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The Beginning of the End
“On the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atone-
ment,” the trumpet of Jubilee was sounded, calling all the children
of Jacob to welcome the year of release.
As in the sabbatical year, the land was not to be sown or reaped,
and all that it produced was to be considered the rightful property
of the poor. Hebrew slaves who did not receive their freedom in the
sabbatical year were now set free.
But what especially made the year of Jubilee special was the
return of all land property to the family of the original owner. No one
was allowed to trade his estate, and he was not to sell his land unless
poverty forced him to do so. Whenever he or any of his relatives
might want to buy it back it, the purchaser must not refuse to sell it.
If it was not bought back earlier, it would be returned to its original
owner or his heirs in the Year of Jubilee.
The Lord declared to Israel: “The land shall not be sold perma-
nently, for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with
Me.” (
Leviticus 25:23
). God was the rightful owner, the original
land holder. It was to be impressed on everyone that the poor and
unfortunate have as much right to a place in God’s world as the
wealthy.
Our merciful Creator made these kinds of provisions to lessen
suffering, to bring some ray of hope, to flash some gleam of sunshine
into the life of the very poor and distressed.
Great evils result from the continued building up of wealth by
one class of people and the poverty of another. The sense of this
inequality would bring out strong feelings in the poorer class. There
would be a feeling of despair and desperation that would tend to
break down society and open the door to crimes of every kind. The
regulations that God established were to promote social equality.
The sabbatical year and the Jubilee would set right to a great extent
the things that had gone wrong in the social and political order of
the nation.
These regulations, designed to bless the rich no less than the
poor, would restrain greed and cultivate a noble spirit of kindness.
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By encouraging kindness between all classes, they would promote
stability of government.
We are all woven together in the great web of humanity. What-
ever we can do to benefit others will reflect in blessing on ourselves.