Bible Commentaries
Exodus 23

Verses 10-11

IX

THE LAND SABBATH AND THE JUBILEE SABBATH

Exodus 23:10-11; Leviticus 25:1-7

THE LAND SABBATH
1. Where do we find the text of the law of the land sabbath?

Ans. – Exodus 23:10-11; Leviticus 25:1-7. I’ll quote the text: "And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the increase thereof: but the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beast of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard." That is the Exodus text of the land sabbath, two verses of chapter 23. Being in that chapter it is an integral part of the covenant of Mount Sinai, and that part of the covenant in which God and the nation are represented. You will find the Levitical text in Leviticus 25:1-7. We begin at the third verse. "Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruits thereof; but in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath unto Jehovah: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. That which groweth of itself of thy harvest [that is, the volunteer crop] thou shalt not reap, and the grapes of thy undressed vine thou shalt not gather: it shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. . . . all the increase thereof shall be for food." That is the original text of the law.

2. What things are evident from the law itself?

Ans. – (1) That in all agricultural departments there should be a suspension of work; that man must not plow, nor reap, nor harvest;

2) That every other man, particularly the poor, must have a right to go into the fields or into the oliveyards or into the vineyards and eat what he can eat of what the volunteer crop grows that year, and if they leave anything, then the beasts may go in and eat it;

(3) That the purpose of the law is: First, to solemnly teach the people that the land was God’s. That the man had no absolute ownership of the land and he was simply a tenant under God; and second, the scientific basis or purpose of the law is presented in the passage in Exodus, that the land "shall lie fallow." Every good farmer will tell you that if you cultivate land to its extreme ability every year, you soon exhaust its fertility, and in order to preserve the product of the land, there should be a "land fallow" for that land in which you do not cultivate it.

If you were in Virginia today you would see hundreds of farms, which used to be farms, that are now absolutely worthless. The reason is that by continuous cultivation they exhausted all the fertility of the land. So those are two reasons that are assigned, and the third reason assigned is, that the poor might have, at least once in seven years, the right to eat of the volunteer fruits of the earth; that, though the poor would not be allowed to go in and take away a basketful of fruit, and they would not be allowed to harvest, the rich and the poor just alike, in perfect equality before God, could go in day by day and eat of it;

(4) That there was a penalty for not keeping this land sabbath which you will find set forth in the following scriptures: Leviticus 26:43, alluded to in Jeremiah 25:11-12; Jeremiah 29:10; Daniel 9:2; Zechariah 1:12-7:5.

3. What was the penalty?

Ans. – That if they did not observe that land sabbath, then God would remove them from the land, and keep them in captivity until there was a land sabbath equal in extent to all of the land years that had been disregarded. As a matter of fact, for 490 years in their history they disregarded this law of the land sabbath, that is, they stole seventy years, or oneseventh of 490 years. They robbed God and the land of seventy years’ rest; the land of rest, and God of his title. Now for each year that they withheld the observing of this land sabbath they were kept in captivity. I have given scriptures that show how this law was enforced, viz.: by the seventy years of captivity in Babylon which kept them out of the land just exactly the time that they had withheld the observance of the land sabbath in Canaan.

4. What concurrent laws went with the land sabbath?

Ans. – There were three concurrent laws:

(1) One releasing the borrowers from any collection of the debt owed during that year. There was the suspension of the collecting power of the land. Where a man had borrowed money the creditor could not collect it off him, nor any interest off him that year.

(2) The second concurrent law was, that the Hebrew bond servant was to go free that year, if he had sold himself to a brother Hebrew or to an alien living in that territory and under the jurisdiction of the government.

(3) And the third and most important of all of the concurrent laws was, that when the Feast of Tabernacles came in the year of the land sabbath, the whole Pentateuch was to be read to the people.

5. Where do you find the text of the law concerning the release of the debtor and why this law?

Ans. – 1 am going over each one of these concurrent laws particularly. We will take the first one. You will find the text of the law concerning the release of the debtor in Deuteronomy 15:1-6. That gives the text of a concurrent law of the release of the debtor, or rather the suspension of the power of the lender to collect payment of borrowed money. Why this law releasing the borrower, and what is the basis of this law? As in that year all agricultural labor was suspended, and all income from crops was suspended, it was an equitable thing that the man should not have to pay debts or interest that year. That is the idea underlying it.

