Allow me to ask you a strange question. Do you know how to say the Hebrew word for “ram’s horn”? And you will tell me that you didn’t know Hebrew. But I will bet you know more Hebrew than you think. Because the Hebrew word for ram’s horn is where we get our word, “Jubilee”. For a long time, I heard pastors and Sunday School teachers make references to the Jubilee, but I am even embarrassed to say I didn’t know very much about it. I know churches named Jubilee. I know of at least two females named Jubilee. Even a restaurant named Jubilee. But I didn’t know much more than that.
The Jubilee appears in the Bible in mainly two places: Leviticus 25 and 27. After seven times seven years, or 49 years, the fiftieth year was a year of redemption for the Israelites. The Jubilee, or ram’s horn, was sound on the tenth day of the seventh month in that fiftieth year all throughout the land to signal the beginning of the redemptive year. On this day, there is great joy because the Israelites were released from all kinds of debt, and each property returned to its original owner. In addition, all types of bondage were released. Every prisoner and captive in the land was released. Every slave was released. Can you imagine the amount of rejoicing that happened throughout the land in a Year of Jubilee in those days?
Leviticus 25:11–12 You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its crops out of the field.
Not only were the Israelites commanded to rest from their work, but the land was to rest too.
Leviticus 26:3–5
If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments so as to carry them out, then I shall give you rains in their season, so that the land will yield its produce and the trees of the field will bear their fruit. Indeed, your threshing will last for you until grape gathering, and grape gathering will last until sowing time. You will thus eat your food to the full and live securely in your land.
I have heard of a person taking a rest. But what does a land taking a rest even look like? I am going to claim ignorance here because I am not a farmer, or even a gardener. In the world of farming even today, apparently there is some technique called fallowing where arable land is left to rest for one or more vegetative cycles. Expert farmers who know this secret allow their land to rest so it would recover stronger and store organic matter while retaining moisture and disrupting the lifecycles of pathogens by temporarily removing their hosts. I got almost nothing out of what I just wrote, but it sounds fascinating. In layman’s terms, land that has been rested produces a stronger harvest for the following years to come. Conversely, land that has been overworked produces a weaker harvest. Truly, truly, God has even designed for the land to receive rest.
To be sure, the Year of Jubilee applied more directly to the Israelites. But what does that mean for people like you and me living in the 21st century? Why should the Jubilee matter to us? Is there anything for us to know or do? In my opinion, two things.
Firstly, God meant for us to see the redemptive Jubilee as a foreshadow of the redemption of Christ in the New Testament. God saw us from heaven, and he knew there was nothing we could do about our bondage to sin. God in the flesh became the Redeemer who freed us from that bondage. The debt of sin we owed to God was fully paid at the cross, free and clear. There is no longer bondage to sin for you and for me. The Israelites experienced great joy and thanksgiving when their debts were forgiven every fifty years. How much greater is the joy and thanksgiving that our debt is forgiven for all eternity.
Secondly, God meant for the Year of Jubilee to teach us about rest. The Jubilee was all about rest for the Israelites. All labor was to pause for one year, and those bound by labor contracts found release. Even the land paused. The theme of rest is all over the Bible. In Genesis, God himself rested on the seventh day from his work, and was refreshed. In 2 Chronicles 36, there was a day the Israelites were taken away into captivity largely because they failed to rest as commanded by God. Israel refused to rest on the Year of the Jubilee, and reaped the consequences of their disobedience. One day, you and I will enter the eschatological rest prepared for all people of God, as written in the New Testament in Hebrews 4.
In conclusion, because the Jubilee is in the Bible, you and I need to know it. The Year of the Jubilee foreshadows the excellent redemptive work of Christ. Through his death and resurrection, our spiritual debts are not paid just once every fifty years, but for all eternity. The Jubilee teaches us rest is a spiritual matter. It may not make a whole lot of sense to us, but our rest is very important to God. We like to think it is our choice, even our right, to work as little or as much as we want to work, to rest or not rest. Not true. We need to rethink this. We need to make time for rest, and trust God to provide for our needs.