Tishrei 10 – Proclaim liberty throughout all the land…

Tishrei 10, 5785; from sunset October 11, 2024, to sunset October 12, 2024

(The tenth day of the seventh month)

This post is being published on the 7th day of the 7th month; a few days earlier than prescribed. The Bible designates the 10th day of the seventh month as the proper day to celebrate the Jubilee – every 50th year. We’re taking an early look at it in order to work our way slowly through the many facets of the 10th day of the seventh month.

This is the name “Mosheh” (מֺשֶׁה – Moses) as seen in the Dead Sea Scrolls, written over two thousand years ago.

Jubilee Year Proclaimed

The Day of Atonement is also the prescribed day to proclaim the Jubilee on every 50th year.

And you shall count seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years; and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land.

And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family. That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee to you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of its own accord, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine. For it is the Jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat its produce from the field.

In this Year of Jubilee, each of you shall return to his possession. And if you sell anything to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor’s hand, you shall not oppress one another. According to the number of years after the Jubilee you shall buy from your neighbor, and according to the number of years of crops he shall sell to you. According to the multitude of years you shall increase its price, and according to the fewer number of years you shall diminish its price; for he sells to you according to the number of the years of the crops. Therefore you shall not oppress one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the LORD your God.

So you shall observe My statutes and keep My judgments, and perform them; and you will dwell in the land in safety. Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill, and dwell there in safety. – Leviticus 25:8-19 (NKJ)

To see the remainder of the instructions for the year of the Jubilee, continue reading through the end of chapter 25.

The word “Jubilee” in Hebrew is “Yovel.” Yovel comes from a verb root meaning “to bring, carry, lead, or conduct.” The primary meaning of this root is “to cause to transport an object from one place to another.” As with many verb roots, there are several nouns which stem out from it. Some of them include:

Yevul: Produce (of the soil)
Bul: Produce, outgrowth (mainly of trees)
Yovel: Trumpet, ram’s horn, Jubilee
Tevel: World and, in extension, countries, and inhabitants of the world

In the Bible, the produce of the soil and the produce of the body seem to go hand in hand.

Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God: Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. – Deuteronomy 28:1-4 (NKJ)

The Jubilee year, too, revolves around the produce of the Land and the people. On the fiftieth year, liberty is proclaimed to the inhabitants of the Land, and the land itself is returned to its original owner — who may then choose to “sell” it again or keep it. If someone wants to sell their land at any point during the intervening years, the cost is determined by the number of crops it will yield before the next Jubilee, when it will once again return to its original owner.

We envision the ultimate “causing of transporting an object from one place to another” as occurring at the Lord’s return. We often place this event as occurring on the Feast of Trumpets, but after learning the laws of the Jubilee, perhaps that is the day when…

The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. – 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 (NKJ)

This is the ultimate return of “property” to its rightful Owner.

So, when is the next Jubilee year? It depends on who you ask. Googling that question gets you the answer of 2027. However, chabad.org says, the short answer to this question is that the Jubilee year is currently not observed or commemorated. According to biblical law, the Jubilee is only observed when all twelve tribes of the Jewish nation are living in Israel. They state, “We eagerly await the day when G‑d will bring our entire nation back to our homeland—including the ten “lost” tribes—and we will again resume observing the Jubilee year, as well as so many other mitzvot which we are incapable of performing until that awaited day.”[1]