience enforced by God's right over them as his servants,

55.

NOTES ON CHAP. XXV

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

XXV.

(1) And the Lord spake unto Moses.—This chapter should properly have followed Leviticus 23, since the institutions of the sabbatical year, and the jubile which it discusses, are closely connected with the regulations about the festivals laid down in that chapter. The isolation of these ordinances from the rest of the festivals cannot be satisfactorily explained on any other principle than that which the authorities during the second Temple laid down, viz., that many of the sections are transposed, and that “there is no strict sequence in the Law.”

In Mount Sinai.—That is, in the mountainous regions of Sinai. The expression “mountain” is often used to denote a mountainous tract of country (Num_12:9; Deu_1:2; Jos_14:12, &c.). Accordingly, this divine communication was made to Moses when the Israelites were encamped in the neighbourhood of Sinai, where they remained in the wilderness for twelve months after their exodus from Egypt (Num_10:11-12).

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1–7. The rest year was a transference to the land of the sabbatical idea emphasized each week for living creatures, the year being now taken as the unit instead of the day. See App. I, pp. 172 f. for the difference in standpoint between this and the parallel ordinances elsewhere in the Hexateucb, as indicating modifications of the same law in successive periods.

The seventh year is to bear the same relation to the six preceding years as the sabbath to the six preceding days of the week. The parallel between the land and the bondman was close. The divinely appointed seventh day of rest is to be kept holy by abstaining from work, so the land shall keep every seventh year holy to the Lord by resting from all work. It cannot be wholly inactive, but nothing is to be done which will cause the land to put forth its full strength. By a curtailment of the full powers bestowed upon man and land by their Creator both were to keep holy a season to the Lord. In Exo_23:10-11 the fallow year is regarded as a provision for the poor and part of the animal creation, while the religious idea underlies the injunctions of the passage in Leviticus.

In pre-exilic times the law seems to have been, at any rate to a large extent, disregarded (see ch.Lev_26:35; Lev_26:43; 2Ch_36:21).

It is true that the custom of letting land lie fallow prevails in so many countries and can be traced back so far that it is certain that the Hebrews must have observed something of the kind from the time of their being settled. If the fallow time were different for different fields there would be nothing to call for special note, and it is not surprising that no reference is found to the practice in the historical Books. But a fixed fallow year for all the land would cause an interruption of social life of which some traces would be found in the history.

Later on, in Nehemiah’s time (Neh_10:31), the people bound themselves to carry out the Law. According to Josephus (Ant. xi. 8. 6) both Jews and Samaritans observed it in the time of Alexander the Great, and so later in the days of the Hasmonean dynasty (1Ma_6:49; 1Ma_6:53; Ant. xiii. 8. 1) and the Herods (ib. xiv. 16. 2). Tacitus (Hist. Lev_25:4), however, attributes the Jews’ observance of it to laziness.

The sabbatical year concluded with the Feast of Tabernacles (Deu_31:10), and the old reckoning, by which the year began in autumn, not in spring (see on Lev_23:23-25), was necessarily applied in this case. The year’s circle of agricultural operations naturally would begin as soon as harvest and vine-gathering were finished. Had it begun in the first month (after the sowing of spring time) the harvests of both sixth and seventh years would have been lost.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And the Lord spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai,.... Not when Moses was with the Lord on that mount forty days, but after he came down from thence, even after the tabernacle was set up, while the children of Israel where encamped about that mountain, and before they took their journey from thence; for they continued some time in the wilderness of Sinai, and here it was the Lord spoke to Moses; for the words may be rendered "by" or "near Mount Sinai" (g); and so Josephus (h) says, the following laws were delivered to Moses, when Israel was encamped under Mount Sinai:

saying; as follows.

(g) "apud seu juxta montem", Piscator; so Ainsworth, Patrick, &c. (h) Antiqu. l. 3. c. 12. sect. 3.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee belong to that great sabbatical system which runs through the religious observances of the Law, but rest upon moral rather than upon formally religious ground. It is not, therefore, without reason that they are here set apart from the set times which fell strictly within the sphere of religious observances.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

1491

i.e. Near Mount Sinai. So the Hebrew particle beth is sometimes used, as Gen 27:13; Jos 5:13; Jdg 8:5; 2Ch 33:20, compared with 2Ki 21:18. So there is no need to disturb the order of the history in this place.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Sabbatical Year. The Year of Jubilee

The matters treated in this chapter are closely related to those in Leviticus 23, and their separation is another indication that we are dealing with a book made up of different elements. Observe again the change of number in Lev_25:14, Lev_25:17 and the interruption caused by Lev_25:18-22. Cp. what is said above in intro. to Leviticus 21.

1-7. The law of the Sabbatical Year: see also Exo_23:10-11; Deu_15:1-11; Deu_31:9-13. This law rests on the principle that the land inhabited by the Israelites is not theirs in absolute possession. It really belongs to God; 'the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me' (Lev_25:23). To keep the people in mind of this, it is enacted that every seventh year the land has to lie fallow. Only the spontaneous produce of that year is to be enjoyed, and that not selfishly or for profit; it is to be shared with the poor and strangers (Exo_23:11). Everything is to be common. Slaves are to be set free if they desire their freedom (Exo_21:2-6), and debts are to be remitted to Israelites (Deu_15:1-3;). It is promised that the harvest of the sixth year will be sufficiently abundant to provide for the wants of the people till they reap again (Lev_25:20-22). The Sabbatical Year began with the first day of Tishri: see on Lev_23:28. How far these enactments were actually carried out it is difficult to say. There is no mention of their observance during preexilic times, so that they may have been allowed to become a dead letter, a supposition confirmed by what is said in 2Ch_36:21. They were renewed under Nehemiah (Neh_10:31;).

5. This v. is interesting as containing the only example of the word 'its' in AV Elsewhere the word 'his' is used as the possessive of the neuter pronoun. In the AV of 1611 it is printed 'it'; 'that which groweth of it owne accorde.'

Year of rest unto the land] As customs similar to this are found in other countries, it is probable that it is a survival of a communistic age. At the same time, it was a benefit to the land. Thus we have another example here of the Lawgiver adopting a primitive custom and investing it with the sanctity of religion. Cp. what is said in intro. to Leviticus 11-15, and see also Intro, to Exodus.

