LEVITICUS 25


1 And Yahweh spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying,

2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto Yahweh.

The fact that Land and People were parallel types is nowhere - more evident than in the ritual of the Sabbath year. In the case of man a day is a complete cycle of activity; in the case of agricultural land it is a year. Now in Israel's case the land was Covenant land; therefore in the same way as the People had to rest one day in seven, the Land had to lie fallow one year in seven. **



3 Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and 6 years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof;

4 But in the 7th year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for Yahweh: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard [or orchard].

There were several minor features of excellence in the Mosaic land law. Every seventh year, the land was to be left untilled:

"Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof. But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard" (Lev. 25:3-4).

It is when we consider the objects of this law that we can see its wisdom. Agricultural science has discovered the virtue of giving the land an occasional rest to prevent the exhaustion of its fertility; this may have been included in the objects aimed at in the Mosaic law. But the specified object opens out quite another line of consideration:

"that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat"

(Exod. 23: 11).

The land, left to "rest and lie still" during the seventh year, would bring forth "that which groweth of its own accord" (Lev. 25:5). This was to be at the service of all comers, with one condition only--that they were poor. That year, there would be no trespass laws. There would be common thoroughfare over all land, with a free welcome to whatever might be found useful.

What a spectacle on earth!--the products of every estate and farm in the whole country, once in seven years at the free disposal of the poor and needy. A most wise adjunct to the jubilee law of a family inheritance: for though, in the main, that law would preserve the community from impoverishment, there would necessarily be many never-do-wells who from mismanagement would be out of their family lands: as Moses told them,

"The poor will never cease out of the land".

Here, for such, would be an alleviation on which they could reckon every seven years: the spontaneous products of the whole land placed at their free disposal. Here was a" poor law" eclipsing all Gentile arrangements.

As regards the owners, how were they to fare during that seventh year ? Their needs were provided in a manner only possible in a divine system:

"If ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year ? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase: then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years" (Lev. 25:20),

So that the proprietors would have laid in a stock that would place them above anxiety while all manner of visitors were prowling over their lands in search of food.

Law of Moses Ch 8



5 That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land.

Nothing was to be systematically harvested, "for it is a year of rest unto the land". What grew of itself could be eaten but not garnered or treated as the exclusive possession of the owner.



6 And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee,


We note that apart from the resting of the land this law brought great benefit to the distressed and the landless. The seventh year was to be a period of kindness and generous service to others, and a reminder that each man's inheritance, though his own possession which he had every right to guard most jealously, was something to be held in trust as a means of serving others' needs beside his own.

This same lesson was inculcated with regularity in each of the other six years out of the seven by the harvest law which decreed, "When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger". And why? Once again for the all-sufficient reason -"I am the Lord your God" (Lev. 23: 22; cf. Lev. 19: 9-10).

This solemn pronouncement reminded the Israelite that the blessings which he himself enjoyed were undeserved. What he had himself freely received he was freely to give. A dropped sheaf was not to be retrieved from the field but left for the needy; there was to be no parsimonious beating of the boughs of his olive-tree but rather the reverse, so that fruit should still remain on it "for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt: therefore I command thee to do this thing" (Deut. 24: 19-22).

Each Israelite had to realize that God had loved him and done great things for him. He had therefore to love the Lord his God in return. But if that was his first and overriding duty, there was a second like unto it, as the harvest laws made plain - to love his neighbour as himself.

Each year...taught this same great lesson; the seventh year merely taught it more emphatically to match the stress which it placed upon the idea of redemptive rest. We have had an illustration of that stress in that other far-reaching law which had to be observed most strictly.

"At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. And this is the manner of the release:

Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother; because it is called the Lord's release" (Deut. 15 : 2). The arrangement was a salutary check on avarice in the creditor, and afforded him an opportunity to appreciate what a boon was his generosity to the poor man who benefited by it.

God had taken pity on his distress in Egypt, so the nearness of the year of release was not to induce meanness in him, or a disregard of his brother's need: "thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother: but thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth" (Deut. 15: 7-8). **



The Jubilee


8 And thou shalt number 7 sabbaths of years unto thee, 7 times 7 years; and the space of the 7 sabbaths of years shall be unto thee 49 years.

