Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

25:1-7 Every seventh year is a sabbatical year, and no agricultural activities should be engaged in. The personified land suggests that the land (more than the Israelites) needs to rest. The Israelites may work the land for six years, but there is to be no organized farming in the seventh year. This practice is clearly a benefit to the soil, but it is also a recognition that all produce belongs to God and that he bestows it freely on his people.

25:8-12 The Hebrew word yobel, jubilee (v. 10), is related to a term that means "ram" or "ram's horn." The ram's horn (or trumpet) is to be sounded throughout Israel on the Day of Atonement to announce the beginning of the fiftieth year (v. 9). Jubilee is a year of release and liberty (v. 10). In that year, people are to return to their land possession, i.e., their ancestral property (v. 10). Israelites who sold themselves to indenture are also to be released and sent home. This provided a periodic restoration of the means to earn a living for each family in an agrarian society. (The jubilee did not equalize all possessions in Israel, however, since possessions such as cattle and money were not reallocated.) The prohibitions of the jubilee are the same as for the sabbatical year. The land is to lie fallow for two years in a row: the forty-ninth year (sabbatical year) and the fiftieth year (jubilee). This law prohibits the amassing of large estates, which would reduce many Israelites to tenant status on their ancestral land (cf. Isa. 5:8).

25:13-17 Basic guidelines for business are given. In selling or purchasing property, the price must be calculated according to how many years have passed since the jubilee, since it is not the estate itself that is to be sold or purchased but the amount of crops that can be harvested before the next jubilee. Since all the Israelites eventually return to their inherited land, the act of selling agricultural land essentially means leasing it (but see vv. 29-31 for land that could be sold permanently). The injunction you shall not wrong one another (vv. 14, 17) is idiomatic for the economic oppression of the poor and needy (cf. 19:33). There is to be no exploitation of fellow Israelites in land transactions.

25:18-22 This is an exhortation to keep God's law, which will bring rich blessings. These blessings include security in the land against external threats (vv. 18-19). God also promises to supply enough food during years of agricultural activity to cover periods in which the land lies fallow, such as during the sabbatical year (vv. 21-22).