8-55. The Year of Jubilee. Thisrestsonthe same principle as the Sabbatical Year: see above. In the fiftieth year, i.e. after a period of 7 × 7 years, the land is to lie fallow, and Hebrew slaves with their families are to be emancipated without price, as in the Sabbatical Year (Lev_25:39-55). A new and distinctive feature, however, makes its appearance. In the Year of Jubilee all property reverts naturally to the original owner, who through poverty may have been obliged to sell it at some time during the previous period (Lev_25:13-28). The freehold of agricultural land could never, therefore, be sold in perpetuity (Lev_25:23), and in cases of sale the purchase price was regulated according to the number of years still to run till the Year of Jubilee (Lev_25:14-16). The only exception was house property in a walled city (Lev_25:29.). The case of the Levitical cities is specially dealt with (Lev_25:32-34).

The Year of Jubilee was thus, as it were, the 'new birth' of the whole nation, when property was redistributed, and the inequalities arising in the previous period were removed. It was a remarkable social law, putting a check upon ambition and covetousness, preventing the acquisition of huge estates, and adjusting the distribution of wealth in the various classes of the community. The incidents of Ruth (Leviticus 4) and of Naboth (1 Kings 21) show that the law against the alienation of land was in force in early times: cp. Jer_32:6. That it was not unnecessary in later times appears from such passages as Isa_5:8; Mic_2:2.

9. The Year of Jubilee began on the Day of Atonement, and was ushered in with the blowing of trumpets; hence its name (Heb. johel = a ram's horn trumpet).

23. Forever] RV 'in perpetuity.'

25. A kinsman could redeem his relative's property at any time at a price calculated according to the years still to elapse before the Jubilee.

26. And himself..] RV 'and he be waxen rich and find sufficient to redeem it.'

28. Restore it to him] RV 'get it back for himself.'

32. The Levites were granted forty-eight cities to dwell in, with suburbs for their cattle: see Numbers 35.

35-38. See on Exo_22:25.

39-46. See on Exo_21:1-6. Only foreigners could be bought as slaves for ever.

47-54. The converse case of a Hebrew sold to a foreigner.

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1.) Their peculiar relationship to Jehovah; 2.) Their deliverance from Egypt; 3.) The promise of Canaan; and 4.) The continued future regards of God.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The subject of the sacred seasons is taken up again in this chapter, after the parenthetical insertion of chapter 24. There remain the septennial festive season and that of the half-century the sabbatical year and the jubilee.

The sabbatical year was instituted not for any supposed physical benefit accruing from it to the land, but, first, as serving for a link between the sabbath and the jubilee by means of the sacred number seven the sabbatical year being the seventh year, and the jubilee being the year following the seven-times-seventh year; and secondly, and chiefly, as enforcing the lesson of the weekly sabbath in a manner that could not be overlooked, and symbolically, teaching the universal application of the sabbatical law, even where physical needs were not concerned, and in that way suggesting the expectation of a rest to be hereafter attained by all God"s creatures. The sabbatical year began with the commencement of the civil year, the 1st of Tisri, just before the autumn sewings, which were intermitted for one year. The ground was not tilled during this year (verse 4). There was a release of debts, (Deu_15:1-11) and there was to be public reading of God"s Law. (Deu_31:10-13) During the previous six years the husbandmen had been well aware of the coming sabbatical year, and would have laid by in store accordingly, so as to support themselves and their families during that year. The release of debts inculcated mercy. The command that the Law should be publicly read showed that the intention of the institution was not that the year should be spent in idleness, but that the time saved from ordinary labour was to be given to devotional pursuits. The law of the sabbatical year was so hard of observance by an agricultural people, that it was seldom or never acted upon until the Captivity. (see 2Ch_36:21) But after that time it seems to have been religiously kept (see Josephus, "Ant.," 11:8, 6; 14:10, 6; 14:16, 2; 15:1, 2; 1 Macc. 6:49; Gal_4:10; Tacit., "Hist.," 5:2, 4).

The jubilee was a joyous year appointed to be observed every fifty years. The cycle of the sabbatical year and the jubilee touched without coalescing. The forty-ninth year was necessarily a sabbatical year, and the following year was the jubilee. It has appeared to some so difficult to believe that two years in which it was not allowable to engage in agricultural work should come together, that they have assumed that the sabbatical year itself, that is, the forty-ninth year, was the year of the jubilee. But this was clearly not the case. Twice in the century the laud was to lie fallow for two years running from September to the second September following special preparations having, of course, been made by laying up a store of grain from the abundant harvest promised in the previous year (verse 21), and foreign crops being, no doubt, imported to take the place of the usual home crops. In matter of fact, however, these two blank years seldom, if ever, occurred together; for as the sabbatical year was not observed before the Captivity, while there are indications of the existence of the jubilee, (1Ki_21:3 Isa_61:1-3) so probably the jubilee ceased to be observed after the Captivity, when the sabbatical year was carefully kept. Supposing that they did come together, the second year in which labour was prohibited would end just in time for the seed to be sown for the next summer"s harvest.

The jubilee affected both land and men. Land could only be sold for fifty years, its value immediately after a jubilee had passed being that of fifty harvests, or rather, deducting the sabbatical years and the fiftieth year, of forty-two harvests. If it were sold, it might be bought back by the original owner or any of his relations, counting the number of harvests remaining before the next jubilee, and buying out the previous purchaser with the sum of money thus estimated. No more effective plan could be well devised for preserving the various properties in the families to which they were at first assigned.

The other point chiefly affected by the law of the jubilee was slavery. In ease a brother Israelite became poor, it was the duty of his richer brethren to help him, and to lend him money without interest, to set him up in the world again. But if this did not succeed, the poor man might sell himself as a slave, either to an Israelite or to a foreigner living in the land. In the former ease it had been already enacted that his slavery was not to last beyond six years. (Exo_21:2) To this enactment it was now added that he must be also set free whenever the year of jubilee occurred.

If he became the slave of a non-Israelite, he must be set free, not as before on the seventh year of his slavery, but still at the jubilee. He had also preserved for him the right of being redeemed by any kinsman, the price paid for him being the wages which would be paid up to the next jubilee. In either case, he was to be treated without rigour, and it was the duty of the Israelite magistrate to see that no undue harshness was used by the foreign master. The principle is, as before, that as the land is God"s land, not man"s, so the Israelites were the slaves of God, not of man, and that if the position in which God placed them was allowed to be interfered with for a time, it was to be recovered every seventh, or at furthest every fiftieth, year. The possession of slaves was not forbidden the world was not yet ready for such a prohibition. The Hebrews might purchase and own slaves of alien blood, but between Hebrew and Hebrew the institution of master and slave was practically abolished, and superseded (in most respects) by the relationship of master and servant.

