Pentecost And The Jubilee
PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT THE LAND TO ALL ITS INHABITANTS!!!
This post is a bit longer than usual, as the Jubilee is such an all-encompassing subject that it is necessary to take sufficient time to express its subtle and wonderful benefits. So, please take your time, find somewhere nice to read, and enjoy the incredible plan of God as revealed in this incredibly significant and important festival- THE JUBILEE!
This is the fifth post in this series about the annual festival of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was manifested with great power and signs to the first century church. (Acts 2:1-13)
The fourth post discussed the spiritual symbolism and purpose behind God’s command to keep Pentecost. This post will discuss the parallel symbolism between Pentecost, which is the fiftieth day after the beginning of the harvest, and the Jubilee, which is the year of release, which was to be kept every fifty years.
The Structure Of Pentecost And The Jubilee
The pattern of counting Pentecost is the same as the pattern to count the fifty-year Jubilee. Whereas the harvest season leading up to Pentecost has seven weeks, including seven weekly Sabbath Days of rest from harvest work, the time leading up to the Jubilee has seven periods of seven years, including seven Sabbatical years when people rest from their agricultural work. In addition, during the Sabbatical years many slaves were released, and most debts were totally forgiven!
After the seventh weekly Sabbath day in the Pentecost cycle (being the 49th day) then the 50th day of Pentecost is celebrated. As Pentecost is an annual Sabbath it creates a double sabbath. The Jubilee also has the same pattern, for at the end of 49 years an extra Sabbath year, the fiftieth Jubilee year, is celebrated;
And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan (family). (Lev 25:10)
In this Jubilee year all the people who had been sold into slavery, or who had sold their land (which in Israel was their birth right) were to be given their freedom, and their land was to be returned to them. They were then able to go back to the land of their ancestors, and to live on it with their families whom they may not have seen for many years. In this way all people were given the opportunity of starting their lives afresh in a loving family environment, which is the foundation of any healthy nation.
Pentecost and the Jubilee are therefore two great compatible systems that God gave to Israel as periods of rest and freedom. The Jubilee is explained in detail in the 25th chapter of Leviticus. Please take the time to read it all, as it has much detail that I won’t be covering.
As you will see, when we compare and contrast Pentecost and the Jubilee, we effectively shed light on the meaning of both of these great laws by demonstrating how they were to greatly enhance our relationship with God, and with our neighbour, and with all people throughout the entire world!
The Pattern Of Sevens
As we have seen in part two of this series, the reason the harvest festival of Pentecost consists of seven Weekly Sabbaths, and then the final double Sabbath, is so that we can learn to trust in God for our needs, and to help others with their needs.
By keeping the Sabbath as a day of rest during the harvest, we ensure that we do not oppress our workers by forcing them to work seven days a week during the harvest- which is standard practice in countries that don’t keep the Sabbath.
The seven weeks of 49 days leading up to Pentecost, is not just a time for harvesting, but it also provides an important structure for the society as a whole. While the Sabbath could be seen as the primary structure for the society throughout the year, it is during the harvest period that the Sabbath becomes even more important.
We all need a rest, and God enforces this rest with the Sabbath during the harvest period of seven Sabbaths. As discussed previously, many farms in Israel may not have started to harvest at the time of the first ripe grain, and others may have continued to harvest after Pentecost, but these seven weeks would have been the time that most grain would have been harvested. It is therefore a symbolic period in which the entire nation focuses on the harvest, while also focusing on God’s provision for them, and also their responsibility in ensuring that they generously provide for the poor in the land.
Seven times seven Sabbaths is also symbolic of a complete and total rest- which is epitomised in the seventh week culminating in the double Sabbath rest at Pentecost. This “seven times seven pattern” is then greatly magnified in the laws concerning keeping the Jubilee, including our increased need to trust in God to provide for us, and in our corresponding increased responsibility to provide for the poor.
The Land Sabbath
While every seventh year in Israel was declared by God as a Sabbath of rest for all the people, God also placed great importance on the land getting a rest, calling this seventh year a Sabbath for the land:
When you come into the land that I give you,
the land shall keep a Sabbath to the LORD.
For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, but in the seventh year
there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the LORD.
You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine.
It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land.
(Lev 25:2-5)
God also said that during the sixth year in this cycle he would provide a bumper crop, so that they could keep the extra as food for the next two years!
And if you say, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives. (Lev 25:20-22)
The sixth year was therefore a very important element in the Jubilee cycle, and also a time of testing of the people to share their great abundance with the poor, as they, too, would need to store extra grain for the next two years.
