Sabbatical Years
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The seventh day was special and the seventh month was special, and so also was the seventh year. It was a sabbatical year. Leviticus 25: 1-4 reads: ‘The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai, "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the LORD. For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. But in the seventh year the land is to have a sabbath of rest, a sabbath to the LORD. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards.’"’
The sabbath day was a time of rest for everyone, male, female, masters, servants and even animals. The seventh year was a time of rest for the land.
Why does the human body need about 8 hours sleep in every 24? What happens during those 8 hours? Scientists still cannot answer these questions. We understand the need for food, but why should we need sleep? God has so designed creation that everything needs rest. He could have designed it a different way, but he chose to build the need for rest into the very fabric of creation. He did this to teach and illustrate a vital spiritual lesson.
Jubilees
This brings us to the main subject of this writing. Verses 8 to 55 of Leviticus 25 describe the year of jubilee. The first few verses are as follows: ‘Count off seven sabbaths of years -- seven times seven years -- so that the seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan.’
Like the day of Pentecost, the year of jubilee is a sabbath of sabbaths. It is a special year among special years. Its climax was the great Day of Atonement What happened then on this momentous once-in-a-lifetime occasion? Trumpets were sounded throughout the land of Israel, and 2 amazing things took place.
• All Hebrews slaves were set free.
• All land returned to its original owner or owner’s family.
We cannot understand the full impact of this without knowing its historical background. For more than 80 years before the Exodus, the Israelites had been slaves in the land of Egypt, without freedom and without possessions. When they reached the land of Canaan, Joshua divided the land among their tribes and their families, so that each had his own inheritance. Every adult male among them became a land owner. This land was a permanent possession that could never depart from his family. If a man became poor he could sell part or all of his land, but only temporarily. It would always revert to him or his descendants at the year of jubilee. If he became even poorer and was unable to pay his debts, he could sell himself into slavery, and work to pay off his debts. Again that slavery could only ever be temporary. When the great Day of Atonement in the year of jubilee came he became a free man once again and repossessed his inheritance.
What a marvellous provision this was! How many landless slaves in the poorer countries of the world today would wish they lived under such laws!
These then were the laws of the sabbath, the festivals, sabbatical years and jubilees that God gave to ancient Israel through his servant Moses, and it is not difficult to read and study them. But we must do more than that. We must ask what significance these jubilees have had throughout history, and what meaning they have for us 3500 years or so after they were first decreed.
Whether and how long the Israelites observed jubilees after the time of Moses is not recorded as far as I know in history. There is no further explicit mention of jubilees after the book of Numbers. However study of the Bible’s chronology reveals the remarkable fact that unknown to Israel God observed special jubilee years. 5 of the most important and significant events in Bible history occurred exactly on key jubilee years. (I have explained the calculation of time periods in the Bible in my writing on Bible Chronology http://www.growthingod.org.uk/chrono.htm and so will not repeat those explanations here.)
We will now look at these 5 great jubilee events and see how the 2 main aspects of jubilee - freedom and repossession of inheritance - have been fulfilled in them. We will then look forward to their fulfilment in an even greater jubilee in our present times.
Past Jubilees
The day of Pentecost, as I have said, was the 50th day and was the day following the 7 weeks from the Passover. The year of jubilee occurred after 7 sabbatical years, or 49 years. It began on the Day of Atonement in the 49th year and ran on till the Day of Atonement in the 50th year. God counted these 49 years as 50. On the same principle God reckons 490 years as 500 years and 1960 years as 2000.
The Birth of Abraham
The first notable jubilee that God (unknown to man) observed was the birth of Abraham. This happened exactly 40 jubilees or 2000 years in Bible reckoning from Adam.
We cannot exaggerate the future importance of what was at the time a quiet, unspectacular event. It was the start of God’s redemptive purposes for the whole creation. Without Abraham there would have been no Israel, no Moses, no law, no exodus from Egypt or Babylon and no Jesus. Abraham was God’s new beginning.
Abraham was born in a city called Ur of the Chaldees in the land of Babylonia. This was a corrupt place and the first thing God did was to call him out of it. His first recorded words to Abraham were: ‘Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.’
Here we find the seeds of the jubilee. Abraham left Babylon (which was later to become the land of captivity for the Jews) and went to the country which God was going to give him for an inheritance. We will see these two themes - freedom from slavery and possession of inheritance - repeating themselves in the other great jubilees that followed.
The Exodus
Most amazing for its timing is what happened in the year that was exactly the 50th jubilee from Adam. A jubilee itself is a very special year, being a sabbath of sabbaths. What then is a 50th jubilee but a jubilee of jubilees or we could say a sabbath of sabbaths of sabbaths of sabbaths! So what happened in the year 2500 from Adam - this jubilee of jubilees or sabbath of sabbaths of sabbaths of sabbaths? This was the very year that the Israelites came out of Egypt! This event was a wonderful sabbath.
The Israelites were able to rest from their hard labour in the land of Egypt. It was also the ultimate fulfilment of the Bible law of jubilee. The 2 great jubilee features were both remarkably present. The Exodus was the greatest setting free of slaves the world has ever seen. It was also the start of the process by which the land of Canaan returned to its rightful owners. God had promised the land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendants. When they were set free from Egypt the way was open for them to march in and claim their inheritance.
50 days after the Exodus on the day of Pentecost, the Israelites arrived at Mt. Sinai. We read in Exodus 19: 16 ‘On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled.’ This was no other than the trumpet of jubilee.
Now I say this was the greatest liberation of slaves that has ever taken place in history, and speaking in the natural that is true. But there came a day when Moses and Elijah stood with Jesus on the mountain of transfiguration, and (translating literally) ‘they spoke about his exodus which he was about to fulfil at Jerusalem’ (Luke 9: 31).
The Exodus that Moses led from Egypt was a liberation of the Israelites from physical slavery to the Egyptians. The Exodus that Jesus led was and is a liberation from spiritual slavery to sin and Satan. What Jesus did was greater and wider and more far-reaching than the greatest event that ever happened in ancient history. Jesus was the greater Moses bringing about a greater exodus from a greater slavery.
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