And the Lord spake unto Moses in mount Sinai. The purpose of the words, in Mount Sinai, is not to distinguish the place in which the sabbatical law and the law of the jubilee were given from that in which the preceding laws were delivered. The words mean only, "in the Sinai district;" and they are employed because these laws form the conclusion of the series of laws given while tile people were en-camped under Mount Sinai. The law on vows is, it is true, added to them, but it is by way of appendix.

HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD Vers. 1-7, 18-22. The sabbatic year.

At the close of the original week the sabbath of the seventh day was given; that of the seventh year, on the entrance of the Hebrews into Canaan. The former was a memorial of creation; the latter, of redemption. These are intimately related. There are correspondences between the old creation and the new the material and the spiritual. The grand effect of redemption will be the constitution of a new creation, in which the mundane system will participate.

I THE SEVENTH YEAR WAS A "SABBATH OF THE LAND." Then:

1. The soil remained untilled.

(1) In other years it was customary to sow the grain after the Feast of Ingathering, and the vines were pruned in the spring. While we are in this world the greater portion of our time should be occupied in its concerns. This is God"s order. The thing in hand should be done with might.

(2) In this year no seed was sown, and there was no dressing of vines. The affairs of this world must not engross all our time and care.

(3) The sentiment of religion must be with us in our earthly business. Religion must limit the time it claims the intensity with which it is pursued. Thus:

2. The people were taught to trust God.

(1) They lived upon the natural productiveness of the soil. But not without the blessing of God upon it. Natural productiveness without the blessing of God is a poor dependence.

(2) With that blessing, such was the bounty of the sixth year that it carried the nation on to the harvest of the eighth (see verses 21, 22). Thus miraculously was the fruit of three years brought forth in one. This was in perpetuity the miracle of the manna. (Exo_16:22; see also Mat_4:4)

(3) What reply to this institution can those give who would convict Moses as an impostor? (see Exo_23:10, Exo_23:11) No sensible man would have made such a law as this, unless he acted under Divine direction; for the sixth year would have refuted his pretensions. Thus also:

3. The people were taught to hope in God.

(1) Every recurrence of the sabbatic year reminded them of the period before sin entered, in which the earth of its natural strength brought forth plenty.

(2) In it too they anticipated the period when, through the redemption of the gospel, the curse shall be lifted from the earth, and men shall be released from the burden of labour. (see also Gen_3:17 Gen_4:11, 12 5:29 Isa_65:17-25 Rom_8:18-23 Rev_22:3)

II TURN THE FRUIT OF THE LORD"S LAND WAS FREE.

1. The land is the Lord"s.

(1) In this law he asserted his right as Landlord to impose conditions upon his people when he gave them possession of Canaan. All God"s gifts carry conditions. This should ever be remembered.

(2) God"s laws will regulate the new heavens and earth. They will not then be contravened. Happy will that state be. By loyalty to the laws of God we should now anticipate that state as much as in us lies.

2. This year the tenant shared his benefits with all comers.

(1) What fruit came spontaneously was free to the poor free to the stranger free to the cattle free even to the wild animal. What a lesson of generosity! of public spirit! of kindness to animals! Consider here also the Divine philosophy of rights in property.

(2) Note that the resolution of the primitive Christian Church to have all things in common was not without precedent. (see Act_2:44) Also that in the light of this precedent we may discern their purpose; and learn that when the Spirit shall be poured out upon all flesh, of which the baptism of the Pentecost was but an installment, the consummation will be happy.

(3) But how different are the theories of our socialists! Satan is an adept at setting up counterfeits. The idle vagabond has no objection to be the subject of love from others, if he can thereby live on their property. He would eat without working, in contravention of the apostolic rule. (see 1Th_4:11, 12 2Th_3:10) He has no conception of those spiritual blessings in connection with which alone communism is a happy possibility.

(4) The feeding together of the cattle and wild animals points to the universality of the blessings of the gospel. (see Isa_11:6-9 Isa_56:7-9 Hos_2:18 Act_10:11, Act_10:12) The feeding together of the stranger and poor Hebrew on the holding of the rich sets forth the spirituality of the gospel. These things will be blessedly realized in the sabbaths, viz. of the millennium, and of the heavenly world.

3. There was a release from debts. (see Deu_15:1, Deu_15:2)

(1) The gospel truly is "the Lord"s release.

(2) This release will be perfected in the heavenly state.

III THE LEISURE OF THIS YEAR WAS RELIGIOUSLY SPENT.

1. The Law was publicly read. (see Deu_31:10, Deu_31:11)

a. Our leisure should be largely given to the study of the Word of God.

b. Leisure should be made for this important duty.

2. If not religiously used, leisure is fruitful in mischief.

(1) The want of a worthy aim is in itself a great mischief. The faculties suffer.

(2) The want of a worthy aim implies the pursuit of that which demoralizes. We are constitutionally active. We cannot sleep away existence.

(3) The curse of labour is a blessing in disguise. All God"s curses crop up as blessings somewhere. This must be so, for he is essentially and everlastingly Good. Men who retire from business should give their leisure to Church work. J.A.M.

HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-7. Divine discipline.

This was certainly one of the most striking institutions which God gave to Israel. It was, in a high degree, disciplinary. Rightly taken, it would engrave sacred truth on their minds more deeply and effectually than either word or rite. It was calculated

I TO TEACH THEM THE TRUTH AS TO THE DIVINE OWNERSHIP. God claimed to be the One Proprietor of the land. He had given it to the nation by his direct guidance, and by his interposing power. To him it belonged, and those who occupied were to feel that they held everything at his good pleasure. What could more effectually and impressively teach this than the right which God reserved, to require them to do what he thought was best with the soil to cultivate it or to leave it untilled? How difficult we find it to realize as we should that we hold everything as tenants at the Divine will; that we must be ready at his word to lay down that which we most regard as "our own;" that we are but "strangers and sojourners with God" (verse 23)!

II TO INCULCATE MODERATION IN TEE USE OF THAT WHICH THEY POSSESSED. Making haste to be rich, men too often exhaust themselves and the objects on which they work. How often is land impoverished by the incessant demand the agriculturist makes upon it! God demanded that the rich land he gave Israel should not be rendered infertile by their drawing immoderately on its virtue. He would have us use prudently, as those who look forward, the things which he puts in our power. The lesson particularly applies, in our time, to the use we make of our physical and mental powers; we should give these full measure of rest, a restorative sabbath, that they may serve us the better and the longer.

III TO ENCOURAGE A SENSE OF BROTHERHOOD AND KINDNESS OF HEART. (Verses 6, 7) Of that which was spontaneously produced all might freely partake. The land was for the nation, and not merely for those whose names were enrolled as proprietors. The husbandman was to be trained to see his neighbours, whatever their condition or relation to himself, gathering the fruits of his land. This sabbatic institution said practically to him, and says to us, "God has given the earth and all it bears to the many and not to the few, to all classes of the people: cause all to rejoice in the abundance of his gifts.