From this we can see that the physical expectations God had for management of his land, and his people, were intended to not just be for peace and equity, but also for developing patience and faith in God over a long period of time, including relying on God during two years of no harvests!
God’s Manna From Heaven
The extra provision during the sixth year is first pictured in how God provided for Israel during the 40 years they wandered in the desert after leaving Egypt. As there were no crops to harvest, every morning God provide for them a bread-like substance they called “manna”- which means “what is it”:
And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness
a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground.
When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?”
For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them,
“It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat. …
Now the house of Israel called its name “manna”.
It was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.
(Exo 16:14-15 and 31)
They were to collect this manna every morning, and were told not to keep any of it till the next day, or it would breed worms and stink!
In addition, God did not want people working by collecting manna on the Sabbath day, so on the sixth day of the week God provided twice as much manna, and they were told to keep it overnight to eat on the Sabbath. It was only during this one day per week that the manna did not breed worms or stink if kept overnight.
Such obvious daily provision and miracles were intended to demonstrate to them God’s power and love for his people, and should have obviously produced in them a corresponding unfaltering faith in and love for him.
However, after about two years of this daily and weekly miracle of manna, as well as many other signs and wonders, the vast majority of the people still did not trust God sufficiently to go into the promised land of Israel.
God, therefore, determined to make them wander in the desert for another 38 years, in order to instil in them the lesson of faith and trust in him, while during this time he continued to provide the miracle of manna for them six days a week.
God Expects Faith In Action
This pattern of providing food for five days, and then a double portion for the sixth day, which was to be food for the Sabbath day, would have been well and truly instilled in them by the time they eventually came into the Promised Land.
They therefore should have been ready to have the faith to keep the seventh Sabbatical year, as they would have also had a double crop during the sixth year. However, there is no record of the Land Sabbath, or the Jubilee, ever having been implemented in Israel, not under Joshua, or David, or Solomon.
God, however, had clearly warned them that one of the main reasons that Israel would be removed from the land he had given them, was if they had not given the land its required Sabbath rest every seventh year:
And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. “
Then the land shall enjoy its (year long) Sabbaths
as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies' land;
then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths.
As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest,
the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it.
(Lev 26:33-35)
If Israel as a nation had kept the Jubilees they would have been a nation of people who had developed great faith in God. However, they didn’t keep the Jubilees, and ended up being a faithless people who went into captivity and exile as God had warned would happen, and the land was then given its year-long sabbath rests.
Living by God’s laws ensures that our faith is not just words, but is coupled with obedience in how we do our daily work:
… faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.”
(however) show me your faith apart from your works, and
(but) I will show you my faith by my works.
(James 2:17-18)
God commanded the people with many of his great and all-encompassing laws, all of which were for their good. And we may think that the Land Sabbath and the Jubilee were some of the greatest challenges of faith in action that God expected of Israel. Yet he had prepared the people by 40 years of daily and weekly miracles with the manna, so they should have had sufficient faith to continue in his way, and desire to diligently teach God’s truth to the next generation also:
You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your might.
And these words that I command you today shall be in your heart.
You shall teach them diligently to your children,
and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
(Deut 6:5-9)
The benefits of having the faith to keep the Jubilee cycle would have clearly set Israel on the path to become the leader of the entire world:
And if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God,
being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today,
the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.
(Deut 28:1)
The keeping of the Jubilees is, therefore, as important as any other of God’s great commandments that he gave to his chosen people, and would have been an example to the entire world of God’s love and truth and way of life, and would have reinforced the truth that God is the creator and owner of the whole world.
The Physical Environment
The Land Sabbath is also very important from a long-term agricultural perspective, as it ensures that the land is not over worked, and as such provides a foundation for long-term sustainable agriculture, producing healthy food, and work, and a rich and diverse environment to live in.
The Land Sabbath also greatly benefits the natural environment. When farm land is overworked it not only becomes unproductive, but can also erode due to continual ploughing. This valuable silt then runs off and impacts on the rivers by silting them up. In addition, to maintain production, farm land must expand into the more marginal lands, which are normally retained for native plants and animals. Over time all the land is cleared, and degraded, and eroded, and the rivers become shallow and dirty with no life in them either.
By overworking agricultural land, vast areas of once productive and beautiful country have been totally destroyed. No country should ever experience “dust bowl” conditions, as has often been seen throughout the world in some of the once richest agricultural lands. It is through keeping the Land Sabbath that God intended to ensure the sustainability of his land that he had given to his people Israel for an example to the entire world.
