Leviticus 25:8-55 And you shall number seven sabbaths of years to you, seven times seven years… 1. A nation's joy. On every fiftieth year of national life, as the sun went down on the great Day of Atonement, when the sins of the nation had been forgiven, and peace with God was once more assured, the sound of many trumpets ushered in the blessed year of jubilee. Then (1) the forfeited patrimony was restored to its rightful heir (verses 10, 13, 28, 41); then (2) the bondsmen were free once more (verses 10, 41-54); then (3) members of the same family, long separated, were reunited (verses 10, 41); then (4) the ties which bound man to man throughout all classes and conditions of the nation were to be recognized and honoured (verses 12-14, 17, 35, 36); then (5) the relation in which Israel stood to Jehovah was to be distinctly and peculiarly realized (verses 17, 18, 23, 38, 55); and then (6) in holy joy the favoured nation was to be glad in the prosperity which came from God (verse 19). No nation now can expect to enjoy such an institution as this; we must learn to dispense with such miraculous arrangements as that which made the year of jubilee a possible thing to Israel (verses 20-22). It is our national wisdom to bring about, by (1) wise and equal laws, and by (2) virtuous and godly lives, the happy estate in which the people of God found themselves when the trumpets of jubilee announced that a new era of liberty, sufficiency, piety, prosperity, had begun. A nation may truly rejoice, and may feel that its jubilee is approaching, when it is attaining to: 1. Freedom from degrading poverty; the community not being constituted of a few wealthy men and a multitude of paupers, but being composed of those who earn an honourable livelihood by self-respectful industry, there being general, widespread prosperity. 2. The possession of liberty - individual and national, civil and religious; every cruel, degrading, injurious bond being broken, and all men being free to exercise their God-given faculties without hindrance or restraint. 3. Domestic well-being; purity, love, order in the household. 4. Piety; the recognition of indebtedness to God, and a full and deep understanding that we are, above all things, his servants. 5. Charity; a kind and generous regard to those who are "waxen poor and fallen into decay;" a ready hand to help the needy, and give them a new start in the race of life. Let a nation only be advancing in these elements of goodness and prosperity, and it may rejoice greatly in its inheritance, for then "God, even our own God, will bless it;" and though no trumpet sound the note of jubilee, then shall its "light break forth as the morning... and its righteousness shall go before it; and the glory of the Lord shall be its reward" (Isaiah 58:8). - C. Parallel Verses KJV: And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. |
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