In the jubilee portrayed in Leviticus 25 the main thought is how to take care of people’s living. In other words, the basic concern is man’s enjoyment. The primary enjoyment in human life is to be filled with good food. A person whose stomach is empty will not appreciate money or material riches. He would rather have food to fill his stomach. Suppose a rich man who owns a luxury car is starving. Do you think he will be able to enjoy his car? No, he would gladly trade his car for food. Humanly speaking, the jubilee is concerned with taking care of our eating, with filling our stomach.
Although God is very different from worldly politicians and has not taught man any “isms,” we may say that He is a “great statesman.” The jubilee was ordained by God as the divine statesman.
God ordained that His people be given the good land of Canaan. This land was allotted to the twelve tribes of Israel. Eventually, each family received an allotment of land as a possession. The land was not mainly to be for their living or their lodging; the land was primarily for their eating.
The need for food is greater than the need for lodging. One may live in the wilderness for a long time without a house, but he could not live very long without eating. The good land, therefore, was given to God’s people for their eating. This is the reason the Bible refers to this land as “a land flowing with milk and honey.”
The good land was not called a land of gold. What good would it be to have a land that could provide gold but could not provide food? God created the land not for man to have gold but for man to have food. The land is for food.
Milk and honey signify that the good land is rich in food. Some countries may have wheat and corn but no milk and honey. The good land is a land flowing with milk and honey. Both milk and honey are produced by the mingling of two lives—the vegetable life and the animal life. This mingling of the animal life with the vegetable life signifies the riches of the land.
Because God brought His people into the good land and allotted a portion of the land to every family, each family was rich in its possession of the land. But suppose the members of a particular family did not labor on the land. Because they did not work on the land, they became very poor. Little by little they sold the land until their entire allotment was sold. In this way they lost their portion of the good land.
When land was sold in a country other than Israel, the land was sold forever. But God’s ordination did not allow the land in Israel to be sold permanently. At most, the land could be sold only for fifty years. Leviticus 25:23 and 24 say, “The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land.” Here we see that the land was not sold forever; land that had been sold could be redeemed. The one who bought the land did not have the right to keep it indefinitely. After fifty years at the latest, the land could be redeemed.
In Leviticus 25 we are told not that the land was returned to its original owner, but that the person returned to the land. Concerning this, verse 28 says, “In the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession.” Actually, one did not sell the land—he sold himself. Eventually, it was not the land that was returned to the seller; it was the seller that returned to the land, to his possession.
After the children of Israel received their portions of the land, some became poor and sold their allotment of the land, and others became landlords. Was there the need of some kind of “ism” in order for the land to be redistributed? No, God’s ordination concerning the land allowed that in the fiftieth year, the year of jubilee, those who lost their possession of land could return to it. This means that in the fiftieth year every family could become rich again. Here we see that the principle of balancing the amount of land among the people was written in the Bible thirty-five centuries ago. What we find in Leviticus 25 is much better than the theories of statesmen, politicians, and philosophers.