On Mount Sinai, God told Moses to tell the Israelites the law of the Sabbatical year for the land. The people could work the fields for six years, but in the seventh year the land was to have a Sabbath of complete rest during which the people were not to sow their fields, prune their vineyards, or reap the aftergrowth. They could, however, eat whatever the land produced on its own.

The people were further to hallow the 50th year, the Jubilee year, and to proclaim release for all with a blast on the horn. Each Israelite was to return to his family and his ancestral land holding. In selling or buying property, the people were to charge only for the remaining number of crop years until the jubilee, when the land would be returned to its ancestral holder.

God promised to bless the people in the sixth year, so that the land would yield a crop sufficient for three years. God prohibited selling the land beyond reclaim, for God owned the land, and the people were but strangers living with God.

If one fell into straits and had to sell land, his nearest relative was to redeem what was sold. If one had no one to redeem, but prospered and acquired enough wealth, he could refund the pro rata share of the sales price for the remaining years until the jubilee, and return to his holding. If one sold a house in a walled city, one could redeem it for a year, and thereafter the house would pass to the purchaser beyond reclaim and not be released in the jubilee. But houses in villages without encircling walls were treated as open country subject to redemption and release through the jubilee. Levites were to have a permanent right of redemption for houses and property in the cities of the Levites. The unenclosed land about their cities could not be sold.

If a kinsman fell into straits and came under one’s authority by virtue of his debts, one was to let him live by one’s side as a kinsman and not exact from him interest. Israelites were not to lend money to countrymen at interest. If the kinsman continued in straits and had to give himself over to a creditor for debt, the creditor was not to subject him to the treatment of a slave, but to treat him as a hired or bound laborer until the jubilee year, at which time he was to be freed to go back to his family and ancestral holding. Israelites were not to rule over such debtor Israelites ruthlessly. Israelites could, however, buy and own as inheritable property slaves from other nations. If an Israelite fell into straits and came under a resident alien’s authority by virtue of his debts, the Israelite debtor was to have the right of redemption. A relative was to redeem him or, if he prospered, he could redeem himself by paying the pro rata share of the sales price for the remaining years until the jubilee.

God promised that if the Israelites followed God’s laws, God would bless Israel with rains in their season, abundant harvests, peace, victory over enemies, fertility, and God’s presence. But if the Israelites did not observe God’s commandments, God would wreak upon Israel misery, consumption, fever, stolen harvests, defeat by enemies, poor harvests, attacks of wild beasts, pestilence, famine, desolation, and timidity. Those who survived would be removed to the land of their enemies, where they would become heartsick over their iniquity, confess their sin, and atone. God promised then to remember God’s covenants with Jacob, Isaac, Abraham, and the ancients whom God freed from Egypt.

God told Moses to instruct the Israelites that when anyone vowed to offer God the value of a human being, a scale of values would apply. But if a vower could not afford the payment, the vower was to appear before the priest, and the priest was to assess the vower according to what the vower could afford. If the vow concerned an animal that could be brought as an offering, the animal was to be holy, and one could not exchange another for it, and if one did substitute one animal for another, the thing vowed and its substitute were both to be holy. If the vow concerned an unclean animal that could not be brought as an offering, the vower was to present the animal to the priest, the priest was to assess it, and if the vower wished to redeem it, the vower was to add one-fifth to its assessment. No firstling of a clean animal could be consecrated, for it already belonged to God. But a firstling of an unclean animal could be redeemed at its assessment plus one-fifth, and if not redeemed, was to be sold at its assessment. If one consecrated a house to God, the priest was to assess it, and if the vower wished to redeem it, the vower was to add one-fifth to the assessment. If one consecrated to God land of one’s ancestral holding, the priest was to assess it in accordance with its seed requirement. If the vower consecrated the land after the jubilee year, the priest was to compute the price according to the years left until the next jubilee year, and reduce the assessment accordingly. If the vower wished to redeem the land, the vower was to add one-fifth to the assessment and retain title, but if the vower did not redeem the land and the land was sold, it was no longer to be redeemable, and at the jubilee the land was to become the priest’s holding. If one consecrated land that one purchased (not land of ancestral holding), the priest was to compute the assessment up to the jubilee year, the vower was to pay the assessment as of that day, and in the jubilee the land was to revert to the person whose ancestral holding the land was. But nothing that one had proscribed for God (subjected to cherem) could be sold or redeemed, and no human being proscribed could be ransomed, but he was to be put to death. All tithes from crops were to be God’s, and if one wished to redeem any of the tithes, the tither was to add one-fifth to them. Every tenth head of livestock was to be holy to God, and the owner was not to choose among good or bad when counting off the tithe.

Commentaries from Aleph Beta Academy