The Law ... decreed the Land to be God's exclusive possession, let out in lots on leasehold to every man with an inheritance in it, and thus let out on leasehold equally to any man to whom he sold it. For forty-nine years only could any but the lawful tenant retain the land which he had bought, and when he bought it he did so on the fundamental condition that it could be redeemed at any time. That is, rights in the land were really rights in its products only : the land as land remained God's - hence the decree,

"The land shall not be sold for ever (i.e., in perpetuity) for the land is mine".

If sold, it automatically reverted in the great Sabbatical Year of Jubilee to its rightful tenant, whose inheritance it was.

"Ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family" (Lev. 25 : 10).

It was like the occupation of Canaan all over again: it even brought release to the slave in the same way as the occupation had completed the release of those redeemed from slavery in Egypt (Lev. 25 : 40, 54). Coming, however, as it did once only in the adult life of the average man and woman, it must have seemed, when it did come, like the advent of the final Rest.

But, alas! with the passing of this year, all reverted to normal, and in the course of history one Jubilee succeeded another as day succeeded day, and year succeeded year, with the final Release still far away in the future. The Law arranged for the Jubilee, and thereby most effectively turned the Israelite's gaze toward that final Release, but again it was powerless to bring it to pass.

Israel, as it were, even in the Land were still in the wilderness, and the Law partook of the same temporal character as Israel's wanderings there. And to this the Law itself, in the Jubilee regulations, gave its frank assent-"The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me" (Lev. 25: 23).

Israel, dwellers in the Land, yet strangers and sojourners still! And it was the Law that said.it!

This could only mean that Israel, though in possession of the material Rest, were actually still journeying toward the true Rest, as their fathers had journeyed toward their earthly inheritance when travelling through the literal wilderness. And this in turn signified that as the Lawgiver had failed to bring the fathers into the one, so the Law would fail to bring each subsequent generation into the other.

To give men eternal inheritance was not in its power. Small wonder that all its teaching devices were "carnal ordinances". Temporal and transient itself, it could not logically use anything as a symbol which was not equally temporal and transient. It was for this reason therefore that it made the physical and material the emblems of the ethical and spiritual, and in the process confessed its impotence to give men that eternal salvation to which it pointed in its symbolism.

Law and Grace Ch 11.



9 Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the 10th day of the 7th month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.

The antitype of the great Pentecostian Day of Atonement. Covering over of Israel's sins. Judgment and conquest of the nations. The saints are first raised to 'meet the Lord in the air' - afterward the great trumpet of Jubilee is blasted by Yahweh elohim.

The trumpet of the Jubilee.


But once every fifty years, as darkness fell and this day of affliction and mourning ended, there was a striking and unusual event, all the more striking by its contrast with the hushed mourning of the day.


Suddenly, just as the day ended-beginning at Jerusalem and picked up in ever-widening circles until the echoes rang throughout the whole land-the joyful trumpets of the Jubilee began to sound. The day of affliction and mourning was over, and the day of freedom and release and a completely new beginning had begun-another wonderful type.


Bro Growcott - THE MOSAIC YEARLY CYCLE



This great trumpet shall be blown, and Zechariah tells us by whom. In ch. 9:14, having told us previously, that Zion's Sons should be raised up to become a sword upon Greece, it is said,

"And YAHWEH shall be seen over them, and his arrow (the Ten Tribes) shall go forth as the lightning; and ADONAI YAHWEH (Yahweh's Lords) shall blow the trumpet, and shall go forth with whirlwinds of Teman. YAHWEH TZ'VAHOTH shall defend them, and they shall devour, and disregard the stones of the sling."

The trumpet blown is for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps; first, for the gathering of the princes, the heads of the thousands of Israel; then for the convocation of all Israel; and thirdly, for war against their enemies -- the antitype of the Memorial of blowing of trumpets, and of the trumpet of the jubilee, on the first and tenth days of the seventh month (Num. 10; Lev. 23:24; 25:9).