6. Give an account found in later history where the Jews recovenanted to observe this law to release the Levite during the land sabbath.

Ans. – It is stated in Nehemiah 10:31. They had returned from captivity, and that captivity was because they disregarded the land sabbath. Nehemiah insists that the returned captives enter into a covenant with each other, that they would strictly follow that law.

7. What was the import of the second concurrent law, the law of the bond servant?

Ans. – 1 told you this special part should be brought out concerning the land sabbath in Exodus 21:2-6, and in Deuteronomy 15:12-18; that the Hebrew could not become a slave if he was sold into bondage; that it was not perpetual. In the seventh year he was to be released, and if an alien had bought him in that seven years, he must release him, i.e., if living in the land subject to these laws.

8. What was the penalty of disobeying these laws with reference to the bond servant?

Ans. – A most thrilling account of the penalty is found in Jeremiah 34:13-22. I quote some of that to show how God never forgot any of his laws that he had enacted: "Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, saying, At the end of seven years ye shall let go every man his brother that is a Hebrew, which hath been sold unto thee, and hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee: but your fathers hearkened not unto me, neither inclined their ear. And ye were now turned, and had done that which is right in mine eyes, in proclaiming liberty every man to his neighbour; and ye had made a covenant before me in the house which is called by my name." In other words "You have disobeyed my covenant; you pretended to let those bondsmen go and then by a small technicality of law reinvolved them. [Now we come to the penalty.] Inasmuch as ye have denied liberty to whom I had ordained liberty, I will proclaim unto you a liberty but it will be a liberty to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine. I will give the bodies of those transgressors of the law, their dead bodies, to the fowls for meat."

9. Which is the most important of the concurrent laws, where found, what was the prominent idea and how does the provision of it compare with modern methods, etc?

Ans. – The most important of the concurrent laws is the provision for reading the whole of the Pentateuch to all Israel assembled together in grand convocation. It is in Deuteronomy 31:10-13. It is the most remarkable Sunday school that the earth ever knew, commencing at Deuteronomy 31:10: "And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years [toward the end of it], thou shall read this law [meaning the whole of the Pentateuch]. When all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people together, men, women and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of the law; and that their children, who have not known, may hear, and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over the Jordan to possess it."

This is a remarkable statute. There is nothing like it in history. Notice the true conception of the Sunday school, viz.: men, women, and children. Notice the length of that Sunday school; it probably did not last the whole year of the land sabbath, for it commenced with the Feast of Tabernacles. There was no work to do; all agricultural work was suspended, and the nation gathered before God in Sunday school, – men, women, and children; and in the hearing of the assembled nation the whole book of the Pentateuch was read and expounded, and so expounded that even a child that had not known anything must know the law of God, and believe and do it. Now the question arises, Did they ever try to observe that law? Of course, when they did not keep the land sabbath at all they did not keep that law. But we have one remarkable fulfilment. After their return from captivity in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, they did carry out this law. That account tells you that they were gathered together, men, women, and children, and that Ezra stood upon the pulpit (that is the only place in the Bible where the word "pulpit" is mentioned) and Ezra slowly read the law and the scribes around him explained the law. He slowly read a part, then came the explanation of that part; it lasted from an early hour in the morning to a late hour in the evening; and it was kept up until they got through with the Pentateuch.

I am quite sure that it would produce a revolution to keep the people of the present day in a religious service that long. They have so many other things that they want to do, that every year they are losing the opportunity to hear the Word of God. I know a number of churches that count it a sin for the preacher to preach over fifteen minutes; I could give you the names of the churches that make it a rule that the service should not be over fifteen minutes. Now how are those people to know the meaning of the Word of God? One of the highest things in the world for the preacher is to be able to expound the Word of God from the pulpit. Now, you count up the services in the year, counting morning and evening, thirty minutes every Sunday, and it would require a man to be as old as Methuselah ever to get through with the high places in the Bible from his pulpit, and as the multitude of people never hear the law of God except as it is announced from the pulpit, they are reared in ignorance of that law. The modern service has become ritualistic. There are about ten items on the pro- gram of the Sunday morning service, and by the time they get to the sermon it is usually about fifteen minutes to twelve, and when the dinner horn blows they all want to go to dinner, and there is only fifteen minutes for the sermon. If the man goes over thirty minutes they get restless. What are you going to do about it? How can they compare themselves with those ancient people that gave so much time to the law of God?

