Chapter Twenty-Five

1–9. The Sabbath year and 10–55. the Jubilee year.

Leviticus 25:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying: Leviticus 25:2. Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: When you come into the land that I give you, then the land must rest, a Sabbath to the Lord; Leviticus 25:3. Six years you shall sow your field and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather its fruit, Leviticus 25:4. But in the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath of rest, a Sabbath to the Lord: you shall not sow your field and you shall not prune your vineyard; The cycle of the Hebrew feasts (see Lev 23), in which the Israelite devoted himself to service to the Lord, is completed by two remarkable institutions, which represent a further development of the idea of the Sabbath: the institution of the Sabbath year and the Jubilee year, when not only man but the land itself, given by the Lord for temporary use and upon the condition of the covenant with the Hebrews, was to serve God. The first and most characteristic feature of the Sabbath year, called the Sabbath of the Lord (Lev 25:2), was the rest of the land, that is, the land was not worked, not sown (Lev 25:4), vineyards and other fruit trees were not pruned (Lev 25:5, compare Exod 23:11); from this it naturally followed that all work connected with agriculture (but not other work) ceased in the Sabbath year. Thus, just as for men the working unit of time is the day, so in relation to the land it is the year; and just as for men after 6 working days came the 7th day of rest and service to the Lord – the Sabbath – so the land after 6 years of crop rotation and providing fruit to private owners became the property of the Lord alone, celebrated that holy rest into which it had been placed by Him at creation.