The Sons of Deity, His kings and priests, shall blow the trumpet, and proclaim, as the roar of many and mighty waters, to the inhabitants of the world, that they are "the Beginning and the Ending," "the Elohim of all the earth" (Isai. 54:5), the Eternal Spirit multitudinously manifest in flesh.

Eureka - His voice as the sound of many waters.



The sounding of trumpets was a divinely appointed Mosaic institution. It was a holy convocation, styled "a memorial of blowing of trumpets," and was celebrated on the first day of the seventh month (Lev. xxiii. 24). It introduced one of the most important months of the Hebrew calendar -- the month on the tenth of which was the Day of Covering of Sins; on the fifteenth, the Feast of Tabernacles; and on every fiftieth tenth, the Jubilee, when sins, were not only covered, but every man returned to his possession and family (Lev. xxv. 8-17).

The trumpets used were of silver, two fabricated from a whole piece. They were blown by the sons of Aaron "for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camp." If they blew with only one, then the princes, heads of the thousands of Israel gathered themselves to Moses; but when they blew an alarm with both trumpets, it was for war against the enemy that oppressed them; and with the assurance that they should be remembered by Yahweh their Elohim, and be saved from their enemies (Numb. x. 1-10).

When an alarm was blown it portended great evil. This appears from Jer. iv. 5, which says: "Blow the trumpet in the land: cry, Gather together, and say, Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the defenced cities. Set up the standard toward Zion: retire, stay not, for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction. The lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate; and thy cities shall be laid waste without an inhabitant."

And again, in Joel ii. 1. "Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain; let all the inhabitants of the land tremble for the day of Yahweh cometh, for it is nigh at hand; a day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it ...

A fire devoureth before them, and behind him a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. Before their face the people shall be much pained; all faces shall gather blackness. They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war ...

the earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble; the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining: and Yahweh shall utter His voice before His army: for His camp is very great: for he is strong that executeth His word: for the Day of Yahweh is very terrible, and who can abide it?"

Such is the illustration furnished by the Spirit of what he means by sounding trumpets of alarm against the guilty. The sounding of a plurality of trumpets was indicative of war. This is the indication of nearly all the trumpets of the apocalypse; not of every trumpet, but of all the Seven trumpets certainly. If they blew with only one, "then the princes, and heads of the thousands of Israel gathered themselves to Moses." None of the seven trumpets indicate a gathering of the saints, or princes and chiefs of the thousands of Israel, to the prophet like unto Moses.

They portend evil to the Apostasy -- the throwing down of the walls of Babylon, when the last blast of the seventh shall have sounded against her from the breath of the kings and priests of Yahweh. But before this portentous blast is sounded by them, a trumpet is blown of a different import -- one that "gathers them together as the elect from the four winds, from one end of the heaven to the other" (Matt. xxiv. 31).

This is the TRUMPET OF THE JUBILEE, which will bring all the approved into the possession of the inheritance; and is symbolized, by none of the seven, but by "an angel flying in mid-heaven having aion-glad tidings to preach." These moshkai kesheth, or sounders of the truth, of Isaiah lxvi. 19, and messengers of Matt. xxiv. 31, go forth "with a trumpet and a great voice," which declares the glory of Yahweh among the nations. It has no sound of alarm in it, like the sounding of the seven.

When the saints, in their graves, and we who may remain, hear this great voice, we shall all gather ourselves together to the Moses-like prophet -- to Jesus "both Lord and Christ." This gathering accomplished, and the affairs to be transacted in the presence of the Lord with regard to his household disposed of -- then, what remains to be executed in connection with the sounding of the seventh and last trumpet will be proceeded with; and the Lamb, with those "who follow him whithersoever he goeth," will "execute the judgment written" against Daniel and John's beasts, till nothing remains of the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the world.

In the prophets, this judicial execution by Jesus and His Brethren, the Elohim of Israel, is styled "The NAME OF YAHWEH coming from far, burning with his anger ... his lips full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire: his breath as an overflowing stream .... to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity" (Isa. xxx. 27). And Yahweh shall be seen over the sons of Zion, whom he shall raise up against the sons of Greece; "and ADONAI YAHWEH shall blow the trumpet, and shall go forth with whirlwinds of the south" (Zech. ix. 14). This trumpet thus divinely blown, is the winding up of the seventh apocalyptic trumpet. All the preceding events of the seven are operative to the development of this crisis in which is "filled up the wrath of Deity."

