Leviticus 25:1-26:2
(In a regular year, read with Parashah 33; in a leap year read separately.)
“Adonai spoke to Moshe on Mount Sinai …” (Leviticus 25:1).
Excerpt:
The Year of Jubilee
“The land is not to be sold in perpetuity, because the land belongs to me –– you are only foreigners and temporary residents with me” (Leviticus 25:23).
According to this verse, the land belongs to Adonai. The Hebrew word for ‘land’ is eretz, the same word used in Genesis for when Elohim created the heavens and the eretz. Adonai not only owns the Eretz Y’isra’el (Land of Isra’el), He owns the whole earth. As the Creator, He owns everything in the heavens and on earth.
“The earth is Adonai’s, with all that is in it, the world and those who live there” (Psalm 24:1).
As owner of the eretz, Adonai can give land to whomever He desires, not for ownership, but for possession. This is the Land of Promise He gave Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. When the Israelites enter the Promised Land, they will possess it, not own it. Each tribe will receive an inheritance that will be theirs for stewardship, and they must follow the instructions He gives for His Land to have rest and restoration.
When they enter the Land, they were to give it rest from plowing, planting, and harvesting. Every seventh year is a sh’mittah and only what the land produced was to be food for the people, livestock, and wild animals. Adonai promised the Israelites He would bless the land in the sixth year so there would be an abundance of food for both the seventh and the eighth years –– until the next harvest.
After seven sh’mittah years was a Yovel or Jubilee year. On Yom Kippur, the shofar was blown throughout the Land to begin the consecration of the fiftieth year proclaiming freedom for all inhabitants, including all who were slaves in Isra’el –– foreigners or native born. Everyone was to be set free and return to their homes and families.
Yovel comes from the Hebrew word for ‘ram’ and it is the ram’s horn or shofar that is blown to begin the Yovel. The ram is a reminder of the ‘binding of Isaac’ and the deliverance he received when the ram was found in the thicket. The Yovel also prophesies the return of Yeshua, the ‘resurrected ram,’ in the year of Jubilee.
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