Whose Land Is It Anyway?

The Old Testament book of Leviticus describes the Year of Jubilee as the year after the seventh “Sabbath Year” in a succession of 49 years.  The Sabbath Year happens every 7 years and it, according to Leviticus 25, is a year of “solemn rest for the land”.  Literally, the land was to take “a sabbath to the Lord.”  During this sabbath the land was to go unsown.  No planting or harvesting was to be performed on the land during the Sabbath Year.  The people were to live off the harvest of the sixth year while the land rested through the sabbath year.  

Now there are likely already enough questions for a large FAQ page, but I am not going to get distracted by questions at this point.  Let’s push forward.  String seven of these Sabbath Years together and you land on a Year of Jubilee.  This is a special year for a lot of reasons but the most special characteristic of the jubilee year is the act of redemption.  Liberty was proclaimed throughout the land - debts were canceled, slaves were freed, land was given back to owners that may have lost or sold the land previously.  All the people of Israel would “return to his property” and “return to his clan” (God is big into family if you didn’t know).

So obviously this whole idea of giving back everything in the year of Jubilee caused some serious consideration when dealing with other people who would observe the year of jubilee.  If people bought or sold property, they would consider the price of the property based on the sale’s proximity to the Jubilee Year.  In fact, the book of Leviticus gives instructions on how one should value their sale in this manner.   People did not go overboard when considering the purchase of a property if they knew that it would go back to the owner at some point in the near future.  

If someone had a slave, they had to consider the Year of Jubilee because that slave would go free when the Jubilee came around.  Everything was in essence reset by the year of jubilee and everybody had to consider their treatment of others based on this reality.  For this reason God made sure that the people rightly considered their position with regard to the statute of the Jubilee Year.  In verse 17, the people are instructed to “not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.”  The Year of Jubilee was intended to make people conscientious of their treatment of others, and, more specifically, how God wanted them to treat others.  

Of course we do not observe the Sabbath or Jubilee Years now (don’t worry, the Jews don’t either).  We do not allow the land to rest, and we do not let the slave go free.  Debts are not cancelled and nothing is redeemed.  When we purchase a property it is ours and there is no redeeming it.  We no longer have to trust God for the sixth year harvest to meet the needs of the seventh year.  We certainly do not have to treat others with the respect required by the Jubilee.  All things belong to man in perpetuity.  But, is this the way God thinks?  

God has told us through His word that He does not change.  Since this is truth, we would do well to consider Leviticus 25 once again.  In these passages God states that “the land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine.”  With the word “mine” God is referring to Himself.  The land is His.  The same is true of the slave, the debtor, the rich man and the poor man.  Everything is God’s.  We need to understand that we only possess that which we cannot afford in the first place.  

The redemption of the Jubilee is not a declaration of loss.  It is a proclamation of freedom.  A man cannot lose that which he never owned.  And, when it comes to property, no person can gain that which they can never buy.  If you have ownership of something, you must understand that your ownership is simply title to use.  When your time is over and the Jubilee comes, it’s all going back to the original owner.  The One who gave it. The One who preserved it through the millennia.  It all goes back to God.   

That understanding can bring sweet freedom or it can be a bitter pill.  You are going to have to swallow it either way.

Leviticus 25