The sounding by Adonai Yahweh of this closing blast of the seven is the great apocalyptic day of sacrifice -- the slaying of the beasts, before the sins of the nations are covered over, and they become "blessed with faithful Abraham," and "in Abraham and his seed." He executes the Second and Third angel-missions, reaps the harvest, and treads the winepress. All this pertains to "the war of the great day of Almighty Power." It prostrates Babylon, breaks in pieces the powers of the nations, and establishes the power of the kingdom in all the earth.

Eureka - The first fruits


The Babylon whose fall is proclaimed by the second angel, is the city consisting of ten parts, or kingdoms (ch. 11:13); whose Queen, as yet unwidowed, is the Mother of Harlots enthroned in Rome (ch. 17:5,18). This ch. 14:8, is the first place where the name occurs in the Apocalypse; but, as we have seen, not the first place where it is alluded to. In ch. 11:8, it is "styled spiritually Sodom and Egypt;" because its wickedness is equal to theirs; and the judgments decreed against it, as terrible and disastrous. She is as Sodom, for her fornication is raging; and as Egypt, for she has made all nations drink of its wine. Hence the plagues of the second angel in all the fierceness of the wrath of God.

The initiation of the second angel tormentation of the worshippers of the Beast and his Image is the inauguration of the day of revenges, when Yahweh whets his glittering sword, and His hand takes hold of judgment. It is the opening of the Hour of Judgment upon the rebellious Goats in which Yahweh, the Man of War, will render vengeance to His enemies, and reward them that hate Him. Some idea may be formed of this vengeful recompense from Deut. 32:42, in which He saith,

"I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy".

This will be "a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation to that same time" (Dan. 12:1) - the antitype of the great Pentecostian Day of Atonement, in which the Trumpet of the Jubilee shall sound (Lev. 25:9). The second and third angels of this fourteenth chapter are the executors of "the judgment written" in this "great day of God Almighty" (ch. 16:14): a day in which an offering shall be made by fire to Yahweh unto the total and complete consumption of the Apocalyptic Beasts, which as the sin of the political world, shall be destroyed by fire and sword.

The Whole Burnt Offering of these Beasts is a grand condemnation in the flesh of the sin-powers. They are to be put to death by being slain with Yahweh's sword; and tormented with fire and brimstone in the burning lake, in the presence of the holy angels, or messengers, and in the presence of the Lamb, who kill and offer the sacrifice to the Eternal Power of the universe (ch. 14:10; 19:20,21).

Eureka - The second angel



The Babylon whose fall is proclaimed by the second angel, is the city consisting of ten parts, or kingdoms (ch. 11:13); whose Queen, as yet unwidowed, is the Mother of Harlots enthroned in Rome (ch. 17:5,18). This ch. 14:8, is the first place where the name occurs in the Apocalypse; but, as we have seen, not the first place where it is alluded to. In ch. 11:8, it is "styled spiritually Sodom and Egypt;" because its wickedness is equal to theirs; and the judgments decreed against it, as terrible and disastrous. She is as Sodom, for her fornication is raging; and as Egypt, for she has made all nations drink of its wine. Hence the plagues of the second angel in all the fierceness of the wrath of God.

The initiation of the second angel tormentation of the worshippers of the Beast and his Image is the inauguration of the day of revenges, when Yahweh whets his glittering sword, and His hand takes hold of judgment. It is the opening of the Hour of Judgment upon the rebellious Goats in which Yahweh, the Man of War, will render vengeance to His enemies, and reward them that hate Him. Some idea may be formed of this vengeful recompense from Deut. 32:42, in which He saith,

"I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy".

This will be "a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation to that same time" (Dan. 12:1) - the antitype of the great Pentecostian Day of Atonement, in which the Trumpet of the Jubilee shall sound (Lev. 25:9). The second and third angels of this fourteenth chapter are the executors of "the judgment written" in this "great day of God Almighty" (ch. 16:14): a day in which an offering shall be made by fire to Yahweh unto the total and complete consumption of the Apocalyptic Beasts, which as the sin of the political world, shall be destroyed by fire and sword.

