Leviticus 25:1-55
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying,
2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keepa a sabbath unto the LORD.
3 Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof;
4 But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard.
5 That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land.
6 And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee,
7 And for thy cattle, and for the beast that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat.
8 And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years.
9 Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubileb to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.
10 And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.
11 A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed.
12 For it is the jubile; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field.
13 In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession.
14 And if thou sell ought unto thy neighbour, or buyest ought of thy neighbour's hand, ye shall not oppress one another:
15 According to the number of years after the jubile thou shalt buy of thy neighbour, and according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee:
16 According to the multitude of years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price of it: for according to the number of the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee.
17 Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the LORD your God.
18 Wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety.
19 And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety.
20 And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase:
21 Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years.
22 And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store.
23 The land shall not be sold for ever:c for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.
24 And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land.
25 If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold.
26 And if the man have none to redeem it, and himselfd be able to redeem it;
27 Then let him count the years of the sale thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it; that he may return unto his possession.
28 But if he be not able to restore it to him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him that hath bought it until the year of jubile: and in the jubile it shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession.
29 And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; within a full year may he redeem it.
30 And if it be not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be established for ever to him that bought it throughout his generations: it shall not go out in the jubile.
31 But the houses of the villages which have no wall round about them shall be counted as the fields of the country: they may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the jubile.
32 Notwithstanding the cities of the Levites, and the houses of the cities of their possession, may the Levites redeem at any time.
33 And if a man purchase of the Levites, then the house that was sold, and the city of his possession, shall go out in the year of jubile: for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel.
34 But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold; for it is their perpetual possession.
35 And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee.
36 Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee.
37 Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase.
38 I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.
39 And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee; thou shalt not compele him to serve as a bondservant:
40 But as an hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubile:
41 And then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return.
42 For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold asf bondmen.
43 Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour; but shalt fear thy God.
44 Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.
45 Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.
46 And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.
47 And if a sojourner or stranger wax richg by thee, and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger's family:
48 After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him:
49 Either his uncle, or his uncle's son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself.
50 And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him unto the year of jubile: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years, according to the time of an hired servant shall it be with him.
51 If there be yet many years behind, according unto them he shall give again the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for.
52 And if there remain but few years unto the year of jubile, then he shall count with him, and according unto his years shall he give him again the price of his redemption.
53 And as a yearly hired servant shall he be with him: and the other shall not rule with rigour over him in thy sight.
54 And if he be not redeemed in these years, then he shall go outh in the year of jubile, both he, and his children with him.
55 For unto me the children of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
Now as we get into chapter twenty-five, they were to give the land a Sabbath day's rest or Sabbath year. They were to plant the land for six years, the seventh year they were to let the land rest. Really, I like these laws of God. Man, you've got a lot of seven-day holidays spread through the year. Then every seventh year, you just kick back and take the year off. You don't even plant anything in that year; you just let grow up whatever grows up and you eat that. But God said, "If you will do this in the sixth year I will cause your crops to be so bountiful that I'll give you a three year's crop in the sixth year so that it'll carry you through, clear, and over until you are harvesting from the eighth year. If you'll just follow this," God said, "I'll let you have the whole year off. You just eat what grows up wild. But in the sixth year you'll have a triple crop that'll carry you clear on over to the harvesting of the eighth year."
Now I would venture to declare to you that some, what do they call them, agronomists, or agriologists or something, one of these guys in the field of agronomy. Agronomist? Thank you. Some day an agronomist is gonna come up with a fascinating discovery; that if you just let the ground lie in the seventh year that it has a tremendous regenerative effect upon the land. That has a way of coming out in the sixth year, that you just have a bumper crop. I'm sure that it is a natural law that God has established; that if people would follow it, they would find tremendous success. They could actually have a year's vacation every seven years.
Now this is the law that God, we were talking about spiritual laws, and when we get to it, God said, "Now if you'll just walk in it, this is what I'm gonna do. You'll have plenty. Your vintage will last till the vintage season." I'm sure that they'll discover that the ground will produce much better in the six years, and that your overall crops, and just growing for six years, and letting the thing lie in the seventh year, your overall crop would actually be greater than growing it all seven years. I'm certain that it is true. But you see people say; "I don't understand how that could work." And you get a bunch of egghead scientists that say, "Oh, there's no way that could work," and they put it down. But I'm sure it would. It's there. It's a part of the laws that God has established. Farmers could have it so easy, or so much easier. I don't suppose a farmer ever has it easy. I don't think it's easy getting up that early in the morning, but they could have it so much easier the seventh year. Just enjoy, you know.
