Jubilee

Biblical Text

The Jubilee is set out in detail in Leviticus 25:8-55. Israel observed seven cycles of the sabbatical year, in which the land rested every seventh year. When forty-nine years had passed, a trumpet was sounded on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement, and the fiftieth year was proclaimed the Jubilee (Leviticus 25:8-12). The Jubilee involved three main provisions:

• Return of the land: Land that had been sold reverted to the family of its original owner. Its price was calculated according to the number of years remaining until the Jubilee (Leviticus 25:13-17). Even before the Jubilee, a close relative could buy back the land as a kinsman-redeemer (Leviticus 25:25).
• Release of persons: Israelites who had sold themselves because of poverty, together with their families, were freed and returned to their own families (Leviticus 25:39-41).
• Rest for the land: As in the sabbatical year, there was no sowing or reaping (Leviticus 25:11-12).

There were also exceptions. A house in a walled city that was not redeemed within a year did not return to its original owner (Leviticus 25:29-31). The Jubilee is also mentioned in the valuation of a field dedicated by vow (Leviticus 27:16-24) and in questions concerning inherited land (Numbers 36:4). Ezekiel 46:17 calls the Jubilee "the year of liberty."

Background and Terminology

The Hebrew word yobel, rendered "Jubilee," is generally understood to have originally referred to a ram's horn or a trumpet made from one. By way of the Latin jubilaeus, it became the English word "jubilee."

The Jubilee laws rest on the statement "for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me" (Leviticus 25:23). Underlying this is the conviction that God is the true owner of the land and that Israel holds and uses it as a steward.

The Old Testament contains no clear record that the Jubilee was actually observed. Scholars are therefore divided over whether it was ever put into practice.

Significance Across Scripture

The prophets carry the language of the Jubilee forward as a promise of restoration. Isaiah 61:1-2 celebrates the Anointed One who proclaims liberty to the captives and announces "the acceptable year of the LORD." In Luke 4:18-19, Jesus reads this passage in the synagogue at Nazareth and then declares, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears" (Luke 4:21). For this reason, many interpreters read the ministry of Jesus as the fulfillment of the liberation and restoration to which the Jubilee pointed.

Interpretation and Debated Issues

• Interpreters differ over whether the Jubilee was the forty-ninth or the fiftieth year, and over whether it coincided with a sabbatical year so that the land rested for two consecutive years.
• It is often said that "debts are canceled in the Jubilee." However, the law requiring the release of debts every seven years concerns the year of release in Deuteronomy 15. The Jubilee of Leviticus 25 focuses on the return of land and people to their original places.
• There are two broad ways of reading the Jubilee. One reads it as a picture foreshadowing the forgiveness of sins and spiritual liberation in Christ, as well as the restoration of the last days. The other reads it as a principle of social ethics to be applied to questions of land, debt, and poverty. In general, evangelicals tend to emphasize the former, while those in the ecumenical movement and those who stress social engagement tend to emphasize the latter. Many, however, embrace both readings.
• The Catholic Church has regularly proclaimed a "Jubilee" (Holy Year) since 1300, beginning with Pope Boniface VIII. This is a Catholic ecclesiastical institution that borrows its name from the Levitical institution; Protestantism has no such institution.

In the Korean Church

In the Korean church, the term "Jubilee" is commonly used to mark fiftieth anniversaries, such as the fiftieth anniversary of a church's founding or of Korea's liberation. In its 1988 declaration on reunification, the National Council of Churches in Korea proclaimed 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of liberation, a year of Jubilee. Christian organizations engaged in movements for land justice or debt relief also appeal to the Jubilee as their basis.