Leviticus 25 explained: Rest for the Land, Freedom Restored

Rest year for the land (vv. 1-7, 18-22)

Every seventh year the fields and vineyards were left unplanted and unpruned, and whatever grew by itself fed everyone: owners, servants, hired workers, foreign residents, livestock and wild animals. To the worry about what to eat, the LORD promises a harvest in the sixth year big enough to last until new crops came in (vv. 20-22).

The jubilee year (vv. 8-17)

After seven rest years, a ram's horn trumpet sounded on the Day of Atonement, the yearly day of seeking forgiveness for the nation's wrongs, to proclaim liberty: family land went back to its owners and people went home to their clans. A land sale therefore bought only the harvests left until then, so the price had to be honest on both sides (vv. 14-17); scholars are unsure whether the jubilee was ever regularly kept.

Land cannot be sold forever (vv. 23-34)

Because the land belongs to the LORD and the people live on it as foreign residents with him (v. 23), sold family land could be redeemed (bought back) by a close relative or later by the seller, and otherwise it returned at the jubilee. A house in a walled city became the buyer's for good if not redeemed within a year, while village houses and the houses of the Levites (the tribe set apart for worship, given towns instead of farmland) could always come back.

Helping a neighbor in poverty (vv. 35-43)

An Israelite who became poor was to be supported, with no interest charged on money and no profit made on food (vv. 36-37), though translations differ on how v. 35 compares him to a foreign resident. If he became poor and sold himself to a fellow Israelite, he was to be treated as a hired worker, not a slave, and go free with his children at the jubilee, because the LORD had freed the whole people from Egypt (v. 42).

Lifelong slaves from other peoples (vv. 44-46)

Here the law plainly allows Israelites to buy people from surrounding nations, and from foreign families living among them, as permanent slaves passed down to their children, with no jubilee release. The ban on ruthless treatment in v. 46 is stated for fellow Israelites, and these verses were later quoted to defend slavery, including in the American South.

Redeemed from a foreign owner (vv. 47-55)

An Israelite who became poor and sold himself to a wealthy foreign resident could be redeemed, that is bought free, by a relative or by himself, at a price based on a hired worker's pay for the years left until the jubilee. If no one redeemed him, he and his children still went free at the jubilee, and Christians later read this redeeming relative as a picture of Jesus.

Key verse: Leviticus 25:10

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on whether the jubilee is mainly a picture of spiritual freedom through Jesus or also a lasting pattern for economic justice, such as cancelling poor nations' debts, that should shape how societies handle land and debt today.

Something to think about

If land and debts were reset every fifty years where you live, who would gain, who would lose, and would that seem fair to you?