Jubilee Justice, Part I: The Biblical Solution to the Bondage of Debt

The biblical scholar, John Howard Yoder, once described debt as "the paradigmatic social evil".  In other words, in the Bible, debt is the classic expression of social evil.

The prophet Elisha (II Kings 4:1-7) performed a miracle to solve the problem of debt for the wife of a prophet whose husband had died.  The wife cried out to Elisha, ". . . . the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves".  Elisha told her to borrow many vessels from her neighbors and to start pouring her remaining jar of oil into them.  She did so and the oil kept flowing until all the vessels were full.  Elisha told her, "Go, sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your sons can live on the rest."  Through the miracle of Jubilee justice, we need to give the poor of this world access to the basic resources of life so they can be self-sufficient.

Debt had a different meaning in Bible times than it does today.  It was much worse.  Failure to repay one's debts in both the Old and New Testaments, could not only mean the loss of your land, , house, etc., but you and your children might be sold into slavery until your debts were paid.  Often excessive interest charges were added to your total debt so that the chances of ever fully repaying your debt were nil because the debt became larger and larger.  Or you might be imprisoned because of your unpaid debt.

What might drive a family into debt?  Famine, excessive taxation or crop failure.  Even if crops were poor, the taxes were still due.  To avoid losing one's farm to the tax collector, the farmer would borrow money, often at a high rate of interest, to pay the taxes.  Come another year, the farmer would not only have a heavy tax bill to pay, but he would have to repay the borrowed money as well -- an impossible task so the farm would be lost.

For awhile, the peasant farmer might become a sharecropper, but this usually would not earn enough income to pay off his debt.  The debt would continue to grow.  The next step might be slavery -- the whole family legally could be enslaved over an unpaid debt.

In modern US society, we have bankruptcy laws which protect against a person being sold into slavery if one cannot pay his or her debts.  Usually, a person can keep their house so the family will not be homeless or destitute.  It may be that our bankruptcy laws reflect something of Sabbatical/Jubilee laws which were designed to break the bondage of debt and enslavement.

When Robert Boynton interviewed Glenn Loury for The New Yorker, (May 1, 1995), Loury mentioned that Nehemiah had relevance for Afro Americans today.  Boynton went home and read Nehemiah and found some startling information.  Chapter five is the story of famine, debt, and exploitation and Nehemiah's solution to these problems.

Because of famine, families were "mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to get grain. . . ."  Also, some had borrowed money to pay the heavy taxes; and excessive interest was being charged.  The result: "we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves," and they were powerless to do anything about it because, "other men have our fields and our vineyards".

So, Nehemiah held an assembly and pointedly condemned this oppression:
"The thing that you are doing is not good. . . . Return to them this very day their fields, their vineyards and their houses, and also the interest that you have been charging."  The people promised, "We will restore these and require nothing from them".

As leader of the Jerusalem Jews, Nehemiah did not lay heavy tax burdens on the people.  He acted justly in every way and did not become rich by taking advantage of his power and authority.  Nehemiah operationalized the principles of the Sabbatical/Jubilee laws to stop oppressions and greed in the economic system.

This same pattern of excessive taxation, excessive interest, indebtedness, land loss, enslavement or imprisonment existed at the time of Christ.  Especially in Galilee, peasant farmers were losing their land and even control of their own lives and families at an increasing rate.  Galilee -- a rich land full of poor people.  Large landholders, some of them Sadducees from Jerusalem's ruling elite, controlled most of the good agricultural land leaving many landless and poor.  The rich were getting richer and numbers of poor were increasing.

With this background, a person can better understand why John the Baptist urged people to repent of their economic sins(Luke 3): collecting excessive taxes or robbing people by false accusation or violence.

With this background, a person can also understand why Jesus received an enthusiastic reception when he stood up in the Nazareth synagogue and read from Isaiah 61:

                                       The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
                                            because he has anointed me to preach
                                            good news to the poor. [Woe to the rich!]
                                         He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
                                           and recovering of sight to the blind,
                                           to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
                                           to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. [Jubilee justice]

This passage breathes hope with the use of the Sabbatical/Jubilee words of release and liberty.  For the poor and oppressed, the bruised and downtrodden, there is the possibility of not only spiritual release and forgiveness, but also economic freedom -- release from the burden of debt and oppression.  The year of the Lord refers to the Jubilee and Jubilee principles are designed to restore economic justice for the poor.  And there were plenty of landless, indebted poor in Galilee.

No wonder "all spoke well of him," (Luke 4:22).

Jesus came to fulfill the Jubilee principles and to incarnate kingdom of God justice.  When this happens, then Isaiah 61:3-4 will be fulfilled: the poor and oppressed will have:

                                          a crown of beauty
                                          instead of ashes
                                          the oil of gladness
                                          instead of mourning
                                          a garment of praise
                                          instead of a spirit of despair.
                                          They will be called oaks of righteousness. . . .
                                          They will rebuild the ancient ruins and
                                           restore the places long devastated.

With the above background, the parable of the unmerciful servant makes more sense (Mt 18:21-35).  Remember how serious debts were in Bible times.

Just prior to this parable, Peter asks Jesus, "how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me?"  Then Jesus follows with a parable on forgiveness.  Forgiveness is grace operationalized -- in this case in the economic realm:

                                          Therefore, the kingdom of heaven [God] is like a king who
                                           wanted to settle accounts with his servants. . . . a man who
                                           owed him ten thousand talents [several million dollars],
                                           was brought to him.  Since he was not able to pay, the master
                                           ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that
                                           he had be sold to repay the debt.

The servant begged for mercy and the master had compassion, "cancel the debt and let him go."  But, this same servant went out and ordered a person who owed him money to repay him immediately; he showed no mercy and threw the debtor into prison.

The unmerciful servant was reported to his master and the master threw the unmerciful servant into prison.

What was Jesus' application:  "If you don't forgive your brother as God forgives you, you will be severely punished.  Grace, forgiveness and justice must be combined in a comprehensive ministry to the poor and the oppressed."

If this Sabbatical/Jubilee type of justice is so important, we should examine it more closely.

[See my next blog: Jubilee justice, Part 2: Restoring Economic Justice]