Leviticus 25:5. Whatever grows on your harvest by itself, do not reap, and do not gather the grapes from your untended vines: it must be a year of rest for the land; Leviticus 25:6. And the produce of the Sabbath of the land shall be for food for you, for you and your servant and your maidservant and your hired worker and your sojourner who dwells with you; Leviticus 25:7. And for your cattle and for the beasts that are on your land, all its produce shall be for food. A complement to the requirement of the Sabbath rest of the 7th year is the law that all that grows on the land in that year by itself (self-sown, Hebrew sapiach, LXX: αὐτόματα, Vulgate: “quae sponte gignet humus”) should pass into common use not only of the owner and his family, but also of slaves, sojourners, and generally the poor, as well as domestic and wild animals. To these two privileges of the Sabbath year according to Exodus (Exod 23:10-11) and Leviticus (Lev 25:2-7), the book of Deuteronomy adds two others. Namely: 1) from the non-working of the land in the Sabbath year it logically followed that it was impossible to make payment on debt obligations; hence the prescription (Deut 15:1-3) about the non-collection and indeed (according to the most probable interpretation, justified by the spirit of the law of Moses and confirmed by Jewish tradition and Philo, de septenario, p. 1173) complete remission (schemittah) of debts to insolvent debtors from among their own people; on the contrary, the prescription (contained in Deut 15:12-18) about the release of slaves in the 7th year, contrary to the opinion of Theodoret (question 35) and some modern commentators, does not refer to the Sabbath year: here the 7th year of service of each individual Hebrew slave is meant, as the Jewish tradition interprets; 2) free from agricultural work, the people together with the land were to especially dedicate themselves to service to the Lord: this was served by the mandatory participation of all the people (men, women, children, sojourners) in hearing the law of God at the feast of Tabernacles of the Sabbath year. Deut 31:10-13 (according to Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 4:8, 12, the reading of the law was performed by the high priest); since the Sabbath year, like the Jubilee (compare Lev 25:9), began in autumn, namely probably from the 7th month (as shown by the order of agricultural work indicated in Lev 25:3-4: sowing, pruning the vineyard, then gathering fruit). To carry out this remarkable law required a people of deep religious faith; for a whole 7th year the land remained without cultivation and therefore without harvest in the 8th year, only in the 9th year did normal crop rotation begin. Foreseeing the wavering and doubts of the little faith and cowardice (Lev 25:20) of the Hebrews, the legislator removes them by pointing out a special harvest, sufficient for 3 years, which the Lord, in reward for the people’s precise fulfilment of His will, will send them in the 6th, the pre-Sabbath year (Lev 25:21), so that the produce of that year will be sufficient for the Hebrews until the ninth year (Lev 25:22). The people were also required to show no small self-denial for the sake of their neighbors – in giving them the use of the fruits and especially in the remission of debts. The legislator warns (Deut 15:9-10) against impulses of greed, covetousness, and selfishness in the Hebrew’s heart, forbidding them to refuse a loan to their neighbor before the Sabbath year. According to Theodoret, by the law of the Sabbath year, God “teaches the insatiability of the Israelites. Wishing great things, He continually commanded that in the seventh year the land be left unsown, and what grows by itself, He forbade to gather or reap, instructing them in this way in love of humanity; for He commands the fruits of the earth to be used together with the Israelites by widows, orphans, and foreign sojourners; besides, in that year there was the remission of debts and the liberation of Hebrews who were in slavery” (the latter, as already mentioned, did not belong to the special features of the Sabbath year). Thus the main significance of the law of the Sabbath year is religious and moral; the idea of the complete service of the people and the land itself to the Lord and the arousing of faith and hope in Him in the people, heartfelt devotion to Him; then the cultivation of the spirit of brotherly love and love of humanity in the people of God; finally, the establishment of social equality in the people. The other motives of the institution have completely subordinate and secondary significance, which some scholars have elevated to the rank of primary, such as: accustoming the people to proper government savings and at the same time to the hunt for wild animals (Michaelis, Hugo), to a rational way of conducting the working of fields and agriculture (Riehm, Nowack). The Sabbath year, strictly observed, could certainly have a fruitful effect on these aspects of ancient Hebrew life as well, but the main meaning and significance of the institution lay in the cultivation of the will of the people to serve God and their neighbor. There is no testimony to the observance of the law in pre-exilic times, except for an indefinite reference Isa 37:30. On the contrary, there is direct biblical testimony 2 Chr 36:21 (compare Lev 26:34-36) of the failure of the Hebrews to observe the Sabbath years before the exile, so that the 70 years of captivity appear as if the involuntary Sabbath observance of Palestine as punishment for the Hebrews’ voluntary violation of the Sabbath years in that land. After the exile the Sabbath year was observed and with special rigor, namely regarding the rest of the land (compare 1 Macc 6:20-49; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 11:8, 6; 13:8, 1; 14:16, 12; 15:1, 2); the year before the destruction of Jerusalem was also a Sabbath year. On the other hand, the pure religious and moral spirit of the law was increasingly lost in the mass of casuistic prescriptions of the Talmudic authorities (for example, the remission of debts was excluded from the privileges of the Sabbath year by means of the so-called “prozbul” invented by Hillel the Elder, that is, a document that guaranteed the creditor the right to collect his debts in the Sabbath year). Proclamation of the Jubilee Lev 25:9.

