Leviticus 25:2-55 Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When you come into the land which I give you… I. ITS ORIGIN. It stands connected with two of the leading Jewish institutions. 1. With the weekly sabbath. It comes from the sabbath by two steps; first, by the institution of a sabbath for the land, falling on every seventh year; and secondly, by the conferring of a special sanctity on the seventh of these land sabbaths. 2. With the Day of Atonement. II. ITS PROVISIONS. Restoration — 1. Debtor released from debts. 2. Slave released from bondage. 3. Exile restored to inheritance. III. ITS LESSONS FOR OURSELVES. 1. The coming of Christ was the inauguration of a greater jubilee, bringing world-wide and lasting blessings. We too are debtors, debtors to the law in the whole round of its requirements; we are slaves to sin and Satan; we have forfeited our fair inheritance of innocence and heaven. But hear how Christ ushers in His ministry (Luke 4:16-21). 2. With us as with the Jews it is still on the Day of Atonement that the jubilee trumpet sounds. Our liberty and restoration have been dearly won (1 Peter 1:18, 19). With the Jews the neglect of the Day of Atonement led to the loss of the jubilee. And if the atonement of which we speak so much has never yet been anything to us, in our sense of the need of it, in our quest after the blessing of it, to us there has been no jubilee — we are yet in our sins. Will we be less in earnest than the debtor or the slave when we have so much more need to be in earnest? (Walter Roberts, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the LORD. |
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