systemic debt or debt-slavery through the sabbath-year release, the Jubilee ensures that no family falls into systemic debt. Without the Jubilee, Israel was doomed to fall into a cycle of social and economic oppression whereby the few wealthy landowners slowly gained power over their neighbors by permanently procuring title to their land. With the Jubilee, permanent title to the land is retained by Yahweh and usage of that land is permanently given to individual families.
In summary, the Jubilee is a release of property, persons, and land (fallow).
This trifold release restores the system of land tenure to its starting point and restores kinship ties to where they belong, all of which are indirect promises of the covenant. This is why possession (הזָּחֻאֲ) and family (החָפָּשְׁמִ) are key words in this chapter. The return of land and release of servants are “mirror images.”65 Both the land and the people belong to Yahweh, and thus they could not be servants of another master. They were obliged to Yahweh. The review of the seven key terms in Leviticus 25:8-12 both highlight the goal of the Jubilee and provide more specifics as to its nature and extent. The consecration of the Jubilee connects it with Israel’s Sabbath spectrum and recalls the consecrated rest that existed in Eden on the seventh day of creation. The term “liberty” speaks to the
fundamental action of the Jubilee, which is release. The term “return” speaks to the subsequent action, as those who are released are enabled to return. This return is announced with the blast of a trumpet, which gives this once-a-generation release its name: the Jubilee. The terms “you” and “property” signify the scope of the release: it is limited to Israelite persons and Israelite land. When taken together, these specific words point to the goal of the Jubilee: to preserve Israel’s egalitarian system of land tenure.
Leviticus 25:13-17: Rules on
Jubilee each of you shall return to his property.” Leviticus 25:14 then provides moral motivation: “And if you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another.” Verses 15–16 then explain how the price to sale a field is calculated: “You shall pay your neighbor according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of years for crops. If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you.” Verse 17 then repeats the moral motivation to not defraud one another and adds fear of God as a theological motivation:
“You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the LORD your God.” As in the preceding verses, Moses has used a chiasm to ensure that the method and motivation of calculating in this manner are clear to both the buyer and the seller.66
Verse 13 – General Principle: Each of you shall return to his property.
A Verse 14 – Do not wrong one another.
B Verse 15a – He is selling you the number of remaining crop years.
C Verse 15b – the more the years, the more the price.
C’ Verse 16a – the fewer the years, the less the price.
B’ Verse 16 – He is selling you a number of crops.
A’ – Do not wrong one another, but fear God
A few observations are necessary. First, there is no legal incentive for obeying. Instead, the incentive is the fear of the Lord, who is the landowner in the first place. Fear of the Lord as motivation to obey the provisions of the Jubilee pervades Leviticus 25 (e.g., Lev 25:36 and 25:43). Moses also encourages obedience by reminding them that they too were delivered from slavery in the Exodus (25:38a, 42a, 55b) and that they now are God’s servants/slaves (Lev 25:42a, 55a). Their covenant relationship with the Lord
66 So also, Milgrom, Leviticus 23–27, 2177, for a similar understanding, although Milgrom’s analysis is overly complex.
obliges them to treat one another as the Lord has treated them and ought to compel them to show mercy and fairness to one another. In fact, this covenant relationship is assumed in Moses’ choice of the noun תימִﬠָ, which is typically translated as “neighbor” and carries the idea of “fellow citizen.” This term is used exclusively of Israelites, once again
emphasizing that the Jubilee is for “you” who have received the covenant promises and obligations.67
The second observation regards the language of buying and selling. This language pervades the chapter. Within the text of Leviticus 25, The verb מָר (“to sale”) is כַ
used thirteen times while the related nominal, רכָּמְמִ (“sold, sale”), is used seven times throughout Leviticus 25. Further, קָה (“to buy”) occurs three times and only here in נָ
Leviticus (cf. 25:14, 28, 30). The density of transactional language in this text reveals that the sale of land or persons is a pressing concern in Leviticus 25. The fact that הזָּחֻאֲ occurs thirteen times and אֶץ occurs sixteen times in Leviticus 25 means that its primary רֶ
concern is the land.
The issue redressed in Leviticus 25:13-16, the price of crops, appears to contradict what is clearly stated elsewhere, that Israelites are to never sell their land and that the title to their הזָּחֻאֲ is inalienable: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me” (Lev 25:23). The verb מָר is כַ
best understood, then, as “to lease.”68 It is perhaps significant that הזָּחֻאֲ is not the object of מָ
כַ
ר in verses 13–16. The only thing sold is listed in verse 15, “years of crops” ( שְׁ־ינֵ
תְ
ב וּ אֹ
ת ). Thus, the idea is that rights of the land’s usage, namely usufruct, is sold.
67 Milgrom notes that the term refers to Israelites exclusive of other nations and ethnicities (see Lev 18:20, 19:17 for key examples). Milgrom, Leviticus, 2177. This is confirmed by Ezek 18:6, 11, 15, which replaces תימִﬠָ of Lev 18:20 with רֵﬠַ , another term used exclusively for Israelites.
68 Qal is most common, typically related to selling human beings as slaves (e.g., Gen 37:27;
Exod 21:7-8, 16; Deut 21:14). Similar usage in regard to selling land can be found in Gen 47:20 and 47:22.
See BDB, s.v. “ מָר ”. Of course, the text does not directly state “sale your land” here but that is the כַ
understanding presumed and הזָּחֻאֲ is used later in this passage as an object of the verb מָר . See Lev 25:23, כַ
25.
Leviticus 25:15-16 limits land transactions to a very specific timeframe, forty- nine years. Thus, as verses 15-16 make clear, the price is determined by the number of crop years that are available before the Jubilee. In other words, a buyer is only purchasing its “productive capacity.”69 Israelites can only sell the rights to their land up until the Jubilee. Thus, if there are twenty–five years until the Jubilee, then the price is based on the price for twenty–five years’ worth of crops or twenty–five years’ worth of productive capacity.