IV TO TEST THEIR MORAL AND RELIGIOUS DISPOSITION.

1. It would test their obedience. They would be under some temptation to make the ordinary use of their opportunity, and to secure a harvest by tillage. This word of the Lord tried them; the obedient regarded, the disobedient disregarded, his will.

2. It would also test their industrial virtues. Perhaps there was more room left for daily activity than some have imagined. "Each day would still present certain calls for labour in the management of household affairs, the superintendence or care of the cattle, the husbanding of the provisions laid up from preceding years, and the execution, perhaps, of improvements and repairs." Nevertheless, there must have been some temptation to abuse the long holiday. A wise man has said that nothing is so certain a criterion of character as the way in which men spend their leisure hours. The idle are tempted to vacancy or folly; the wise find an opportunity for

1. real recreation, for

2. self-improvement, for

3. service of others, for

4. the worship of God. C. (see Deu_31:9-13)

HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD Vers. 1-7. The sabbatical year.

Rest of the land, as the physical source of blessings, as the consecrated portion of God"s people.

I THE NATURAL BASIS OF RELIGION. Creation. Providence. Moral government. "Man is one world, and hath another to attend him" (George Herbert). The ascent of the higher nature from the lower. The subordination of the material and temporary to the immaterial and eternal. Care of all life involved in the covenant of God with his people. The life of the vegetable world, the life of the animal world, viewed in their relation to higher purposes of God. Art is perfected only in the atmosphere of religion. Science, both theoretic and applied, requires to be pervaded with religious spirit, or becomes atheistic, worldly, and corrupt.

II THE BLESSING OF GOD ON HIS PEOPLE. "A sabbath for the Lord," that he may rejoice with his children.

1. Material blessings promised: "All these things shall be added unto you;" "he careth for you; godliness hath the promise of the world which now is.

2. Rest in the Lord, over all the land, in all states and conditions, eventually in all men. The resting land typical of the Divine promise of a restored earth and regained paradise. The weekly sabbath enlarged. Time expanding to eternity. Special opportunities granted for the larger spiritual culture. R.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

In token of his peculiar right to the land of Canaan, God in this chapter appoints,

1. That every seventh year should be a year of rest, ver. 1-7.

2. That every fiftieth year should be a year of jubilee, ver. 8-17. A peculiar blessing annext, ver. 18-22. The land sold may be redeemed: if not, it shall revert at the year of jubilee, only with some exceptions, ver. 23-34. Usury forbidden, ver. 35-38. Jewish servants to be released at the jubilee, ver. 39. but heathens might be retained, ver. 40-46. Of an Israelite that sold himself to a stranger, ver. 47-55.

In Mount Sinai - That is, near Mount Sinai. So the Hebrew particle beth is sometimes used. So there is no need to disturb the history in this place.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Leviticus 25

The intelligent reader will discern a strong moral link between this and the preceding chapter. In Lev. 24 we learn that the house of Israel is preserved for the land of Canaan. In chapter 25 we learn that the land of Canaan is preserved for the house of Israel. Taking both together, we have the record of a truth which no power of earth or hell can obliterate. "All Israel shall be saved," and "the land shall not be sold forever." The former of these statements enunciates a principle which has stood like a rock amid the ocean of conflicting interpretations; while the latter declares a fact which many nations of the uncircumcised have sought in vain to ignore.

The reader will, I doubt not, observe the peculiar way in which our chapter opens. "And! the Lord spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai." The principal part of the communications contained in the Book of Leviticus is characterised by the fact of its emanating "from the tabernacle of the congregation." This is easily accounted for. Those communications have special reference to the service, communion, and worship of the priests, or to the moral condition of the people, and hence they are issued, as might be expected, from "the tabernacle of the congregation," that grand centre of all that appertained, in any way, to priestly service. Here, however, the communication is made from quite a different point. "The Lord spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai." Now, we know that every expression in Scripture has its own special meaning, and we are justified in expecting a different line of communication from "mount Sinai" from that which reaches us from "the tabernacle of the congregation." And so it is. The chapter at which we have now arrived treats of Jehovah’s claims as Lord of all the earth. It is not the worship and communion of a priestly house, or the internal ordering of the nation; but the claims of God in government, His right to give a certain portion of the earth to a certain people to hold as tenants under Him. In a word, it is not to Jehovah in "the tabernacle" - the place of worship; but Jehovah in "Mount Sinai" - the place of government.

"And the Lord spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a Sabbath unto the Lord. 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. That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land. And 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, and for thy cattle, and for the beast that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat." (Ver. 1-7)

Here, then, we have the special feature of the Lord’s land. He would have it to enjoy a sabbatical year, and in that year there was to be the evidence of the rich profusion with which He would bless those who held as tenants under Him. Happy, highly privileged tenantry! What an honour to hold immediately under Jehovah! No rent! No taxes! No burdens! Well might it be said, "Happy is the people that is in such a case; yea, happy is the nation whose God is Jehovah." We know, alas! that Israel failed to take full possession of that wealthy land of which Jehovah made them a present, He had given it all. He had given it forever. They took but a part, and that for a time. Still, there it is, The property is there, though the tenants are ejected for the present. "the land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me." What does this mean, but that Canaan belongs specially to Jehovah, and that He will hold it through the tribes of Israel? True, "the earth is the Lord’s," but that is quite another thing. It is plain that He has been pleased, for His own unsearchable purposes, to take special possession of the land of Canaan, and to submit that land to a peculiar line of treatment, to mark it off from all other lands, by calling it His own, and to distinguish it by judgements, and ordinances, and periodical solemnities, the mere contemplation of which enlightens the understanding: and affects the heart. Where, throughout all the earth, do we read of a land enjoying a year of unbroken repose - a year of richest abundance? The rationalist may ask, "How can these things be" The sceptic may doubt if they could be; but faith finds a satisfying answer from the lips of Jehovah: "And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase: 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 old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store." (Ver. 20-22) Nature might say, "What shall we do for our sowing?" Gods answer is, "I will command My blessing." God’s "blessing" is better far than man’s "sowing." He was not going to let them starve in His sabbatic year. They were to feed upon the fruits of His blessing, while they celebrated His year of rest - a year which pointed forward to that eternal Sabbath that remains for the people of God.

