ALONE WITH GOD     

The two longer sacred seasons of the year of jubilee and the sabbatical year are not included in the list of feasts given in Leviticus 23; but inasmuch as they were similar to the stated feasts in their nature and typical significance, we may properly consider them at this point. Because both in their appointment and nature the sabbatical and jubilee years were very closely related and jubilee was really an intensified form of the former, we give principal attention to jubilee as a type.

These unique enactments were the arrangement of a wise Providence for the protection of the Israelites from those evils of greed and oppression that have menaced society in every age and country. "Had these laws been observed, they would have made the Jewish nation the most prosperous and perfect that ever existed." -Peloubet. But the constant neglect of the sabbatic years from the very first was one of the national sins for which God punished the Jews in the Babylonish captivity - "until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths" (2 Chron. 36:21). The sabbatical year was observed, however, after the captivity, according to 1 Macc. 6:49.

The Sabbatic Year. - After Israel came into possession of Canaan, they were told to till the land six years, but in the seventh year they were to give the land rest. They were not to sow the fields nor to prune the vineyards. They might eat direct from the fields and vines that which grew of itself; and to this the poor and the stranger also had access. But they were not dependent on this for food, for God promised to make the yield of the sixth year so abundant that it would supply their needs for the remainder of that year, all the seventh, and until the harvest of the eighth year. It was a wonderful provision in which God would intervene as he did in giving the double amount of manna on the sixth day so that the Sabbath day might be kept. All the debts of Hebrews were then to be freely forgiven (Deut. 15:1-11).

However, they were not to spend the year in idleness. They still had the care of their flocks and herds, also they might do their building work, repair their homes and furniture, make their clothing, and especially devote themselves to God's service and worship as was indicated by the fact that the law was to be read at the Feast of Tabernacles this year. It was beneficial especially in giving the land a chance to become built up after the six years of cultivation. It typified soul-rest in Christ as does the seventh-day Sabbath and the rest of jubilee year.

The Jubilee Year. - The year of jubilee was named from the Hebrew word meaning the joyful shout of trumpets, by which the year was announced. It was celebrated every fiftieth year. When seven sabbaths of years were completed, then the jubilee began. Seven was the perfect number, and seven times seven was the most emphatic expression of completeness. It began, not at the first of the year, but on the tenth day of the seventh moth, atonement-day, in the afternoon, probably when the rites of the day were past, and was announced by the blowing of the silver trumpets of the sanctuary.

Then began the year of rest and joy. (1) The soil had rest as in the sabbatic years. God promised to make the produce of the forty-eighth year sufficient for the seventh of the seven sabbatic years, the jubilee, and for the year following until the harvest. (2) Also with the jubilee, those who had been compelled to sell their property because of poverty, or for any other reason had lost it, received it back again. All land reverted back to its original owner or his heirs. It was a grand provision for the poor; and it was no injustice to the prosperous person who had temporarily gained possession, because in buying it the price of the land was much or little according as there were many or few years until the jubilee. There was no such thing as a permanent transfer of real estate except of that in the walled cities not belonging to the Levites. It was a grand arrangement which tended to equalize wealth and abolish poverty. (3) It also was a time when every Hebrew slave was set free and allowed to return to his possessions and his family. At other times than this the Hebrew servant went out free after he had served six years, unless he voluntarily chose to remain with his master. But in the jubilee all alike, male and female, were freed, even though they had not served the full six years.

Typical Significance of Jubilee. - Though the temporary and material benefits of the jubilee were important, yet the typical value of it was still more important. Glorious realities of present-day blessings were there depicted. As that year of jubilee began with the completion of the solemn rites of the Day of Atonement, so the true jubilee is the result of Christ's great atonement. As the sounding of the silver trumpets announced the blessings of that time, so the proclamation of the gospel of salvation is the announcement of good things those benefits foreshadowed.

(1) Then slaves were set free to typify that glorious freedom from the burden and bondage of sin that Jesus promised: "If the son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8:36). Thank God, those whose lives are blighted, ruined, and made bitter with the hard bondage of sin, may be freed, through faith in Christ, from its guilt and power. (2) Then every man received back again his lost inheritance, so in Christ we receive back that glorious inheritance of the sons of God which has been forfeited by sin. We become "heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ" (Rom. 8:17). Christ restores to us the joy and peace, the moral purity and divine presence, that Adam lost in Eden. In Christ we have eternal life and hope of resurrection of our bodies, that die because of sin. (3) Then broken families were reunited. "Ye shall return every an unto his family." So in Christ those who have been alienated by sin are made "one" as Christ and the Father are one. Their hearts are "knit together in love," and they have blessed fellowship together. (4) That was a season of rest and joy, which foreshadowed the soul-rest Jesus gives and the "joy unspeakable and full of glory" which is the portion of the saved in Christ.

The real jubilee is here. To those who will accept the blessings, they are now available. The year of jubilee was referred to in that which Isaiah predicted and which Jesus quoted as being fulfilled with his coming; "He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke 4:18, 19).