The animals in the natural environment were not ignored either, for in God’s provision during the Sabbatical years he also mentioned the requirement that the food which grows in the land was also for wild animals to eat. (Lev 25:6-7)
In his provision for these wild animals, we are reminded that God loves and cares for all of his creation, and we should therefore not begrudge them their right to food also:
Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? (Matt 6:26)
We must trust God to provide for us during the entire year of the Land Sabbaths, when we don’t sow or reap a harvest. This includes obeying God’s command to allow the wild animals to eat the produce of the land.
Land Inheritance
When God gave Israel the Promised Land, he equally divided the land between all the tribes, so that all peoples had their own property that they could farm and build houses on:
To a large tribe you shall give a large inheritance, and to a small tribe you shall give a small inheritance; every tribe shall be given its inheritance in proportion to its size. (Num 26:54)
The land was to be a perpetual inheritance, for the people were not allowed to sell it beyond the time of the regular Jubilee. (Lev 25:25-28) If, however, the owner chose to sell his land, then its value was determined according to the number of years until the Jubilee, depending on the number of crops that could be taken from it during this time.
In God’s ideal social structure, as he set it up in Israel, the rich could not oppress and impoverish others, as they could not get rich by owning most of the land. Those Israelites who did not sell their land could maintain some independence by being able to feed themselves and sell produce to others. They were not at the mercy of the rich, who in most countries have always owned and dominated vast tracts of the land’s resources.
The Structure Of God’s Chosen People’s Society
From this we can see that the Jubilee was not simply a once every fifty-year event, but it included the seven Sabbatical years of rest and release as well.
So, when God said that the Jubilee was to “proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants”, this was only the culminating event of an entire system of love and equity that impacted all sectors of the society that was intended to also be a light of truth and equity to the entire world!
God’s Jubilee system provided the major foundation for the religious, legal, judicial, social welfare, banking, town planning, agricultural, natural environment and cultural structure of the entire nation! This great law provided a practical demonstration of how the mind of God works, and His role as creator, provider and ruler of his people.
If we think about it, we can see that when God gave Israel the Jubilee, its actual purpose was to provide a strong framework for the entire society to be built upon. The Law of God is indeed worth thinking about in a deep meditative state, as did David:
Oh, how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.
Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me.
I have more understanding than all my teachers,
for your testimonies are my meditation.
(Psalm 119:97-99)
The Sabbath Foundation
This foundation pattern of God’s social structure using multiple of sevens, began when God commanded the weekly Sabbath at the time of creation:
“Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work. It is a Sabbath to the LORD in all your dwelling places. (Lev 23:3)
In the seven weekly Sabbaths leading up to Pentecost, we have the pattern of working six days and resting the seventh, which also included “a holy convocation”- when people were to congregate and discuss the word of God.
God also expected people to trust him by not harvesting on the Sabbath days (even if rain may spoil the crop), and to also share their abundance with the poor during the harvest period.
The seven weeks of Pentecost, therefore, provide the next level of structure for the social and cultural foundation of the society, greater than the Weekly Sabbath alone, but on a smaller scale compared to the Jubilee, as explained in this earlier post.
With the Jubilee, God then expands on the Pentecost harvest pattern- from the seven weekly Sabbaths into the seventh-year Sabbath cycle. In doing so, he also expands upon his expectation for his people to love and trust him, and on our responsibility to care and show love for our neighbour.
By not harvesting or sowing any grain in the seventh year, and then not harvesting for two years on the 49th and 50th year, the people obviously needed to greatly trust God to provide for them during the sixth year. The expectation for loving your neighbour is also raised up to a higher level of cancelling debts every seven years, and freeing slaves and giving them back their ancestral lands every 50 years.
Finally, we can see the same seven Sabbath pattern in the 1,000-year reign of Christ in the Kingdom of God, where man has had 6,000 years to live his own way, but mankind must rest and focus on God’s way of life in the last thousand years. (2Peter 3:8, Rev 20:4-6)
The foundation of all this liberty, peace and prosperity is the Sabbath Day, which was given at creation, and which Jesus said was created for all of mankind to rest and rejoice in:
And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27-28)
If we abandon the Sabbath, and even if we keep some other day, then we cut ourselves off from the very practical foundational structure of God’s laws of love for mankind, and are teaching the commandments of men, and thus worshiping God in vain:
This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. (Matt 15:8-9)
The Value of Land
God’s Sabbaths determine how the society would be developed and managed, which is so completely different from how our countries have ever been run. A major element of this was that he determined that land was to be valued by the crops that it could produce, rather than simply the value of it being determined by supply and demand, as it is in most countries today:
And if you make a sale (of your land) to your neighbour, or buy from your neighbour (his land), you shall not wrong one another.