"And thou shalt number seven Sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land." (Ver. 8, 9) It is peculiarly interesting to note the various methods in which the millennial rest was held up to view, in the Jewish economy. Every seventh day was a sabbatical day; every seventh year was a sabbatical year; and every seven times seven years there was a jubilee. Each and all of these typical solemnities held up to the vision of faith the blessed prospect of a time when labour and sorrow should cease; when "the sweat of the brow" would no longer be needed to satisfy the cravings of hunger; but when a millennial earth, enriched by the copious showers of divine grace, and fertilised by the bright beams of the Sun of righteousness, should pour its abundance into the storehouse and winepress of the people of God. Happy time! Happy people! How blessed to be assured that these things are not the pencillings of immagination, or the flights of fancy, but the substantial verities of divine revelation, to be enjoyed by faith which is "the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

Of all the Jewish solemnities the jubilee would seem to have been the most soul-stirring and enrapturing. It stood immediately connected with the great day of atonement. It was when the blood of the victim was shed, that the emancipating sound of the jubilee trump was heard through the hills and valleys of the land of Canaan. That longed-for note was designed to wake up the nation from the very centre of its moral being, to stir the deepest depths of the soul, and to send a shining river of divine and ineffable joy through the length and breadth of the land. "In the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. Not a corner was to remain unvisited by "the joyful sound." The aspect of the jubilee was as wide as the aspect of the atonement on which the jubilee was based.

"And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. A jubilee 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. For it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field. In the year of this jubilee ye shall return every man unto his possession." (Ver. 8-13) All estates and conditions of the people were permitted to feel the hallowed and refreshing influence of this most noble institution. The exile returned; the captive was emancipated; the debtor set free; each family opened its bosom to receive once more its long-lost members; each inheritance received back its exiled owner. The sound of the trumpet was the welcome and soul-stirring signal for the captive to escape; for the slave to cast aside the chains of his bondage; for the manslayer to return to his home; for the ruined and poverty-stricken to rise to the possession of their forfeited inheritance. No sooner had the trumpet’s thrice-welcome sound fallen upon the ear, than the mighty tide of blessing rose majestically, and sent its refreshing undulations into the most remote corners of Jehovah’s highly-favoured land.

"And if thou sell ought unto thy neighbour, or buyest ought of thy neighbour’s hand, ye shall not oppress one another: according to the number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbour, and according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee. According to the multitude of years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price of it: for according to the number of the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee. Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God: for I am "the Lord your God." (Ver. 14-17) The year of jubilee reminded both buyer and seller that the land belonged to Jehovah, and was not to be sold. "The fruits" might be sold, but that was all - Jehovah could never give up the land to any one. It is important to get this point well fixed in the mind. It may open up a very extensive line of truth. If the land of Canaan is not to be sold - if Jehovah declares it to be His for ever, then for whom does He want it? Who is to hold under Him? Those to whom He gave it by an everlasting covenant, that they might have it in possession as long as the moon endureth - even to all generations.

There is no spot in all the earth like unto the land of Canaan in the divine estimation. There Jehovah set up His throne and His sanctuary; there His priests stood to minister continually before Him; there the voices of His prophets were heard testifying of present ruin and future restoration and glory; there the Baptist began, continued, and ended his career as the forerunner of the Messiah; there the Blessed One was born of a woman; there He was baptised; there He preached and taught; there He laboured and died; from there He ascended in triumph to the right hand of God; thither God the Holy Ghost descended, in Pentecostal power; from thence the overflowing tide of gospel testimony emanated to the ends of the earth; thither the Lord of glory will descend, ere long, and plant His foot "on the mount of Olives;" there His throne will be re-established and His worship restored. In a word, His eyes and His heart are there continually; its dust is precious in His sight; it is the centre of all His thoughts and operations, as touching this earth; and it is His purpose to make it an eternal excellency, the joy of many generations.

It is, then, I repeat, immensely important to get a firm hold of this interesting line of truth with respect to the land of Canaan. Of that land Jehovah hath said, "IT IS MINE." Who shall take it from Him? Where is the king or the emperor, where the power, human or diabolical, that can wrest "the pleasant land out of Jehovah’s omnipotent grasp? True, it has been a bone of contention, an apple of discord to the nations. It has been, and it will yet be, the scene and centre of cruel war and bloodshed. But far above all the din of battle and the strife of nations, these words fall with divine clearness, fullness, and power, upon the ear of faith - "the land is mine!" Jehovah can never give up that land, nor those "twelve tribes," through whom He is to inherit it for ever. Let my reader think of this. Let him ponder it deeply. Let him guard against all looseness of thought and vagueness of interpretation, as to this subject. God hath not cast away His people, or the land which He sware to give unto them for an everlasting possession. "The twelve loaves" of Leviticus 24 bear witness to the former; and "the jubilee" of Leviticus 25 bears witness to the latter. The memorial of the "twelve tribes of Israel" is ever before the Lord; and the moment is rapidly approaching when the trump of jubilee shall be heard upon the mountains of Palestine. Then, in reality, the captive shall cast off the ignominious chain which, for ages, has bound him. Then shall the exile return to that happy home from which he has so long been banished. Then shall every debt be cancelled, every burden removed, and every tear wiped away. "For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will extend peace to her (Jerusalem) like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream: then shall ye suck, ye shall be borne upon her sides, and be dandled upon her knees. As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb; and the hand of the Lord shall be known toward his servants, and his indignation toward his enemies. For, behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by his sword will the Lord plead with all flesh: and the slain of the Lord shall be many . . . . . . . . For I know their works and their thoughts; it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see my glory, And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow; to Tubal and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen My glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles. And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the Lord, out of all nations, upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord. And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the Lord. For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord." (Isaiah 66: 12-23)

And, now, let us look for a moment at the practical effect of the jubilee - its influence upon the transactions between man and man. "And if thou sell ought unto thy neighbour, or buyest ought of thy neighbour’s hand, ye shall not oppress one another. according to the number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbour, and according to the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee." The scale of prices was to be regulated by the jubilee. If that glorious event were at hand, the price was low; if far off, the price was high. All human compacts as to land were broken up the moment the trump of jubilee was heard, for the land was Jehovah’s; and the jubilee brought all back to its normal condition.

This teaches us a fine lesson. If our hearts are cherishing the abiding hope of the Lord’s return, we shall set light by all earthly things. It is morally impossible that we can be in the attitude of waiting for the Son from heaven, and not be detached from this present world. "Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand." (Phil. 4) A person may hold "the doctrine of the millennium," as it is called, or the doctrine of "the second advent," and be a thorough man of the world; but one who lives in the habitual expectation of Christ’s appearing must be separated from that which will be judged and broken up when He comes. It is not a question of the shortness and uncertainty of human life, which is quite true; or of the transitory and unsatisfying character of the things of time, which is equally true. It is far more potent and influential than either or both of these. It is this, "The Lord is at hand. May our hearts be affected and our conduct in all things influenced by this most precious and sanctifying truth!

