The Year of Jubilee

For us today time is lienier, meaning that it moves in a straight line.

For Israel it was very different: It was circular.

Days were experienced in cycles of 7 days, just like us, but the years were also in cycles with every 7th year being a Sabbath Year:

Leviticus 25:2–4 NASB 2020

“Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When you come into the land which I am going to give you, then the land shall have a Sabbath to the Lord. For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its produce, but during the seventh year the land shall have a Sabbath rest, a Sabbath to the Lord; you shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard.

As the Sabbath day was a day of rest - the Sabbath Year was a year of rest, not only for the people but the animals and the land as well.

Jesus is the fulfilment of all the Law, including the Sabbath and so Christians find their rest, not in a day of the week or a year on the Callander but every day in Jesus Christ Himself:

Matthew 11:28 NASB 2020

“Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

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But there is an even greater cycle of years than this.

Every 50 years, once in a generation, there was a very very special year:

The Year of Jubalee.

Leviticus 25:8–10 NASB 2020

‘You are also to count off seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of the seven Sabbaths of years, that is, forty-nine years. You shall then sound a ram’s horn abroad on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall sound a horn all through your land. ‘So you shall consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim a release throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family.

If the Sabbath was all about rest - The Jubalee was all about restoration.

Because God knew that our sinfulness would always eventually lead to corruption and loss - He commanded a full reset every 50 years.

Every 50 years all debts were to be written off.

Any lost land was to be returned to the original family.

Any indentured slaves were to be fully set free.

Was this meant was that no mistake was permanent. If you or your parents lost land or goods through foolishness, within 50 years it would be fully restored!

In a nutshell a Jubilee year was one of, if not, the most radical, joyful, glorious and transformative years for all of Israel.

Israel’s Jubilee

According to the Bible and historical records, Israel never actually experience a single Jubilee year!

It simply never happened!

Why?

Because a Jubilee year was not simply about counting years, it was about counting OBSERVED sabbath years:

Leviticus 25:8 NASB 2020

8 ‘You are also to count off seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of the seven Sabbaths of years, that is, forty-nine years.

There were commands for a Sabbath year and if Israel did not obey those commands then it simply did not count as a Sabbath year.

So for threre to be a Jubilee Year Israel had to be obedient for 7 consecutive Sabbth Year periods.

And the fact is: They never did.

They never gave the Land her Sabbath rests.

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So God took matters into His own hands:

God allowed Israel to be invaded and all her people to go into exile.

Why?

2 Chronicles 36:20–21 NASB 2020

20 He took into exile those who had escaped from the sword to Babylon; and they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, 21 to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept the Sabbath until seventy years were complete.

Look carefuuly:

Israel had missed 70 Sabbath Years - They were 70 Sabbath years in debt.

A sabbath year is every 7th year so to be 70 Sabbath Years in debt meant that Israel needed 490 years to pay it back.

Instead God send all the people into exile so the land would be desolite and for each missed Sabbath year, the people would remain out of the land in exile.

After the 70 years they returned to their land BUT they still had the 490 years of disobedience to catch up on.

Very intresting:

While they are in exile God says something very intresting to the Prophet Daniel:

Daniel 9:24–26 NASB 2020

24 “Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the wrongdoing, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for guilt, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place. 25 So you are to know and understand that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, until Messiah the Prince, there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with streets and moat, even in times of distress. 26 Then after the sixty-two weeks, the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.

God tells Daniel that from the day Israel returns home the Messiah will arrive in 70 weeks.

How long is 70 weeks?

490 days! The same number of days Israel neglected Sabbath years.

What does all this mean?

It means that in all of History there had ever only been one Jubilee year and it was the year that Jesus Christ was born!

Jesus is the Jubilee!

Just as Jesus is the fulfilment of the Sabbath, so to is Jesus the fulfilment of the Jubalee!

This is what Jesus was reading in the synagogue:

Luke 4:17–19 NASB 2020

And the scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to Him. And He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “the spirit of the lord is upon me, because he anointed me to bring good news to the poor. he has sent me to proclaim release to captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”

In the same was that every day is a sabbath in Jesus, so every year is a year of Jubalee too!

Let’s take a closer look:

1: Jubilee brought freedom - Jesus frees us from sin

Jubilee proclaimed liberty by trumpet.

Jesus proclaims liberty by truth.

John 8:36 NASB 2020

So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free.

This is not political freedom.

It is freedom from sin’s mastery.

Romans 6:18 NASB 2020

and after being freed from sin, you became slaves to righteousness.

The Jubilee trumpet once echoed across the land announcing freedom from debt and bondage, but when Jesus speaks, He does not overthrow governments or cancel taxes.

He breaks the mastery of sin itself, setting the captive heart truly free and making us slaves of righteousness instead.

2: Jubilee freed people from debt - Jesus fully pays off a debt we never could.

Colossians 2:14 NASB 2020

having canceled the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

In the Year of Jubilee debts were released because the law demanded mercy, but at the cross Jesus went further.

He did not postpone our debt or reduce it, He canceled it entirely, not by “writing it off” but rather by taking the full weight of what stood against us and nailing it to the cross, paying in full a debt we could never have satisfied.

3: Juilee restored inheritance - Jesus gives us His inheritance.

Ephesians 1:11 NASB 2020

In Him we also have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things in accordance with the plan of His will,

In the Jubilee families received back land they had lost, but in Christ we receive something far greater.

He does not return us to what we once possessed.

He grants us His own inheritance, securing for us a place, a future, and a standing in the purposes of God that can never again be forfeited.

4: Jubalee released slaves back home - Jesus adopts us a sons in His family.

Galatians 4:7 NASB 2020

Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.

In the Year of Jubilee slaves were released and sent back to their families, but in Christ God does something far greater.

He does not merely let us go free, He brings us home, changing our status from slaves to sons and giving us a place in His family as heirs through Jesus Christ

Conclusion: The Jubilee That Finally Came

For centuries, Israel lived with the promise of Jubilee but never the experience of it.

The calendar moved forward, but restoration never arrived. The trumpet was commanded, but never truly sounded. Rest was written into the Law, yet the people never entered it.

The problem was never the design of Jubilee. The problem was the human heart.

Israel could count years, but they could not obey God. They could measure time, but they could not produce rest, freedom, or restoration.

So God did what the Law, the calendar, and human obedience never could.

When the time was full - when centuries of missed rest, unpaid debts, lost inheritance, and unresolved bondage had piled up - God sent His Son.

Jesus did not wait for a fiftieth year. He arrived as the Jubilee itself.

He did not blow a ram’s horn - He spoke forgiveness.

He did not cancel financial debts - He canceled sin.

He did not return land - He gave us an eternal inheritance.

He did not release slaves to old homes - He adopted them into His own family.

What Israel never experienced in history, the Church now lives in every day.

In Christ:

the captive is free,

the debtor is forgiven,

the homeless are heirs,

and slaves are sons.

The Jubilee that never came through obedience came through incarnation.

And this is the glory of the gospel:

We are not waiting for a better year,

We are not hoping for a future reset,

We are not counting toward restoration.

We are living in it.

Because Jesus Christ is our Sabbath, Jesus Christ is our Jubilee, and in Him, the trumpet of grace never stops sounding.