3563 — The Year of Jubilee
By Editor
It is impossible in this department to give a detailed explanation of the scripture. If it is read carefully, it will be quite clear. God not only designed that there should be a Sabbath for His people, but a Sabbath for the land. He would have them saturated with the blessed thought of Sabbath-keeping and the benefits of Sabbath-keeping. And therefore, when they came into the land, He enjoined that the land itself should have a Sabbath, and the Sabbath of the land should be every seventh year. They should neither sow nor reap during that year — simply let the fruit grow of itself. Nor should they keep that which grew of itself; that should be left for the stranger and the widow and the poor and the cattle and the beasts that were in the land. But that was not all in the Sabbath lessons; they should have a great sabbath at the close of seven sabbaths of years, or seven weeks of years. They should number forty-nine years, and the year that followed the forty-ninth year should be a great year of jubilee. On the tenth day of the seventh month of that year they were to cause the great trumpet to sound, and proclaim throughout the land the year of jubilee. They should "proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." Every man should return to his possession. During this time he may have sold that possession, but in the year of jubilee it should come back to him. He may have sold his service to some of his brethren; in the year of jubilee he should be free. And "according to the number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbor, and according unto the number of years of the crops he shall sell unto thee." Verse 15. That would make two years in which there would be no fruit sown or reaped in the regular way; but God promised them that if they would only do His will and keep His statutes and judgments, there should be an abundance. He would command His blessing upon them in the sixth year, and it should bring forth fruit for three years. But the Jews utterly failed to observe God's Sabbath, and therefore there came that seventy years' desolation of the promised land predicted by Jeremiah, during which time the land enjoyed her sabbaths. (See the last chapter of 2 Chronicles.)