1 Then the LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land itself must observe a Sabbath to the LORD.

3 For six years you may sow your field and prune your vineyard and gather its crops. 4 But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of complete rest for the land—a Sabbath to the LORD.

You are not to sow your field or prune your vineyard. 5 You are not to reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your untended vines. The land must have a year of complete rest. 6 Whatever the land yields during the Sabbath year shall be food for you—for yourself, your manservant and maidservant, the hired hand or foreigner who stays with you, 7 and for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. All its growth may serve as food.

8 And you shall count off seven Sabbaths of years—seven times seven years—so that the seven Sabbaths of years amount to forty-nine years. 9 Then you are to sound the horn far and wide on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement. You shall sound it throughout your land.

10 So you are to consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be your Jubilee, when each of you is to return to his property and to his clan.

11 The fiftieth year will be a Jubilee for you; you are not to sow the land or reap its aftergrowth or harvest the untended vines. 12 For it is a Jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You may eat only the crops taken directly from the field.

13 In this Year of Jubilee, each of you shall return to his own property.

14 If you make a sale to your neighbor or a purchase from him, you must not take advantage of each other. 15 You are to buy from your neighbor according to the number of years since the last Jubilee; he is to sell to you according to the number of harvest years remaining. 16 You shall increase the price in proportion to a greater number of years, or decrease it in proportion to a lesser number of years; for he is selling you a given number of harvests.

17 Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God; for I am the LORD your God.

18 You are to keep My statutes and carefully observe My judgments, so that you may dwell securely in the land. 19 Then the land will yield its fruit, so that you can eat your fill and dwell in safety in the land.

20 Now you may wonder, ‘What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not sow or gather our produce?’ 21 But I will send My blessing upon you in the sixth year, so that the land will yield a crop sufficient for three years. 22 While you are sowing in the eighth year, you will be eating from the previous harvest, until the ninth year’s harvest comes in.

23 The land must not be sold permanently, because it is Mine, and you are but foreigners and residents with Me. 24 Thus for every piece of property you possess, you must provide for the redemption of the land.

25 If your brother becomes impoverished and sells some of his property, his nearest of kin may come and redeem what his brother has sold. 26 Or if a man has no one to redeem it for him, but he prospers and acquires enough to redeem his land, 27 he shall calculate the years since its sale, repay the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and return to his property. 28 But if he cannot obtain enough to repay him, what he sold will remain in possession of the buyer until the Year of Jubilee. In the Jubilee, however, it is to be released, so that he may return to his property.

29 If a man sells a house in a walled city, he retains his right of redemption until a full year after its sale; during that year it may be redeemed. 30 If it is not redeemed by the end of a full year, then the house in the walled city is permanently transferred to its buyer and his descendants. It is not to be released in the Jubilee. 31 But houses in villages with no walls around them are to be considered as open fields. They may be redeemed, and they shall be released in the Jubilee.

REFLECTIONS

For Israel, the year of Jubilee every 50 years was to be a year of total rest for the whole land – a kind of year-long super-Sabbath. God meant it to be a picture of the true, heavenly rest that he has promised to all who belong to him.

I was struck by how much blessing and goodness is packed into this picture of that rest which is awaiting us. The Jubilee Year meant full redemption and freedom even for those who had become slaves. It meant everyone receiving their proper inheritance in the land – even if they had fallen on hard times. It meant safety and abundance.

And that’s nothing compared to the rest, freedom, inheritance, safety, and abundance that Jesus has stored up for us in heaven – “an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade” (1 Peter 1:4)! Ask God to use that picture to give you strength and energy to face whatever you need to face today, and to do it with courage, hope and faith.