The Whole Burnt Offering of these Beasts is a grand condemnation in the flesh of the sin-powers. They are to be put to death by being slain with Yahweh's sword; and tormented with fire and brimstone in the burning lake, in the presence of the holy angels, or messengers, and in the presence of the Lamb, who kill and offer the sacrifice to the Eternal Power of the universe (ch. 14:10; 19:20,21).

Eureka - The second angel


10 And ye shall hallow the 50th year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.


After a cycle of seven seven-year ,periods had elapsed, the great fiftieth year was ushered in to the accompaniment of trumpet blasts throughout the length and breadth of the Land. These probably began at the Sanctuary and radiated outwards as each trumpeter in succession caught the sound of the notes made by the trumpeter next nearest to the Sanctuary. In this way the message that the fiftieth year had begun doubtless reached the outer confines of the Land within a matter of minutes.

Immediately the notes were heard, all who were dispossessed or enslaved recovered their rights and liberties automatically. The poor man who had sold his inheritance had sold it only on lease to its new owner: at any stage he had the right to redeem it because it was no one's but his own: and even though he were too poor to redeem it, or could find none of his wealthy kinsmen to redeem it for him, it now reverted to him without qualification on the opening of this fiftieth year

The slave-Hebrew likewise received his freedom back, and was at liberty to return "unto his own family and unto the possession of his fathers" so that he might enjoy the estate which had once more become his. This was Sabbath Year of Sabbath Years. Land and People alike belonged to God in the ultimate sense. "The land is mine", was His pronouncement regarding Canaan; "All the firstborn are mine" was the corresponding claim which He made upon the nation (Lev. 25: 23; Num. 3: 13).

He intended the one to be the free inheritance of the other, and both alike to be a dwelling place for Him. The fiftieth year was but the pre-eminent reminder to the nation of this fact: it was superlatively the Year of Rest, both recalling the original occupation of the Land after the toilsome sojourn in the wilderness, and at the same time anticipating that glorious future era when the nation 'would at last attain to its ideal destiny and enter into the perfect Rest symbolized by the inner sanctuary of the Most Holy Place. It was in fact a new beginning like every other eighth year, and also like each eighth day in the calendar. It spoke of newness oflife and also of perfection of service -"It is the jubile; it shall be holy unto you".

Rest and holiness: for Israel these were meant to be twin notions. Because God had redeemed them they had to be a holy nation before Him. So, fittingly, this great Year of Jubilee, which was to remind them of this in such signal fashion, began not on the first day of Abib, but on a day of far greater symbolical import still, the Day of Days in fact.

... The trumpet at the central Sanctuary was obviously sounded when Aaron emerged from the Tabernacle after the presentation of the atoning blood of the bullock and goat of Sin Offering, and signalized the departure of the scapegoat as it bore Israel's iniquities away from the face of God (Lev. 16: 21-22). Its notes, and the echoes of it as they reverberated throughout the Land, thus spoke of sins forgiven, of iniquities pardoned, of transgressions hid-and so of rest from sin and all its bondage.

They were thus a tremendously forceful reminder to all who wished to attain to the ultimate eternal Rest of which they spoke, that they could not so attain unless they ceased from sin not only that year but also every other year besides. They had been redeemed for that express purpose.

Blessed indeed were they who thus heard "the joyful sound"!

How unutterably tragic therefore was their failure to manifest that holiness which God demanded of them! **


This seventh apocalyptic trumpet in the seventh period of its sounding brings out the events prefigured in the Mosaic trumpet of the Jubilee. It brings in its consummation "the Atonement," or Covering Over, of the sins of Israel, liberty from their long previous bondage to the House of Esau, and return to their possessions in the holy Land - Lev. 25:9,10.

The assembling of the tribes is proclaimed, and their camps are marshalled for their journeyings. The princes, heads of the thousands of Israel, i.e., the saints, gather together unto Christ, and Israel is saved from their enemies - Num. 10:2,4,9; 1 Thess. 4:16; 2 Thess. 2:1.