Leviticus 25:8. And you shall count seven Sabbath years, seven times seven years, so that the span of the seven Sabbath years shall be forty-nine years; Leviticus 25:9. Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to be sounded in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month; on the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land; Leviticus 25:10. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his family. Just as after 7 weeks from Passover came the 50th day – the festival of Pentecost – so after 7 Sabbath years should be observed the 50th, the Jubilee year, Hebrew schat-hajobel or simply jobel (also schnat-deror, Lev 25:10, see Ezek 46:17; Isa 61:1); LXX: ενιαυτός ἀφέσεως, year of release, Slavonic: “a year of restitution.” According to Josephus (Jewish Antiquities 3:12, 3), the word ᾶωβήλ (Greek transliteration of Hebrew jobel) means ἐλευὕερία. Arabic translation: dimissio, Vulgate: remissio. But this is not an exact rendering of the proper meaning of the name jobel. The latter (according to the opinion of Rosenmüller, Bähr, Keil, Riehm, Stade-Siegfried, and others) may designate (by correlation with Exod 19:13 and Josh 6:5-6) the sounds of trumpets (made from a ram’s horn), resonant and spreading in all directions (root jabal – to flow, to spread), the sounds by which throughout Palestine the people were announced the coming of the Jubilee year (the name schnat-jobel, Jubilee year, thus is entirely analogous in meaning with the name of the feast of the 7th new moon, jom teruah, day of trumpet sound). The Jubilee was proclaimed on the 10th day of the month of Tishri at the end of the Sabbath (49th, Lev 25:8) year, that is, on the Day of Atonement. That the Jubilee year was the 50th and not the 49th, as many Jewish and Christian commentators believed (among Russian scholars – Metropolitan Philaret and G. Vlastov), is clear from the direct testimony of the text Lev 25:10, where the Jubilee year is directly called the 50th, and from Lev 25:8, where the 49th year or 7th Sabbath is distinguished from the Jubilee year; the objection of supporters of the opposite view, that under our reckoning “there would be 2 years in a row of lying fallow” (Vlastov), is already removed by the mentioned indication of the legislator (Lev 25:21) about the special blessing of God upon the harvest of the year before the Sabbath. The provisions about the Jubilee year, set forth in Lev 25:8-55 of this chapter, with the supplement of Lev 27:17-24 and Num 36:4, are essentially reduced to 3 privileges: 1) rest of the land, as in the Sabbath year (Lev 25:11-13); 2) return of immovable property to their original owners (Lev 25:14-34), see Lev 27:17-24; Num 36:4); 3) return of freedom to Hebrew slaves (Lev 25:35-55). The words serve as an epigraph to these laws, expressing their essence, in Lev 25:10: (It shall be a Jubilee for you) “each of you shall return to his property, and each of you shall return to his family.”

Leviticus 25:11. The fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee for you; you shall not sow, nor reap what grows by itself in your land, nor gather the grapes from untended vines; Leviticus 25:12. For it is a Jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You may eat its produce from the field. Leviticus 25:13. In this year of Jubilee you shall each return to your property. Leviticus 25:14. When you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not oppress one another; Leviticus 25:15. You shall buy from your neighbor for the number of years after the Jubilee; and he shall sell to you for the number of years of harvest; Leviticus 25:16. When there are many years remaining, you shall multiply the price, and when there are few years remaining, you shall reduce the price, for he sells to you only for a certain number of harvests. Leviticus 25:17. You shall not oppress one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God. Leviticus 25:18. Keep my statutes and observe my laws and carry them out, and you will dwell on the land securely; Leviticus 25:19. And the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell on it in safety. Leviticus 25:11. The fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee for you; you shall not sow, nor reap what grows by itself in your land, nor gather the grapes from untended vines; Leviticus 25:12. For it is a Jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You may eat its produce from the field. Leviticus 25:13. In this year of Jubilee you shall each return to your property. The celebration of the Jubilee consisted first of all in the Sabbath rest of the land; the land and fruit trees (“untended,” from Hebrew nezer – Nazirite, dedicated to God) were to remain without cultivation, as in a state of primeval virginity, and what grew apart from human effort was to be, like the manna of the wilderness, common property. Of course, for the believing exegete there is no need for the assumption of Baentsch (in Handkommentar z. A. T. Exod. – Leviticus, edited by Nowack, 1900, p. 425) and other rationalist scholars that this feature was artificially transferred to the Jubilee year from the Sabbath year.

Leviticus 25:14. When you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not oppress one another; Leviticus 25:15. You shall buy from your neighbor for the number of years after the Jubilee; and he shall sell to you for the number of years of harvest; Leviticus 25:16. When there are many years remaining, you shall multiply the price, and when there are few years remaining, you shall reduce the price, for he sells to you only for a certain number of harvests. Leviticus 25:17. You shall not oppress one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God. Leviticus 25:18. Keep my statutes and observe my laws and carry them out, and you will dwell on the land securely; Leviticus 25:19. And the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell on it in safety. Leviticus 25:20. But if you say, What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we do not sow and do not gather our produce? Leviticus 25:21. I will send my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it will bring forth a crop sufficient for three years; Leviticus 25:22. And you shall sow in the eighth year and eat of the old produce until the ninth year; until its produce comes in, you shall eat the old. The unique essence of the laws of the Jubilee year consists of a complete restitutio in integrum – the requirement to restore the order of things established at the division of the promised land to the Israelites, that is, the equal distribution of immovable property and personal freedom of each member of the theocratic community – an order gradually undermined by the influence of natural, everyday, and other conditions. To prevent the complete alienation of land parcels from impoverished owners, the sale of land in Israel is permitted only as the sale of a certain number of harvests (Lev 25:16), namely those remaining until the next Jubilee year; according to the number of years until the Jubilee (Lev 25:15), the price of the sold parcel increased or decreased (Lev 27:17). Every sale and purchase of land is placed under the moral point of view – the requirements of love and justice toward one’s neighbor (Lev 25:17), and all the obligations regarding the Sabbath and Jubilee year, as well as the observance of all God’s statutes and laws, are secured by the authority of the legislator – the Lord (Lev 25:17-18) and the promised blessing from Him for those who fulfill them (Lev 25:19-22).

