The Sabbath Year And Year Of Jubilee

The Sabbath Year and Year of Jubilee

Leviticus 25:1-24, Deuteronomy 25:1-18, Isaiah 61:1-3)

1. It doesn’t take long for people to develop a sense of entitlement. Let me illustrate.

2. A Jewish woman is walking on the beach with her little grandson. Suddenly a huge wave sweeps the boy out to sea. Desperate, the woman looks up to heaven and says, “God, please rescue my grandson, my only grandson, the light of my life!”

Miraculously, the next big wave deposits the little boy at her feet, completely unharmed.

She looks up to heaven and says, “He had a hat!”

3. Many of us feel entitled to freedom, but most people in the world do not enjoy the freedoms we do.

4. Leviticus 25:10 is the motto on the Liberty Bell that hangs in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the KJV: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”

5. That verse, however, is about a once-in-fifty year event called the Year of Jubilee. It came after seven sets of Sabbath years, and the two of them communicate similar lessons.

Main idea: The Sabbath Year and the Year of Jubilee speaks of freedom, restitution, forgiveness, rest, a second chance, and joy in Jesus Christ.

I. The Sabbath Year and Jubilee According to the TORAH (Leviticus 25:1-24, Deuteronomy 25:1-18)

A. The Sabbath (SEVENTH) Year

1. The land rests FALLOW.

2. Everyone – man and beast – can freely eat from what grows ANYWHERE.

3. Jewish slaves are RELEASED unless they choose to stay under their master.

4. All DEBTS between Jews were canceled.

B. The YEAR of Jubilee (every 50 years), a Sabbath of Sabbaths

1. Followed the 7th Sabbath year, meaning two years off in a ROW.

2. God promise to provide a WINDFALL of crops before these two fallow years.

3. All farm land returned to the its family of ORIGIN based upon God’s original division of the Land.

• Do you have a map in your Bible of where the tribes of Israel were to be settled?

• Ever wonder why there are so many genealogies in the Book of Numbers?

4. All debts were canceled and all Jewish slaves (even those electing slavery) were RELEASED.

5. Two years in a row without sowing crops meant TRUSTING in God’s promise to provide.

Application: God gave man the earth to meet his needs, but man was responsible not to abuse the earth, but to think long term (like keeping ground fertile). We have to work by the sweat of our brow, and work can, in itself, be a way to glorify God. But there is another side. God here teaches balance and faith. Too much work is not good, but rest, relaxation, and socializing is also a good thing. Many of us might struggle with being control freaks and could never trust God to provide living off the land. Others of us might go nuts if we weren’t always busy with work. These holidays would expose and perhaps force a cure.

II. The Sabbath Year and Year of Jubilee in PRACTICE

A. The Sabbath Year was seemingly never FULLY observed observed in early Old Testament Israel (before 536 BC).

2 Chronicles 36:20-21, “He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.”

B. After the RETURN to the Land (536 BC), it seems the Sabbath Year was practiced.

There is evidence from extra-Biblical lit. that the Jews observed the sabbatical year after the Exile. Both the Book of Maccabees and Josephus recount that Bethzur fell to Antiochus IV because the food supply of the garrison was quickly exhausted, since it was during a sabbatical year (1 Macc 6:49-54; Antiquities, XIII. 8:1; War I. 2:4). He relates that during the reign of John Hyrcanus the Jewish nation refrained from aggressive warfare during the sabbatical year (Antiquities. XIII. 8:1; War. I. 2:4). He also relates that Julius Caesar remitted the annual tribute from the Jewish people in the sabbatical year, since in it the people did not till their fields or gather their fruit (Antiquities, XIV. 10:6). In the Book of Jubilees, Enoch is said to have “recounted the sabbaths of the years” (4:18). [source: biblicaltraining.org/library/sabbatical-year].

C. After Israel divided (930 BC) and then the northern tribes captured (722 BC), it became IMPOSSIBLE to practice the Year of Jubilee.

D. Only a MINORITY of the Jews returned to Israel when allowed; most remained scattered throughout the Roman Empire even in Jesus’ day.