Bible Commentaries

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