Leviticus 25:23. The land must not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; you are but strangers and sojourners with Me; Underlying the stated order of inalienability of land property in Israel is the theocratic principle of the Lord being the sole owner of the land, in relation to which all Hebrews appear to be only temporary proprietors – strangers and sojourners – and arbitrary disposition of the land was not granted to them.

Leviticus 25:24. Throughout the land of your property, you shall allow the right of redemption for the land. Leviticus 25:25. If your brother becomes impoverished and sells part of his property, then his nearest kinsman shall come and redeem what his brother has sold; Leviticus 25:26. But if he has no one to redeem it and later he himself acquires the means to redeem it, Leviticus 25:27. Then let him reckon the years since its sale and restore the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and return to his own property. Leviticus 25:28. But if his hand has not found what is sufficient for him to redeem it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the one who bought it until the year of Jubilee; and in the Jubilee year it shall go free, and he shall return to his property. Hence the universal right of redemption (geullah, Lev 25:24): every sale of land takes the form of renting it out until the Jubilee year. Moreover, the sale, conditioned solely by poverty, always presumes the right of redemption – either by a kinsman (goёl) of the poor man, or by the poor man himself if he became wealthy – of course, calculated according to the years of the sale (Lev 25:26-27). If redemption before the Jubilee year proved impossible for the former owner of the land, then in the Jubilee year the land in any case returned to him and without any redemption. According to Josephus (Jewish Antiquities 3:12, 3), at the coming of the Jubilee, the seller and buyer of the field met and calculated the profit obtained by the latter during possession of the property of the former, and the expenses made by him on the plot, and if the latter exceeded the former, then the buyer took from the seller an appropriate price in compensation. It is probable, however, that this was only a theoretical requirement of the scribes, not implemented in practice, as was the scribal rule that the redemption of sold land could not be carried out before the 3rd year after the sale. In Lev 27:17-24, there is a special supplement to the general Jubilee law about the redemption of lands, namely: a provision about land holdings consecrated to the sanctuary; with the preservation of the principle of inalienability of the land, here the protection of the rights of the sanctuary is also connected (redemption from the sanctuary is accomplished with an addition of 1/5 of the value, Lev 25:19). Another supplement to the law about the return of land parcels in the Jubilee year, namely the exemption from this law, is presented by the provision of Num 36:4, about the non-return of land holdings from daughters – heiresses (in the absence of sons) in the case of their marriage into another tribe.