C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Seventh Year

v. 1. And the Lord spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai, while the children of Israel were still encamped in its vicinity, saying,

v. 2. Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come in to the land which I give you, the certainty of this event being set forth time and again, then shall the land keep a Sabbath unto the Lord, the soil should be given periods of rest, in which the land should lie fallow.

v. 3. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof;

v. 4. 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. The earth was to be saved from the hand of man, lest its strength be exhausted for earthly purposes, and man was to be saved from the uninterrupted drudgery which tended to chain his thoughts to the soil and to the bitter labor in the sweat of his brow which was connected therewith.

v. 5. That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest, the volunteer grain from the kernels that had dropped out at the last harvest, thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed, the grapes which grew in the vineyard without the attention of the husbandman; for it is a year of rest unto the land.

v. 6. And the Sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee and for thy servant and for thy maid, both male and female slaves being named, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee. So all the volunteer grain and the volunteer fruit was not to be harvested, but was to be eaten out of the field, as the need for food arose, this rule applying not only to men, but also to animals, both domestic and wild;

v. 7. and for thy cattle, and for the beast that are in thy land shall all the increase thereof be meat, be used as food. The Sabbatical Pear was a civil year, which began after the harvest, in the late fall, for in the next fall, at the beginning of the eighth year, the cultivation of the land was resumed. God wanted to signify to the people of His covenant that He was well able to keep them, even without the labor of their hands, if they would strive to keep His covenant and he satisfied with His mercy.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lev 25:10-13

The Old Testament jubilee was meant to be a type of the entire New Testament dispensation in three points, imaging by its Sabbatic character the Gospel rest in Christ, by its unreserved deliverance of captives and slaves the Christian redemption from guilt and spiritual bondage, and by its universal restitution of property to the poor and needy the fulness of that inheritance which is treasured up for all the faithful in Christ, whose unsearchable riches, like the national possessions, opened up by the jubilee, enrich all, without impoverishing any who make good their title.

I. The first element of jubilee gladness, common to the Jew of old and the Christian amid the celebrations of the Gospel age, is the joy of distinction or of privilege. There was not a single memorial of blessing or promise, temporal or spiritual, which the jubilee did not recall, and hold up before the eyes of that most favoured nation, so that it was on God’s part an impressive reiteration of His covenant, and on their part a grateful recognition that they were indeed a "chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a peculiar people." The Christian Church, and we as members of it, are privileged (1) as to safety; (2) as to character; (3) as to work; (4) as to suffering.

II. The second great element of the gladness of jubilee is the joy of stability and progression. Traces of progress are to be found in every leading country of the Christian world. The last half-century has seen the cause of missions pass through all its phases, and encounter all its perils from ridicule, neglect, hope deferred, till now it ranks perhaps as the most distinctive and glorious feature of our age.

III. The third element in the jubilee gladness is the joy of anticipation or consummation. We believe that faith and hope shall in God’s own time effect a marvellous conquest of this long-revolted earth, and that love, working in a united and purified Church, shall through great periods gather up and treasure the spoils of victory. But it is to Christ’s coming that we look forward and hasten, as the crown and consummation of Christian hope.

J. Cairns, Jubilee Services, 1856.

All men ultimately get their living out of the soil. There is a recognition of this in the first chapters of Genesis. Man is placed in a garden to till it, and to eat its fruits. He has no other way of living, and will never have any other. Every human being must have some real relation, direct or indirect, to a certain extent of soil. To get man rightly related to the soil, in such a way that he shall most easily get his food from it, this is the underlying question of all history, its key-note and largest achievement.

I. There are two forces which draw men to the soil: (1) a natural, almost instinctive, sense of keeping close to the source of life, as a wise general does not allow himself to be separated from his supplies; (2) the pride, and greed, and love of power of the strong. In all ages the relation of man to the soil has been characterised by deep and cruel injustice. The main oppression in the world has been a denial of man’s natural rights in the soil.

II. The remarkable feature of the Jewish commonwealth is its anticipatory legislation against probable and otherwise certain abuses. The struggles of other nations and the skill of statesmanship have been to correct abuses; in the Jewish commonwealth they were foreseen and provided against. The Jewish theocracy had for one of its main features a system of Sabbaths curiously and profoundly arranged for the interpenetration of Divine and political principles. Every half-century formed a grand Sabbatical circle. The fiftieth year, or year of jubilee, settled at the outset the problem that no other people ever solved except through ages of struggle and revolution.

III. Its design and effect are evident. (1) It was a bar to monopoly of the land. (2) It was a perpetual lesson in hope and encouragement. It was a constant assertion of equality. (3) It fostered patriotism, a virtue that thrives best on the soil. It kept alive in every man a sense of ownership in his country. (4) It was an inwrought education of the family, fostering a sense of its dignity, and guarding the sanctity of marriage and legitimacy of birth.

IV. Though a political measure, it is informed with spiritual significance. It shadows forth the recovery from evil, the undoing of all burdens that weigh down humanity, the eternal inheritance awaiting God’s children when His cycle is complete.

T. T. Munger, The Freedom of Faith, p. 171.

References: Lev 25:11—Homiletic Magazine, vol. vi., p. 86. Lev 25:55.—Parker, vol. iii., p. 138. Lev 25—Old Testament Outlines, p. 32; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 379.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

the land must be made to keep a Sabbath for Yahweh

The land is spoken of as if it were a person that could obey the Sabbath by resting. Just as the people had to rest every seventh day, people were to honor God by not farming the land every seventh year. AT: "you must obey the Sabbath law by letting the land rest every seventh year for Yahweh" or "you must obey Yahweh's Sabbath by not farming the land every seventh year" (See: Personification and Metaphor)

translationWords

Yahweh

Moses

Sinai

people group

Israel

Sabbath

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

בהר סיני [AND THE LORD SPOKE UNTO MOSES] ON THE MOUNT SINAI — What has the matter of the Sabbatical year to do with Mount Sinai that Scripture felt compelled to expressly state where it was commanded? Were not all commandments given on Sinai? But this statement is intended to suggest the following comparison: How is it in the case of the law of Shemittah? Its general rules, [its specific prescriptions] and minute details were ordained on Mount Sinai! So, also, were all commandments with their general rules and their minute details ordained on Mount Sinai. Thus is taught in Torath Cohanim (Sifra, Behar, Section 1 1). It seems to me that the following is the explanation of this: Since we do not find in Deuteronomy that the law concerning “the rest of the soil in the Sabbatical year” was repeated in “the fields of Moab” (cf. Deuteronomy 34:1; the place where Moses repeated many of the commandments contained in the other books of the Pentateuch), we may infer that all its general rules and specific prescriptions must have been promulgated on Sinai. The express mention of בהר סיני here appears therefore to be unnecessary but Scripture by mentioning it intends to teach regarding every Divine command (lit., Divine utterance) that was spoken to Moses that in every case they, their general rules and minute details originated at Sinai and that they were only repeated again in “the fields of Moab”.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

