Leviticus 25 Devotional

Liberty Sounded Through the Land

“So you are to consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be your Jubilee, when each of you is to return to his property and to his clan.”Leviticus 25:10 (BSB)

Every seventh year the fields were to rest, and every fiftieth year a horn would sound on the Day of Atonement to proclaim liberty throughout the land (25:4, 9-10). Land returned to the families who had sold it, and Israelites who had sold themselves into service went home (25:13, 41). A close relative could redeem what a poor brother had sold, or the brother himself (25:25, 48-49).

Behind these laws stand two claims. The land is God's, and Israel lives on it as foreigners and residents with him (25:23). And the Israelites are his servants, brought out of Egypt, so they must not be sold as slaves (25:42). The chapter still allows lifelong servants from other nations (25:44-46), and that is hard to read. Yet its direction is release. In Nazareth, Jesus read that he had been anointed to announce release for captives and the Lord's time of favor, and said it was fulfilled that day (Luke 4:18-21). Open hands come more easily when what you hold already belongs to him.

To think about: What are you holding onto tightly that God may be asking you to hold with open hands?