Leviticus 25:29. If anyone sells a dwelling house in a walled city, the right to redeem it exists for one year after its sale; for a full year he has the right to redeem it; Leviticus 25:30. But if it is not redeemed within a full year, then the house in the walled city shall become the permanent possession of the one who bought it and his descendants; it shall not be released in the Jubilee. Leviticus 25:31. But the houses in villages that have no wall around them shall be counted as open land: the right to redeem them always exists, and they shall be released in the Jubilee. Leviticus 25:32. As for the cities of the Levites, the houses in the cities of their possession – the Levites shall always have the right to redeem them; Leviticus 25:33. And if anyone from the Levites does not redeem, then the sold house in the city of their possession shall be released in the Jubilee; for the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel; Leviticus 25:34. But the fields around their cities may not be sold, for it is their permanent possession. Houses in villages, which have no strong artificial wall, are on the same level as field land with respect to the right of redemption and return in the Jubilee year. Villages and houses in them are closely connected to the land, and therefore “houses in villages must be counted like field land; you may redeem them always, and they shall be released in the Jubilee” (Lev 25:31). On the other hand, with regard to houses in walled cities, the right of redemption is limited to one year, and the essential law of inalienability of immovable property does not extend to these houses at all (which had the character of income-producing, speculative buildings) (Lev 25:29-30). In Lev 25:30, in the Hebrew text, in the expression bair ascher lo choma, lo is not the negation “not,” as in the accepted Masoretic reading, but, according to the Samaritan and other translations, lo means “to it” (to the city). The purchase of a house in a city did not at all change the original division of the land (tradition understands by cities walled at the time of Joshua); moreover, property interests in the city generally went beyond the bounds of the tribes, finally, in cities many foreigners lived, it was not right to make them participants in the privileges of the Jubilee year.

Leviticus 25:32. As for the cities of the Levites, the houses in the cities of their possession – the Levites shall always have the right to redeem them; Leviticus 25:33. And if anyone from the Levites does not redeem, then the sold house in the city of their possession shall be released in the Jubilee; for the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel; Leviticus 25:34. But the fields around their cities may not be sold, for it is their permanent possession. On the other hand, for the Levite houses in each of the designated (numbering 48, compare Num 35:7) Levite cities, an exception was made: they could always be redeemed (Lev 25:32), because houses for the Levites, who did not receive land allotments, replaced those, and therefore were entirely subject to the Jubilee privileges (Lev 25:33); the small (2000 cubits in each direction, Num 35:5) spaces around the Levite cities (pasture land), which served the Levites for cattle raising and were probably common property of all the Levites of the city, were forbidden to be sold at all (Lev 25:34).

Leviticus 25:34. But the fields around their cities may not be sold, for it is their permanent possession. Leviticus 25:35. If your brother becomes impoverished and falls into hardship with you, then you shall support him as a stranger or a sojourner, so that he may live with you; Leviticus 25:36. Take no usury or profit from him; fear your God, so that your brother may live with you; The third essential privilege of the Jubilee year consisted of the universal release to freedom of slaves – Israelites who out of poverty had sold themselves into slavery.

Leviticus 25:35. If your brother becomes impoverished and falls into hardship with you, then you shall support him as a stranger or a sojourner, so that he may live with you; Leviticus 25:36. Take no usury or profit from him; fear your God, so that your brother may live with you; Leviticus 25:37. Do not give him your money at interest, and do not give him your grain for profit. Leviticus 25:38. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God. These verses constitute an introduction to the article on the liberation of Hebrew slaves and contain: a) a general exhortation to compassion and mercy toward one who has become poor (and apparently has already lost his own land holding) – not only an Israelite born in the land, but also one accepted in Israeli society as a stranger (Lev 25:35); b) more specifically, the collection from the needy is forbidden of interest (neschech) on loaned capital and any profit (tarbit) on debts in kind (Lev 25:36-37); c) the commandment of mercy toward the poor is secured and confirmed by the authority of the Lord, God of Israel, who from the exodus has stood in special relations to this people (Lev 25:38).

Leviticus 25:39. When your brother becomes impoverished with you and sells himself to you, you shall not compel him to serve as a slave; Leviticus 25:40. He shall be with you as a hired worker, as a sojourner; he shall serve you until the year of Jubilee, Leviticus 25:41. And then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and return to his own family and enter again into the possession of his fathers, Leviticus 25:42. For they are My slaves, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they must not be sold as slaves; Leviticus 25:43. You shall not rule over him with harshness; fear your God. The release of Hebrew slaves in the Jubilee year is entirely analogous to the return of land parcels and houses to their original owners in that year (Lev 25:14-17), constituting together with it the restitutio in integrum of the order established by God (at the entry of Israel into the promised land). A Hebrew who fell into slavery to his kinsman out of poverty was to be for his master not a slave but only a temporary hired worker and sojourner, whom one could not burden with heavy labor (Lev 25:39-41). The motive for the legislation is the reference to the historical fact of the bringing out of the Hebrews from Egypt, by virtue of which all of them, equally, rich and poor, became slaves of the Lord, and not of anyone among men (Lev 25:42-43). Since every Hebrew slave in the 7th year of his service (independent of the Sabbath and Jubilee years) became free (Exod 21:1; Deut 15:12), the law of the Jubilee year was beneficial only to those Hebrew slaves who by the beginning of the Jubilee year had not served the full 6 years, those who had become slaves for the shortest time, and besides, by reminding of the fear of God (Lev 25:43), of the mutual brotherhood of all Hebrews among themselves (Lev 25:47), the Jubilee law, without doubt, aimed at alleviating the condition of Hebrew slaves.