THE JUBILEE SABBATH
10. Where do you find the text of the law of the Jubilee sabbath? Explain it and give its application.

Ans. – In Leviticus 25:8-28. I quote a part of it, beginning at Leviticus 25:8: "And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of the years unto thee," seven times seven years (that is, seven land sabbaths). Seven times seven is forty-nine, that is, forty-nine years. "Then thou shalt cause the trumpet of the jubliee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout the whole land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto the inhabitants thereof. A jubilee shall the fiftieth year be unto you; ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed."

You see there are two years which come together and there is no planting, no pruning. And every man shall return unto his original possession of the house sold to his neighbor. That is, if a person bought his neighbor’s land on the first year after the Jubilee, he bought only the crop of the land for forty-nine years; he didn’t buy the land, but the fruit, for on the year of the Jubilee it went right back to the original owner. If he bought two years after the Jubilee he bought only forty-seven years, and so on down. "According to the number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbour, and according to the number of years of the fruit he shall sell unto thee. According to the multitude of the years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of the years thou shalt diminish the price of it; for according to the numbers of years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee. . . .. And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow nor gather in our increase; then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for the three years," i.e., the land sabbath year, the Jubilee year and the year following until new crops were made. "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is mine. . . . And in all the land in your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land." If a man was too poor to redeem that which he sold, his kinsmen had to redeem it for him, and if neither he nor his kinsmen were able to redeem it, it had to go back to him anyhow.

11. What are the essential particulars of this law?

Ans. – (1) First of all is liberty. Suppose a man had sold himself to his Hebrew brother in the sixth year of the land sabbath, a year before the Jubilee, then whether he had been able to redeem himself or not, in the year of the Jubilee he is free.

(2) The next point of interest in the law is, that land could not be sold in perpetuity. After careful examination of this Jubilee and land sabbath business, I have reached this conclusion: that this law forbade both private and communal ownership of land. There is a political party that is trying to destroy private ownership today in our land by associational and communal trusts. Neither as a community nor as individuals did the people own the land. The land is God’s, the earth and the fulness thereof. The only thing that the ownership gave to the country was the use of its fruits. They could not absolutely sell it because of the law which brought it back to him when the year of Jubilee came round. Therefore, the individual did not have absolute private ownership, and the community did not own it. God owns it.

(3) The third thought is that if a man in extremity sold his land he could redeem it at any time. If he sold his own place and wanted to buy it back he could do it plus the improvements," and if he were unable to redeem it any kinsman he had could redeem it for him.

(4) The next relation to the law is the relation of the dwellinghouse. If the dwellinghouse was in the walled city and he sold it under stress of circumstances and kept the privilege of redeeming it within one year after that, that dwellinghouse did not come back to him in the year of Jubilee. Why? Because the value of a residence in a great city is not its value in land for any agricultural purpose, but its valuation comes from a crowded population in that place. For instance, suppose a man was living where an important streetcar line now runs, and would not help build that street; would not help put down those pavements; would not help to get the streetcar. When the streetcar line and the pavements came, his property was increased 50 per cent, in this instance. He did not do it; other people did it. They built that street, those pavements and that streetcar line. It did not come to them by what he did.

(5) The next thought is concerning dwellinghouses in villages or in the country. A dwellinghouse in the village or country was counted as a part of the land, since its only use for it was that the land around could be cultivated and it could not be sold in perpetuity like a dwellinghouse of the city.

(6) There is another part of the law, that in the case of a Levite’s dwellinghouse: because they had no dwellinghouse assigned to them, they had to hold both their dwellinghouses and their land in perpetuity.

(7) The next was the effect of it. This is the law on slavery and refers to Hebrew slaves, whether sold to Hebrews or foreigners.

12. What was the signal of the Atonement Day in the Jubilee year, what is its meaning and what hymn is based on it?

Ans. – On the Day of Atonement for the forty-ninth year, a great trumpet should be blown throughout the land; whether one lived in Jericho, Jerusalem, or any other part of the Holy Land, on the great Day of Atonement, which was the tenth day of the seventh month, he would hear the trumpet sound, and the meaning of that sound was "Liberty, liberty, liberty!" A hymn has been written on that: "Blow ye the Trumpet, Blow!" I will tell directly what it typifies, but before I get to that I want to discuss the land sabbath generally.

