The Sabbatical Year and the Jubilee Year had the same basic purpose: release the oppressed poor from systems of oppression and then provide access to the resources required to provide families with the necessities of life.
Sabbatical Year
The following Scriptural quotations are highlights from Deut. 15 whose basic principle is: "At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts." Or from the RSV "grant a release;" the RSV uses the word release five times in this chapter. In Luke 4:18, Jesus says "release the oppressed." The ideal was that there "should be no poor among." There would not be "if you fully obey the Lord your God, " because then "he will richly bless you."
However, because of the damage of sin, because of systems of oppression, there will be some poor people. "If there is a poor man among your brothers freely lend him whatever he needs. . . . Give generously. . . . Supply him liberally. . . . Give to him as the Lord your God has blessed you."
The message is: economic justice requires the periodic canceling of debts and generous giving to those in need. Could an economic system really work if the principle of grace is applied? Is grace a key to justice? Most Americans would reply, ridiculous!
Jubilee Year
The following Scriptural quotations are highlights from Lev. 25: "Count off seven sabbaths of years. . . . consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land. . . . It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property. . . . The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine. . . . It will be returned in the Jubilee."
Then there follows three sets of instructions regarding the different circumstances under which "one of your countrymen becomes poor:" 1) lend money without interest and sell food at cost, ) hire him as a hired worker, not as a slave, 3) the poor Jew retains these same rights if hired out to a non-Jew.
Three times (25:43, 46, 53) the people are warned not to take advantage of the powerless poor and oppress them---"rule over them ruthlessly. . . . "
Again one economic principle of the Jubilee is grace; grace and justice.
Next, some interpretation of the OT Sabbatical and Jubilee principles.
From the book Shalom by OT Mennonite scholar, Perry Yoder:
"Third, the [Sabbatical, Jubilee] law tackled the matter of access to economic resources. . . . These laws were a type of economic reform legislation to redistribute the capital resources of the community so they would not become concentrated in the hands of a few. . . . two resources are to be redistributed: land and money. The result of this economic redistribution was to enable those who had lost out economically to once more regain their economic independence. The redistribution would also insure that great inequities in wealth and power would not grow up over time."
From the book The Upside-Down Kingdom by Mennonite scholar, Donald Kraybill:
"The sabbatical and Jubilee years established a chronological rhythm. . . . turned social life upside-down. In brief, three shake-ups occurred in the sabbatical year.
1. Land was given a vacation. Crops were not to be planted or harvested. Volunteer plants . . .to be left for the poor. The Lord promised a plentiful yield on the sixth year, large enough for both the sixth and seventh years.
2. Slaves were released on the seventh year. Most slaves in the Old Testament became slaves because they could not pay off their debts. After working for six years as a hired servant, they were freed in the seventh year.
3. Debts were also erased in the sabbatical year.
As God's social blueprint for His people, the Jubilee dream put its finger on the three major factors which generate socioeconomic inequality---land, labor and capital. . . . The use of these three factors---natural resources, human resources, and financial capital---are the keys to determining the amount of inequity in any society. . . . "
Kraybill calls the Sabbatical/ Jubilee principles "institutionalized grace."
He concludes his analysis in this way:
"Another part of the Jubilean genius is that it doesn't squelch individual initiative. It doesn't prescribe that all things should be held in common or that every one must have exactly the same amount. . . . There are not two separate compartments for religion and economics. The two are woven together into one cloth in the Jubilee model. Experiencing God's grace results in economic change."
From the book An Eye for an Eye: OT Social Ethics for Today by Christopher Wright, a British OT scholar; most scholars assert that there is little evidence that the Sabbath Year and the Jubilee were ever comprehensively observed. Largely true, but for some reason Nehemiah 5 seems to have been ignored; I think Nehemiah applied these principles immediately when he discovered they were being violated.
"Not that there was any illusion . . . that such economic obedience to God was easy. It was one thing to celebrate the victories of God in past history. It was another to trust his ability to produce the future harvest. It was still another to trust his ability to provide you and your family with sustenance for a year if you obeyed the fallow or sabbatical year laws and did not sow a crop---or for two if you had to double fallow at the jubilee! And could you afford to let your slave, an agricultural asset, go free after six years, still less with a generous endowment of your substance, animal and vegetable?"
"So then, from the laws themselves and from the prophets' reaction to their neglect, we can see that there was a deep and detailed concern in the Old Testament with work and employment, in respect of conditions and terms of service, adequate rest, and fair pay. And this concern applied across the whole spectrum of the working population. . . . Indeed, the principles of fairness and compassion extended even to working animals, . . . . "
Do these principles apply to the NT? Compare Dt. 15:4 with Acts 4:34.
Conclusion
Once one understands the purpose of the Jubilee and is familiar with Luke's perspective on the rich and poor, a person sees a great deal of continuity between the OT Jubilee and the NT kingdom of God. Jesus vigorously condemned the rich for greedily cornering the wealth of Palestine and failing to share it with the poor.
The Jubilee was good news to the poor; it released the oppressed from the loss of land, from the bondage of poverty. This was also one of the important messages of the kingdom of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment