God’s Plan to Destroy Debt
Lev 25:8-22
The Year of Celebration was the 60th year following seven cycles of seven years. People who had sold themselves into slavery to pay their debts were set free, their debts completely cancelled. Land was returned to those who sold their property to survive.
God promises to bless hard work, but he did not want some of his people becoming super-rich at the expense of causing others to live in poverty. Because of its emphasis on liberty and restoration, the Year of Celebration was also a time of great rejoicing. Can you imagine what freedom people would feel if we maintained this celebration today?
A time of great rejoicing…
Count seven times seven years, a total of forty-nine years then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement, send someone to blow a trumpet throughout the whole land. In this way you shall set the fiftieth year apart and proclaim freedom to all the inhabitants of the land.
During this year all property that has been sold shall be restored to the original owner or the descendants, and any who have been sold as slaves shall return to their families. You shall not plant your fields or harvest the grain that grows by itself or gather the grapes in your unpruned vineyards. The whole year shall be sacred for you; you shall eat only what the field’s produce of themselves.
In this year all property that has been sold shall be restored to its original owner. So when you sell land to an Israelite or buy land, do not deal unfairly. The price is to be set according to the number of years the land can produce crops before the next Year of Restoration. If there are many years, the price shall be higher, but if there are only a few years, the price shall be lower, because what is being sold is the number of crops the land can produce.
Do not cheat an Israelite, but obey the LORD your God. Obey all the LORD’s laws and commands, so that you may live in safety in the land. The land will produce its crops, and you will have all you want to eat and will live in safety. But someone may ask what there will be to eat during the seventh year, when no fields are planted and no crops gathered.
The LORD will bless the land in the sixth year so that it will produce enough food for two years. When you plant your fields in the eighth year, you will still be eating what you harvested during the sixth year, and you will have enough to eat until the crops you plant that year are harvested.
