( CHRISTOPHER J. H. WRIGHT)

Leviticus 25 details the biblical system of jubilee. The Hebrew term at the center of this system, _______, "jubilee" has an uncertain etymology. The most common view is that ______ means "ram"(cf. Phoen ybl), since ram's horn was used for trumpets and the year of jubilee was announced by the blowing of the trumpet. But the word used in the instructions of Lev 25:9 is the more common sûoÆpar. Elsewhere, however, ______ or qeren hay______, "the horn of the ram"_________________, "trumpets of rams" are expressions used for trumpets (e.g., Exod 19:13; Josh 6:4-8, 13). The word jubilee, derived from ______, is etymologically unconnected with Lat jubilare and its English derivative "jubilation."

The year of jubilee came at the end of the cycle of 7 Sabbatical Years. Lev 25:8-10 specifies it as the 50th year, though some scholars believe it may have been actually the 49th-i.e., the 7th Sabbatical Year. In this year there was a proclamation of liberty to Israelites who had become enslaved for debt, and a restoration of land to families who had been compelled to sell it out of economic need in the previous 50 years. Instructions concerning the jubilee and its relation to the procedures of land and slave redemption are found entirely in Leviticus 25. But it is also referred to in Leviticus 26 and 27 in other contexts.

B. Theological Basis

Lev 25:23 can be translated as follows: "The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land belongs to me; for you are 'guests'and 'residents'with me." This statement, at the heart of the chapter describing the jubilee, provides the hinge between the social and economic system de-scribed above and its theological rationale. Following the inalienability rule, the chapter pre-sents the two theological factors upon which the jubilee and related laws are based: the theol-ogy of the land and the status of the Israelites.

1. The Theology of Land. One of the central pillars of the faith of the Israelites was that the land they inhabited was Yahweh's land. It had been his even before Israel entered it (Exod 15:13, 17). This theme is found often in the Prophets and Psalms, as part of Israel's cultic tra-dition. At the same time, although ultimately owned by Yahweh, the land had been promised and then given to Israel in the course of the redemptive history. It was their "inheri-tance"(Deuteronomy passim), a kinship term appointing Israel as heir of Yahweh.

This dual tradition of the land-divine ownership and divine gift-was associated in some way with every major thread in Israel's theology. The promise of land was an essential part of the patriarchal election tradition. The land was the goal of the Exodus redemption tradition. The maintenance of the covenant relationship and the security of life in the land were bound together. Divine judgment eventually meant expulsion from the land, until the restored rela-tionship was symbolized in the return to the land.

The land, then, stood like a fulcrum in the relationship between God and Israel (cf. its posi-tion in Lev 26:40-45). It was a monumental, tangible witness both to that divine control of history within which the relationship had been established and also to the moral and practical demands entailed by that relationship. For the Israelite, living as his family on his allotted share of Yahweh's land was proof of his membership in God's "family" and became the focus of his practical response to God's grace. Nothing that concerned the land was free from theo-logical and ethical dimensions-as every harvest reminded him (Deuteronomy 26).

2. The Status of the Israelites. The Israelites are described in two ways in Leviticus 25.

a. Guests and Residents. "You are guests and residents [RSV; "aliens and tenants" in NIV] with me"(v 23). These terms, geµrÈÆm we·toÆsûaµbÈÆm, describe a class of people who re-sided among the Israelites in Canaan, but were not ethnic Israelites. They may have been de-scendants of the dispossessed Canaanites, or immigrants. They had no stake in the tenure of the land, but survived by hiring out their services as residential employees (laborers, crafts-men, etc.) for Israelite landowning households. Provided the household remained economically viable, its resident alien employees enjoyed both protection and security. But otherwise, their position could be perilous. Hence they are frequently mentioned in Israel's law as the objects of particular concern for justice because of their vulnerability.

The Israelites were to regard their status before God as analogous to that of their own resi-dential dependents to themselves. Thus they had no ultimate title to the land-it was owned by God. Nevertheless, they could enjoy secure benefits of it under his protection and in de-pendence on him. So the terms are not a denial of rights, but rather an identification of specific classes of people as having a relationship of protected dependency.

The practical effect of this model for Israel's relationship with God is seen in vv 35, 40, and 53. If all Israelites share this status before God, then the impoverished or indebted sibling is to be regarded and treated in the same way as God regards and treats all Israel.

b. Slaves. "They are my slaves whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt"(vv 42, 55). Three times in this chapter the Exodus is mentioned, twice more in the following chapter (26:13, 45). It was regarded as an act of redemption in which God had "bought" Israel for himself. Freed from slavery to Egypt, they were now slaves of God himself. Therefore no-body could now claim as his own private property a fellow Israelite, who belonged by right of purchase to God alone. The Exodus redemption thus provided the historical and theological model for the social and economic practice of redemption and jubilee. Those who are God's freed slaves are not to make slaves of one another (25:39, 42). This weight of theological tra-dition concentrated into 25:23 gives a seriousness to the economic measures outlined in the rest of the chapter.

From the analysis of the chapter, it can be seen that there were two main differences be-tween the redemption and jubilee provisions. (1) Timing. Redemption was a duty that could be exercised at any time, locally, as circumstances required, whereas jubilee was twice a cen-tury as a national event. (2) Purpose. The main aim of redemption was the preservation of the land and persons of the clan, whereas the main beneficiary of the jubilee was the extended family, or "father's house." The jubilee therefore functioned as a necessary override to the practice of redemption. The regular operation of redemption over a period could result in the whole territory of a clan coming into the hands of a few wealthier families, with the rest of the families in the clan in a kind of debt servitude, living as dependent tenants of the wealthy-i.e., precisely the kind of land-tenure system that Israel had overturned. The jubilee was thus a mechanism to prevent this and to preserve the socioeconomic fabric of multiple household land tenure with the comparative equality and independent viability of the smallest family-plus-land units.

Now these household units held a central place in the experience and expression of Israel's covenant relationship with God, as can be seen from their role in social, military, judicial, cultic, and educational spheres. See FAMILY. In the light of this centrality of the family, the jubilee can be seen as more than merely an economic regulator (and certainly more than the utopian measure of social justice it is sometimes portrayed as). In attempting to maintain or restore the viability of such households, it was in fact aimed at preserving a fundamental di-mension of Israel's relationship with Yahweh. We noticed this already in considering the weight of theological tradition packed into v 23. Three reminders of the Exodus and its impli-cations (38, 42, 55) reinforce the point. This in turn explains why the neglect of these institu-tions, bemoaned in the following chapter (Leviticus 26) led not merely to economic distress but also to a broken relationship and eventual Exile-a connection also very clearly perceived by the Prophets.