Leviticus 25:44. But as for your male and female slaves, you may buy them from the nations that are around you; Leviticus 25:45. Also you may buy from the children of the sojourners who dwell with you, and from their families that are with you, whom they have borne in your land, and they may become your property; Leviticus 25:46. You may pass them on to your children after you to inherit as property; you may use them as servants forever. But regarding your brothers, the children of Israel, you shall not rule over one another with harshness. The law of the release of slaves does not extend to foreigners alien to Israel and its faith; the Hebrews were allowed to buy them from neighboring peoples and strangers and indeed forever (leolam), with the right to pass them on to children as inheritance (Lev 25:44-46).

Leviticus 25:47. If a stranger or sojourner with you has become wealthy, and your brother becomes impoverished beside him and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you, or to a member of the sojourner’s clan, Leviticus 25:48. After he is sold, redemption is possible for him; one of his brothers may redeem him, Leviticus 25:49. Or his uncle or his uncle’s son may redeem him, or anyone from his clan may redeem him; or if he prospers, he may redeem himself. Leviticus 25:50. And he shall reckon with his buyer from the year when he sold himself to him until the year of Jubilee, and the price of his sale shall be according to the number of years; as a hired worker he shall be with him; Leviticus 25:51. If many years remain, he shall pay for his redemption in proportion to them from the purchase price; Leviticus 25:52. And if only a few years remain until the year of Jubilee, he shall calculate and pay for his redemption accordingly. Leviticus 25:53. He shall be with him as a hired worker from year to year; he shall not rule over him with harshness before your eyes. Leviticus 25:54. And if he is not redeemed in any of these ways, he shall go out in the year of Jubilee, both he and his children with him, In contrast, a Hebrew who became impoverished and fell into slavery to a stranger or foreigner could be enslaved only for a time (until the Jubilee year, Lev 25:50, or rather until the 7th year of service, compare Exod 21:2; Deut 15:12), could always redeem himself either with his own resources (Lev 25:50-52) or with the resources of one of his relatives (Lev 25:48-49), who were obligated to come to the aid of a kinsman. In the Jubilee year, in any case, a Hebrew slave with his children went out from the master-foreigner and without any redemption (Lev 25:54). The motive – the already mentioned (Lev 25:38-42) circumstance of the liberation of the Hebrews by the Lord from Egyptian slavery for free national and religious development (Lev 25:55). The observance of the law of the Jubilee year is not confirmed by positive biblical-historical evidence either regarding the subsequent history of Israel or regarding its post-exilic history (according to the rabbis, after the exile the Jubilee years were not celebrated, but only counted for proper calculation and regular celebration of Sabbath years). In the historical and prophetic books there is talk of the enslavement and merciless treatment of Hebrews with their fellow Hebrew slaves (2 Sam 4:1; Nehem 5:5), of their not being released into freedom even after their years of service (Jer 34:8), of the oppression of the poor by the strong and noble (Ezek 45:8), of the violent seizure of ancestral land allotments (1 Sam 21:2), of arbitrary and violent seizures of fields and houses by the rich from the poor (Isa 5:8; Mic 2:2) – all of which directly and fundamentally contradicts the laws of the Jubilee year. Only Christ the Savior, appearing on earth, preached to all people “the year of the Lord favorable” (Luke 4:19), of which the Jubilee year was a prefigurement (Isa 61:1; Ezek 46:17).