Now when the people came into the land they didn't follow this. They were a bunch of smarties just like you are. So they figured, "Oh well, we'll really make it next year. Look at the bumper crop we had this year. Ah, let's plant it this next year. We'll really go for it." They were constantly struggling with a land plagued with drought, over producing the land so that it was weakening the soil processes. Just weakening the soil, its fertility. They disobeyed the laws of God.
So after four hundred and ninety years of being in the land, God said, "All right, that's it. Every seventh year the land was to have a rest. You haven't given it any rest since you've come in. This poor land had been worked for four hundred and ninety years. It never did get its Sabbaths. So I'm gonna set you over in Babylon for seventy years so that the land can get its Sabbaths. And the land is gonna get its rest. It's gonna rest for seventy years because you didn't give it its Sabbaths." Because in the four hundred and ninety years, there would have been seventy of these Sabbath year rests. So God gave it the rest anyhow.
But the people look at the benefit they missed of a vacation, a year vacation every seven years. You know, I like the programs of God. I don't see anything wrong with this at all. I think it's pretty, I think God's pretty generous really with man.
Seventh year shall be a sabbath rest: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune your vineyard. ["Just stay out of it; just rest."] That which grows of its own accord of your harvest thou shalt not reap (Leviticus 25:4-5),
Just leave it there for the poor people, for the servants, let them come in and let them have it. Whatever grows on your grapevines or your fruit trees, just let it be for the people to come in and take it in the seventh year, because God will give you enough, a triple crop in the sixth year.
Then there was to be a-they would count seven Sabbath years, and then the next year, the fiftieth year was a special one. So you got every fifty years, you got two years' vacation. This was the Year of Jubilee, a year of real celebration. All debts were canceled, all mortgages were canceled, all the slaves were set free, a Year of Jubilee every fifty years. That was equivalent to the Pentecost. You count seven Sabbaths and the next day, the fiftieth day was the Pentecost. So they did it with years. You count seven of the Sabbath year cycles, and then the next year, the fiftieth year, a special Year of Jubilee.
We are close to a Jubilee year right now. Whether or not it's this year or next year, or eighty-one, it's right in here close. And there are varied opinions as to when the Jubilee Year actually is taking place. Some have marked it, a few have marked it seventy-nine, some have marked it eighty-one, and many have marked it eighty. Who am I to mark a year? But it'd be nice, take a year off. You know, after all if next year's gonna be the Jubilee Year, this means this is the rest year anyhow. So go for it. But the year Jubilee.
He now deals with the laws in regards to the Year of Jubilee, beginning with verse eight.
Cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month (Leviticus 25:9),
That was a day that we've already studied. What was the tenth day of the seventh month? Yom Kippur; good.
And then ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land of the inhabitants thereof: [The Year of Jubilee.] Return every man unto his possession, and return every man unto his family. A jubilee in that fiftieth year be unto you: and ye shall not sow, neither reap that which grows of itself, nor gather the grapes in it undressed. For it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you: and ye shall eat of the increase thereof out of the field. And in the year of the jubilee ye shall return every man unto his possession. And if you sell off to your neighbour, you buy something from your neighbour's hand, ye shall not oppress one another: According to the number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbour, according to the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee (Leviticus 25:10-15):
In other words, you never really bought the land; you leased the land and the lease would go until the Year of Jubilee. So you always figured the price by the number of years until the Year of Jubilee. In other words, if the Year of Jubilee was forty years away, you'd have to pay a pretty good piece of cash for the land. But if the Year of Jubilee was maybe just three years away, then you always measured the price by the distance of the Year of Jubilee because in the Year of Jubilee the land always returned unto the original ownership.
The same was true of the servants; they were to go free. The slaves were to go free in that Year of Jubilee.
The land shall not be sold forever: [verse twenty-three] for the land is mine; [In other words, God says, "The land is mine, you're not to sell it for ever."] for you are strangers and sojourners with me (Leviticus 25:23).
