If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, then his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold. If a man has no one to redeem it and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, let him calculate the years since he sold it and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and then return to his property. But if he does not have sufficient means to recover it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of jubilee. In the jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his property. Leviticus 25:25-28
“The main purpose of these laws was to prevent the utter ruin of debtors. In biblical times a man who incurred a debt that he could not repay could be forced to sell off his land or even his personal freedom by becoming a slave. When left unchecked this process led to a great social division, with a class of rich landowners exploiting the mass of landless serfs.
This sort of situation has arisen in many societies, and even Israel was not immune to it, despite this legislation. Standards of house-building have led archaeologists to conclude that early Israel was a relatively egalitarian society, but that by the later monarchy period the gap between the rich and poor had widened.
“The rich houses are bigger and better built and in a different quarter from that where the poor houses are huddled together,” Isaiah denounces “those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no more room” (Isaiah 5:8), while Amos angrily decries those who “sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes” (Amos 2:6). Had the jubilee been observed, such unbridled exploitation of the poor would have been checked…
The jubilee year occurred every forty-nine years. If a a man went bankrupt the year after the jubilee, he would have been enslaved for up to forty-eight years unless a relative was able to redeem him; but if it happened at a later stage in the cycle, he would have had a shorter time to wait for release. Thus, about once in any man’s lifetime the slate was wiped clean…”
Gordon Wenham in The Book of Leviticus (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979) 317.
In a world where debtors experience “utter ruin” economically speaking and where to desire to acquire leads to “social division” and slavery, God sets for a program called “Jubilee” because once in every lifetime He wants every person to have a chance to have their slate “wiped clean.”
Think about it. That’s grace in a world filled with greed. That’s why God would make such a provision. Jubilee foreshadows what Christ would do with our debts. He would forgive them, wipe them clean. And in the famous “Lord’s Prayer” he tells us, explicitly, to forgive the debts of others.
“This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’ For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. Matthew 6:9-15
I wonder if the present day Church around the world would receive the same scathing report that Isaiah and Amos delivered. At some point, someone needs to say, “Enough is enough!” Perhaps that’s my role. If so, I can only call people back to what the Word says about forgiving debts. This gets to the heart of the gospel.
In simple terms, if we have experienced Jubilee, that is, forgiveness of God and release from slavery, then we get to extend the same grace to others in tangible ways. This is not about earning your own forgiveness, but about showing we really received His favor in the first place. Do you see the pattern? The redeemed become “redeemers” of others.
God’s generosity came to you on the way to others. Don’t let it stop with you. That’s jubilee generosity!