13. Cite examples of community ownership of land.

Ans. – The Spartans of Greece were not allowed to sell their land, and among the Dalmatians it was the law that no matter what changes took place in the ownership of the land, every eighth year the land would be redistributed. A remarkable fact ia cited by Prescott in The Conquest of Peru, viz.: that under the rule of the Incas the land belonged to the nation and whenever a man married he was allowed a certain portion of land as an inalienable possession. What use has an old bachelor for land? He got that title to that land when he married. Now, up in Oklahoma, the old law was that each tribe of Indians, as a tribe, had a certain section of land set apart for the tribe. They did not own that land in severally, but in community, and in order to sell a foot of it there had to be a legal gathering of the tribes and a treaty made by which the tribe would sell (not the individual) a piece of that land. A great many white men went in there and obtained a lease of land and in that way became very rich. They got a lease from the tribe.

14.What was the position of Jefferson, George, Cooper, and Goldsmith on this question?

Ans. – Mr. Jefferson has announced some doctrines on the land question. He says, "The earth belongs to the living," that is, the use of its fruits is for the living, not for the dead. It is a far-reaching statement. It was upon that statement that Henry George wrote his famous book, Progress and Poverty. In the early settlement of New York vast stretches of country were given by sovereigns in Europe to what they called "Patroons." The sovereign placed the patroon on the land and in process of time this land reached a fabulous price, and one man in land value could be worth half a state. This brought about revolutions in the state of New York in the ownership of that land; that no man had a right to claim such a section of the earth when multitudes of the people were homeless, and especially when they did not get that from the people but from some king who had no right to it. Fenimore Cooper has written three or four of his great novels On the land question. And he wrote them, too, mainly in the interest of the landowner, not the people. Goldsmith, in his famous poem, "The Deserted Village," immortalized himself. England has had her struggles and the result was that the yeomanry that constituted a large class, won its battles in wars of strife and left England with whole villages that had nothing but empty houses. It was upon that situation that this poem was written, in which occurs this strong language:

Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates and men decay.

There are immense portions of Scotland today, once populous, now deer parks. A few men own a greater part of England and Scotland, and that is why the Germans, Swedes, and Italians swarm across the ocean to this country. I have talked with them and they said, "Because my father nor my grandfather ever owned a foot of land; never had a chance to get a piece. Since we came over here we can easily buy some land. How proud we are when we can say, ’My home, this is my home.’ " The great curses today that put in jeopardy the property of this nation, are those immense syndicates, ever buying. They bought up the coal lands; they bought up the forest land; are sending agents to Puerto Rico; are getting hold of the Philippines and of every valuable part of the world. Their agents are buying up lumber and you are sure to pay for it when you go to build a house. There isn’t any such thing in the United States today as a man being able to open a lumber yard as a private person. The combine on the lumber question is simply impregnable.

15. What are the great lessons of the Jubilee sabbath?

Ans. – (1) The relation of God to the land and man; the land is his and the use of it goes to man.

(2) The lesson of faith. "What shall we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant a crop?"

(3) In the continual equalizing and distribution of the property so that there should never be such a thing as a syndicate, a thing impossible under those Jewish laws.

(4) The lesson in equity. There is no unfairness in this law. If a man bought a neighbor’s property, he didn’t buy it outright; he bought the fruit of it. If he redeemed it he had to pay back what had been paid for it.

(5) The typical significance of the year of Jubilee. Our Saviour in his sermon at Nazareth, after he had entered the public ministry, read a certain passage in Isaiah and he said that he was anointed by the Holy Spirit to preach a deliverance to the captives and the acceptable year of the Lord. So (a) it signifies the final repentance and restoration of Israel; (b) it points to the restoration of all things, at the second, final coming of the Lord; (c) the trumpets signify the preaching of the gospel, "Blow ye the Trumpet, Blow." You go out as a preacher and say, "If Christ shall make you free, you shall be free indeed." You go to bring sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf; that is the significance of the trumpets.