Eureka - Sealed up with seven seals.




13 In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession.

Return every man unto his possession.

Antitype natural Israel - 'And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the LORD in the holy mount at Jerusalem'. (Isa 27:13)

But this "day of vengeance" in which the Great Shepherd who is a priest upon his throne (Zech. 6:13) punishes the Goats, is also "the year of his redeemed" (Isa. 63:4). He is the redeemer of the two classes of mankind; these are first, "his brethren" whom he has taken out from the nations for his name (Acts 15:14): and secondly, the many nations who shall be joined to Him as his people (Zech. 2:11).

Of this second class are the twelve tribes of the house of Jacob. The nation of Israel is to be the first-born, or chief son of the national family, being the beloved nation for the fathers' sake (Rom. 11:28). The first class are redeemed from the earth, and stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion, and follow him in all his wars and enterprises "whithersoever he goeth". 

The redemption of the second class is the work of the Eternal Power through Christ and his brethren. "He saves the tents of Judah first," and strengthens Judah's house (Zech. 12:7;l0:7); and then saves the house of Joseph, or the ten tribes of the kingdom of Ephraim. This salvation or redemption of Jacob is developed in the Jubilee, when "the Great Trumpet is blown" against the Goats; and all Israelites are invited to "return every man to his possession.

" Eureka - The Second Angel.

The redeemed saints blast the great trumpet of jubilee.

'And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, (sounders of the truth - Bro T) to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles'. (Isa 66:19)

'All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet' (Isa 1 8:3)

23 The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.

The national tenancy of Canaan under the law being leasehold, no purchases of freehold estates could be made in the land. If Israel had been a freeholder, the case would have been different. But the land belonged to the Lord; and they had no more right to grant it away in parcels for ever, than the tenant under a twenty-one years' lease has to cut up his holding into lots, and sell them to purchasers forever.

Israel were the Lord's tenants; and the law said to them on the part of their Landlord, "the land shall not be sold for ever; for the land is Mine, and ye are strangers and sojourners with Me;" so that "in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land."

Hence, if poverty compelled a man to sell his farm, it was always redeemable by himself, or kin, according to certain conditions; but, if neither could raise the money to redeem, the estate was not lost to the original owner; for though it remained in the hands of the purchaser he was obliged to return it for nothing at the year of jubilee

Elpis Israel 2.2.


24 And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land.

'... when sold were returnable to their original owners, because these, as Yahweh's representatives, had the fee simple right in them, and could therefore not convey an unlimited right. The absolute fee simple right was in Yahweh; first, because He brought Israel's first-born out of Egypt while he slew those of the Egyptians (Exod. 13:14); and secondly, because He claimed the Holy Land as absolutely His, the Israelites being only strangers and sojourners with Him (Lev. 25:23).

Phanerosis - His Face as the Appearance of Lightning.

39 And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee; thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant:

All Israelites - high and low, rich and poor - were equal in their enjoyment of redemption from Egypt and membership of the Covenant nation. None was to forget it: so none was allowed to make a bondman of another Israelite. **

47 And if a sojourner or stranger wax rich by thee, and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger's family:

48 After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him:

49 Either his uncle, or his uncle's son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself.

Any Israelites who could were to regard it as a bounden duty to redeem any such needy brother and thus remove the anomaly presented by a member of the Covenant People serving one of the heathen...Liberty was the God-given right of an Israelite. Even if his brethren failed in their duty by not redeeming him, that right was safeguarded by his automatic release in the usual way (cf. Deut. 15: 12)...I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God" (Lev. 25 : 55).

There was an inalienable dignity (e.g. Deut. 24: 10-14; 25: 3, etc.) attaching to one who had been redeemed by God. Regulation upon regulation served to remind the Israelites of it. **


53 And as a yearly hired servant [not bondman] shall he be with him: and the other shall not rule with rigour over him in thy sight.

A foreigner on the other hand was not allowed to make a bondman of any Israelite who sold himself into his service **

*Law and Grace Ch 3.