Leviticus 25:8-23

You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month—on the day of atonement—you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family.¹ That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, or reap the aftergrowth, or harvest the unpruned vines.² For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you:³ you shall eat only what the field itself produces.

In this year of jubilee you shall return, every one of you, to your property. When you make a sale to your neighbour or buy from your neighbour, you shall not cheat one another. When you buy from your neighbour, you shall pay only for the number of years since the jubilee; the seller shall charge you only for the remaining crop-years.⁴ If the years are more, you shall increase the price, and if the years are fewer, you shall diminish the price; for it is a certain number of harvests that are being sold to you. You shall not cheat one another,⁵ but you shall fear your God; for I am the Lord your God.

You shall observe my statutes and faithfully keep my ordinances, so that you may live on the land securely.⁶ The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live on it securely.⁷ Should you ask, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ I will order my blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it will yield a crop for three years.⁸ When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating from the old crop; until the ninth year, when its produce comes in, you shall eat the old. The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants.⁹

1 An incredible vision of joy in justice: “hallow”, “proclaim liberty”, “it shall be a jubilee”.

2 Part of the jubilee is rest from work.

3 The rest is not just for the people's benefit; it is holy in itself.

4 Land is not a transferable item. It is not to be indefinitely hoarded or accumulated.

5 This ordinance cannot be an excuse to cheat one another.

6 Living on God's land goes hand-in-hand with actually following God.

7 You can do these things out of trust in God.

8 Trust God!

9 The land is God's. It is not for people to claim they own it perpetually.

Take-home: The land is the Lord's, not to be sold in perpetuity or lost for perpetuity. They must trust God's laws and God's providence in the land they are given.