You shall pay your neighbour according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of years for crops.
If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you.
You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the LORD your God. (Lev 25:14-17)
Banks in modern societies get rich by lending money for home ownership, and house prices often rise beyond the capacity of many to even save a deposit. We now have the spectre of homelessness in the face of the fact that many other people own two or more homes, but those who are young or poor can’t even afford to rent a house, or houses are simply not available to rent.
Yet there is also plenty of land that could be developed that lies empty because it is owned by “housing development” companies that “land bank” it, and develop it when the prices rise so that they make massive profits. And these companies, in collusion with the banks and governments, cause the house prices to rise by limiting the number of houses that can be built, so that supply never reaches the demand for them.
House prices continue to rise, until the poor simply can’t pay for them, and then there is a collapse in the market, and the banks and the rich come in and foreclose, or buy up houses at way below cost price. When this cycle reaches an extreme level, the poor then starve and die due to lack of food and inadequate shelter.
Governments then may make a show of taking more control of the markets and trying to stop the rich from dominating. But as the governments are run by the rich, it is only a superficial attempt to help the poor. It is not surprising perhaps that this “cycle of boom and bust” occurs every fifty or so years in western societies.
This evil process ensures that the vast majority of the population spends most of their lives paying interest on a house that they may never own, or if they do own it they may have to sell it during their old age so that it does not go on to the next generation.
God’s system of land management does not allow such a process to even begin, for the land value is based on the crop value, not supply and demand, and it cannot be sold permanently.
The Legal And Judicial System
There were to be no prisons in Israel, for anyone who committed a crime was to be punished with either repaying more than the value of the goods to the victim (in the case of theft), being beaten with stripes, or being executed. If they could not pay, then they were to be sold as slaves, and it seems that the value of their labour was to be given to the victim to compensate for their loss. (Exo 22:1-3, Deut 25:1-3)
While slavery may seem harsh, God required that Hebrew slaves were not to be oppressed during their slavery, but were to be treated fairly and looked after by the people who purchased them. Depending on the type of slavery, it could last a maximum of seven years, or to the year of release every seven years, or until the Jubilee. (Exo 21:2-11, Lev 25:39-41, Deut 15:1-14)
Debts were also to be forgiven every seven years, at the Sabbatical year, often called “the year of release”:
“At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbour. He shall not exact it of his neighbour, his brother, because the LORD's release has been proclaimed. (Deut 15:1-2)
This type of lending of money was not for a business loan, but for people in dire straits that needed financial assistance. People were also required to be generous with those poor people who needed a loan, and to not hold it back just because the year of release was near. (Deut 15:7-10)
God’s Perpetual Inheritance For His Children
The Land of Israel is stated as being God’s land that he gave to them forever, as a perpetual inheritance. Yet it is not actually a perpetual inheritance, as we all die and obviously can’t live in it forever! However, it is through the process of keeping the Sabbath, and Pentecost, and the Sabbatical years, and the Jubilee, that we develop and demonstrate our love for God and our neighbour. If, through keeping his laws, we learn to love God and our neighbour as he intended, then when we die, God has indeed promised to provide for us an eternal inheritance:
Then an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. He said, "Teacher, what must I do to get eternal life?" Jesus said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you understand from it?" The man answered, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.' Also, 'Love your neighbour the same as you love yourself.'" Jesus said, "Your answer is right. Do this and you will have eternal life." (Luke 10:25-28)
In the Jubilee year all people were able to return to the land of their physical ancestors in Israel. The land thus provided a strong link back to their physical family, which is the basic social structure of any healthy society. But the Promised Land of Israel is also a profound symbol of the great eternal inheritance for those of us who are God’s Children. This inheritance, beyond the land of Israel and their physical families, is what the patriarchs looked forward to, as do all those who die in the faith:
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth… And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. (Heb 11:13 and 39-40)
When Christ returns, those people who have died with faith in God will be in the first resurrection, and will be made immortal Children of God, and will then be given an inheritance that is imperishable:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again (as his children) to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1Peter 1:3-5)
Yet, in order to understand how to love God and neighbour we need to understand and obey the Law of God, and to do this we need the Spirit of God, which also makes us into God’s Children- composed of Spirit and able to live eternally.
Both God’s Law and his Spirit were given on separate days of Pentecost about 1,500 years apart. The next post in this series will explore the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and how it helps us to keep the intent and purpose of the letter of the Law in our lives, and beyond into eternal life.