AND THE ETERNAL SPOKE UNTO MOSES IN MOUNT SINAI. “What has the subject of the Sabbatical year [stated here in this section] to do with that of Mount Sinai? Were not all the commandments declared on Sinai? [It is to teach us that] just as [this law of] the Sabbatical year was ordained on Sinai with its general rules, its specific prescripts and its minute details, so also were all [the commandments] ordained on Sinai with their general rules, and their specific prescripts and their minute details. Thus it is taught [here] in the Torath Kohanin. It appears to me (Numbers 22:1), Moses, in the last days of his life, restated the commandments of G-d, his words being contained in the Book of Deuteronomy. However, since not all the commandments were restated there by Moses, our verse serves as a basis for the interpretation of the Torath Kohanim, as will be explained by Rashi. Ramban will differ with this whole approach, since the text of the Torath Kohanim makes no reference at all to Moses’ restatement of the laws in the plains of Moab. See at end of Note 10. that the following is the interpretation thereof: Since we do not find the law of the resting of the soil [in the Sabbatical year] repeated in the plains of Moab [when Moses restated the law, as contained in the Book of Deuteronomy], we must deduce that all the general rules and specific prescripts [of the Sabbatical year, including those of the resting of the soil] were declared on Sinai. [Why then was it necessary for Scripture to state here in Mount Sinai, since it is self-understood that this entire law was promulgated on Sinai, since the law of the resting of the soil is not mentioned in the Book of Deuteronomy? We must say that the reason] Scripture mentioned [the phrase in Mount Sinai] here is in order to teach that every communication [i.e., commandment] that was spoken to Moses on Sinai, was given at Sinai together with its general rules and minute details, and they were [merely] repeated and taught again in the plains of Moab.” Thus far is the language of Rashi.But this does not appear to me to be correct at all. For there are many commandments like the Sabbatical year which were not repeated in the plains of Moab, and [all] we know about their general rules and specific prescripts is that they were promulgated either on Sinai or in the Tent of Meeting [but not specifically on Sinai, as Rashi said]! [and are recorded in other parts of the Torah], were declared at some preceding time, but we cannot be sure whether they were said with the commandments given at Sinai, or only later on, after the building of the Tabernacle from which G-d communicated to Moses. On what basis, then, does Rashi say that they were all given on Sinai? Moreover, how do we know that the other commandments which were repeated in the plains of Moab are to be likened to the Sabbatical year [which was not repeated? Perhaps this analogy applies only to those commandments which were not repeated in the plains of Moab, like the Sabbatical year; but how do we know that the analogy applies also to those that were repeated by Moses in the plains of Moab, as contained in the Book of Deuteronomy? And how do we know that in the case of those commandments that were repeated by Moses], that only the general rules were declared on Sinai but the specific prescripts were given in the plains of Moab! And indeed it would be more logical to say so, that those commandments which were repeated by Moses, were restated for the sake of explaining their specific prescripts, since on Sinai only their general rules had been declared!But the interpretation of the above Beraitha is clear: The general rules of the Sabbatical year were declared on Sinai, as it is written in the section of ‘V’eileh Hamishpatim’ (And these are the ordinances): And on the seventh year thou shalt let it [i.e., the Land] rest and lie fallow, that the poor of thy people may eat etc., 23:11. These are the laws of the Sabbatical year in a general way. Here He went back [to this subject] and said that in Mount Sinai all its specific prescripts were also given, since all of them are mentioned in this section. And at the end of this subject it is written, These are the commandments, which the Eternal commanded Moses for the children of Israel in Mount Sinai, in order to liken all the commandments to the Sabbatical year [previously] mentioned, [teaching] that all of them, likewise, were stated in general terms and with their particular details — that is, all were declared on Sinai. And thus it is taught there in the Torath Kohanim:. “These are the commandments. Henceforth no prophet may promulgate any new thing. Which the Eternal commanded Moses. The messenger was [found] deserving before Him Who sent him [since he was the most perfect of all human beings]. Moses for the children of Israel. It was the merit of Israel that caused [the Divine Glory to rest upon Moses]. ). In Mount Sinai, [this teaches] that all commandments originated at Sinai.” Thus far is the text in the Torath Kohanim. But the reason [that the laws were repeated] in the plains of Moab was only for the purpose of explaining the Torah to the children [of those who had left Egypt, who were born in the wilderness after the Giving of the Torah at Sinai]. This appears to me to be the interpretation [of the Beraitha of the Torath Kohanim mentioned] and “it is well and nicely said.” literally means “a knop and a flower.” The term is borrowed from the design of the candelabrum (see Exodus 25:33), and here means “a thing of truth, and beautifully stated.” The usage of this expression is found in Bereshith Rabbah 91:12. It has been suggested that since the candelabrum in the Tabernacle represented the light of wisdom, the knops and flowers in the candelabrum symbolized truth beautifully expressed. Hence the expression kaftor vaferach as applied to a dictum of truth well formulated. — In essence, Ramban’s understanding of the Beraitha mentioned by Rashi is as follows: “Why is the expression in Mount Sinai mentioned here? It cannot be to teach us that the general principles of the Sabbatical year were given on Sinai, for all commandments were declared on Sinai in general terms, the Sabbatical year being merely one of them, as expressly stated in Exodus 23:11. Hence the expression here in Mount Sinai must be to teach that all its specific prescripts were also given on Mount Sinai, and from this you may deduce that the verse at the end of the Book of Leviticus, which states, These are the commandments which the Eternal commanded Moses … in Mount Sinai intends to teach us that the specific prescripts of all the laws were also declared on Sinai. — Ramban’s interpretation is thus not based at all on Moses’ restatement of the laws in the plains of Moab, as is that of Rashi, but instead is founded upon the verses in Exodus 23:11, and at the end of Leviticus, as explained.Now the reason why this section [of the laws of the Sabbatical year] was written here, Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra explained to be as follows: This is the covenant which was written in the section of ‘V’eileh Hamishpatim’ (And these are the ordinances),. and when the people accepted it upon themselves [by saying] we will do, and obey, Verse 7. then the covenant was made, Verse 8. and [Moses] told them this whole section [containing the laws of the Sabbatical year]. Scripture mentioned it in this place in order to put in proximity all the conditions [He laid down for Israel’s inheriting] the Land; for just as He said with reference to forbidden sexual relations that on account of them the Land will vomit them out, so He said in the section of ‘Im Bechukothai’ (If ye walk in My statutes) with regard to [not keeping the laws of] the Sabbaths of the Land, Verse 34. and therefore it was necessary that He mention [here] first [what are the laws of] the Sabbatical years.In my opinion this section is written here in its proper order, for the expression in Mount Sinai means when Moses went up there to receive the second Tablets [and does not refer, as Ibn Ezra interprets it, to the time immediately after the Giving of the Torah, even before Moses went up the mountain to receive the first Tablets of the Law], and the explanation of the matter is as follows: At the beginning of the first forty days of the first Tablets, Moses wrote in the Book of the Covenant all the words of the Eternal and all the ordinances stated there [in that section], Chapters 21-23. and he sprinkled the blood of the covenant upon the people., Verse 8. But when the people sinned with the [golden] calf and the Tablets were broken, that was equivalent to a breaking of the covenant with the Holy One, blessed be He. Therefore when the Holy One, blessed be He, became reconciled to Moses by giving him the second Tablets, He commanded him concerning a new covenant, as it is said, Behold, I make a covenant;, 34:10. and He repeated there the stringent commandments that had been said in the section of ‘V’eileh Hamishpatim’ (And these are the ordinances), 21:1. at the first covenant, and He [now] stated, Write thou these words, for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel., 34:27. Now the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to make this second covenant with them with greater stringency, and that it should be upon them by means of oaths and curses, and that it should cover, like the first one, all the original commandments and all the ordinances, as it is said of the first covenant, And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Eternal, and all the ordinances., 24:3. Therefore Scripture states here at the end of the exhortations, These are the statutes and ordinances and laws, which the Eternal made between Him and the children of Israel, in Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses, this being an allusion to all the commandments and ordinances which had been said at the first covenant, in the section of ‘V’eileh Hamishpatim’ (And these are the ordinances), 21:1. for they were all embodied in this [second] covenant.Now in the Book of the first Covenant, the law of the Sabbatical year was stated in a general way as I have mentioned, as it is said, And on the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie fallow etc., 23:11. and now in this second convenant it was said with its specific prescripts, its minute details, and its penalties. At the time of the first covenant, during the first forty days [after the Giving of the Torah, when Moses went up to the mountain], Moses was commanded concerning the building of the Tabernacle; and when the Holy One, blessed be He, became reconciled to him and commanded him to make a second covenant for them, Moses came down [from the mountain] and he gave them in commandment all that the Eternal had spoken with him in Mount Sinai, including the making of the Tabernacle. Then Moses assembled all the congregation of the children of Israel, and said unto them as at first, These are the words which the Eternal hath commanded that ye should do them, 35:1. when making the Tabernacle. Now they accepted the charge joyfully, and departed from his presence at once, and they all came back and brought the donations, and made the Tabernacle and completed its construction. And as soon as it was set up, He immediately called unto Moses, and the Eternal spoke unto him out of the Tent of Meeting, and He commanded him regarding the offerings and the whole Torath Kohanim [“law of the priests,” i.e., the Book of Leviticus], and Moses immediately commanded them all to Aaron and his sons and to all the children of Israel. When he had finished, he said to them: “G-d further commanded me in Mount Sinai to explain to you [the laws of] the Sabbatical year and of the Jubilee, and to make a new covenant with you concerning all the commandments and ordinances, by means of adjuration and oath.” It was not necessary now [for Moses] to slaughter offerings and sprinkle half of the blood upon the people and half upon the altar, as he had done at the first covenant, because now they were [again] accepting upon themselves the original covenant, with these oaths and adjurations. This is the sense of the expression, which the Eternal made between Him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai, for it was He Who made with them this [second] covenant, having forgiven them on the basis of these conditions [i.e., the oaths and adjurations mentioned further on in Chapter 26], as I have explained at the end of [Seder] Ki Thisa., 34:27; 31. See Vol. II, pp. 591-2, 594. Similarly, the covenant at the plains of Moab was made likewise, by means of the people accepting upon themselves the Torah with those oaths and adjurations [mentioned in Deuteronomy Chapter 28], this being the covenant, as it is said, These are the words of the covenant which the Eternal commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which He made with them in Horeb., 28:69. Ramban’s point is thus to stress that all subsequent covenants mentioned after the one made at Sinai are merely re-affirmations of the original covenant. The Rabbis of blessed memory have spoken the truth in saying 8:9. that among the conditions on which the Land [was given by G-d to Israel] are [those of observing the laws of] the Sabbatical year and the Jubilee, as He will mention in the exhortations, and they are clearly expressed in this second covenant [as referring to the commandments in this section].

Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

On Mount Sinai. The Torah only mentions the place where a mitzvah was given when some novel event occurred at that time in that certain place. Here, however, the explanation is that at the time Hashem said at Sinai (Shemos 23:11): “But on the seventh [year] you must let it rest, and abandon it, and let the needy among your people eat it” — He then explained to Moshe all the laws of the seventh year that are stated here. This teaches that the same applies to all the rest of the mitzvos, for although only sparse verses were written regarding some of them, the explanation given then was very expansive, in full clarification. This follows what the Sages said: “What has the matter of shemittoh [to do] with Mount Sinai? Were not all the mitzvos said at Sinai? Rather, [this comes to teach that] just as shemittoh its general rules, details, and explanations were said at Sinai, so [too] all the mitzvos were said at Sinai [including] their general rules, details, and explanations.” Moshe mentioned this parshah in this place because he thought they would immediately enter Eretz Yisrael, as he indicated when he said (Bamidbar 10:29): “We are journeying to the place.” And he cautioned about shemittoh of the land in particular, for if they would sin in keeping this mitzvah they would be exiled from the land, as the verse testifies (26:34): “The land will then be appeased for its Shabbosos.” Similarly, it testifies at the end of Divrei HaYamim (II 36:21): “Until the land was appeased for its Shabbosos; [for] all the days of its desolation it rested until the completion of seventy years”.

Sforno on the Tanakh — English translation: “Yalkut, Sifsei Chachomim Chumash, Metsudah Publications, 2009” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.