In other words, "You're my guests", God is saying, "this land is Mine; you're My guests." It's always an interesting thing to me when I go over to the land; I love it because I think, "Wow Lord, this is Your land, and I'm just journeying with You. I'm a sojourner with You. Your land, so I'm just sojourning through Your land here." I love to sojourn through the Lord's land of Israel. It's a fascinating experience.
Now if your brother is poor, and he sold away some of his possessions, and then his next of kin can redeem it, and shall redeem what his brother has sold [so that it stays with the family] (Leviticus 25:25).
The various laws of redemption are given to us here in the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus. These are important laws, for they pertain to us, for we are redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. This idea of being set free in the seventh year, or in the Jubilee Year. If you purchased a slave who was a Jew, he would serve you for six years; the seventh year he was to be set free.
Now there is that interesting pattern of the six years of servitude, the seventh year being the year of liberty being set free. I see it really in the earth. I believe that Adam sold out the possession that God had given to him just about six thousand years ago. How close to the six thousand years, nobody really knows, awfully close now though, because we do know that Adam sold out to Satan. If you take the figures out of the Bible and add them all up, the ages of each person and all, you come to about 4000 B.C. that Adam sinned against God and gave the earth over to Satan.
Now we are in 1979, coming towards the close of it. So you've got a few years divergency here that could be eaten up in several different ways. We are approaching, certainly approaching, and at least at the longest, we are less than twenty years from six thousand years of slavery to sin to Satan, his possession of this earth.
Now we know that there is a thousand-year period coming of restoration, of a righteous reign of Jesus Christ of peace and glory upon the earth. The fact that the six thousand years are almost over is extremely exciting to me, because I am personally convinced that the seventh millennium of the earth will be the glorious Kingdom Age, and we can't be more than twenty years away. Now I'm excited about that. And to me there's nothing of doom and gloom but glory to God, the mess is over. Oh, I'm so excited. What an exciting time to be living. The close of this age, the close of this millennium, the close of this final millennium prior to that glorious seventh millennium, the millennial reign of Christ. He shall rule and reign for a thousand years upon the earth. He's gonna rule and reign forever, a thousand of it will be here upon the earth, and we shall rule and reign with Him as kings and priests. Can you imagine that? How close we are, whoosh it's exciting. I love it.
So this whole law of redemption through chapter twenty-five, the redemption of the poor brother by the kinsman redeemer. What a picture of Christ. The man is unable to redeem himself; his next of kin can move in and redeem it for him.
Now man could not redeem the world himself, so Christ became a man so He could be next of kin to man, so that He could redeem the earth back unto God. Necessary that He become a man, that He become our brother, that He might become our kinsman Redeemer. That which man could not do, Jesus Christ has done. In Revelation, chapter five, when we get into heaven and we're beholding that glorious scene, and we see the angel with the scroll, the title deed of the earth with seven seals writing within and without, standing there proclaiming, "Who is worthy to take this scroll and to loose the seals?"(Revelation 5:2).
Here is this whole thing of redemption. Adam forfeited the world over to Satan. It's his possession. He said to Jesus, "It's mine, I can give it to whomever I will." Who is able to redeem now the earth? John began to sob convulsively because no man was found worthy to take the scroll and to loose the seals. That's right, no man can do it.
And as John was weeping the others said, "Weep not John, behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed to take the scroll and loose the seals, and I beheld Him as a lamb that had been slaughtered. And He came, and He took the scroll out of the right hand of Him who sat upon the throne. And as He did, the elders and the cherubim came forth with the golden vials full of odours, which were the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song saying, Worthy is the Lamb to take the scroll and loose the seals, for He was slain and hath redeemed us by His blood out of all the nations and tribes, tongues, and people, and has made us unto our God a kingdom of priests, and we shall reign with Him on the earth"(Revelation 5:5-10). Oh how I long for that day when I'm standing there at the throne of God, singing that glorious song of the redeemed and the worthiness of Jesus Christ.
So this law was put in here for your benefit that you might understand just exactly why Jesus became a man, why it was necessary that He become a man in order that He might be a kinsman redeemer. So there in chapter twenty-five, you'll find it fascinating in that regards. You might want to look at it more carefully.
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