외국인칼럼 > 영어칼럼 > Sabbatical Year and Year of Jubilee

The Institution of Sabbath day, Sabbatical Year and Year of Jubilee
The 7-day-week calendar we use today is derived from the time God created for 6 days and rested on the 7th day (Gen 2:1-3). However, when the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt for 430 years, they were using the 10-day-week Egyptian calendar and did not remember the 7th day of the rest from the 7-day-week cycle. At the time of Exodus, God gave them a new calendar (Exod 12:2), and this calendar did not appear all of the sudden. While the Israelites forgot about the 7-day-week, God remembered and retrieved the lost cycle (Exod 20:8-11; Deut 5:12-15). During the life in wilderness, God taught the Israelites the regulations of Sabbath day through Manna and laws (Exod 15:25; 16:22-30; 20:8-11; 31:13-17; Deut 5:12-15, etc.), and presented them with the regulations of Sabbatical Year and Year of Jubilee (Lev 25).

The Cycle of Sabbatical Year and Year of Jubilee
When we look into Leviticus 25, the Year of Jubilee was proclaimed on the Day of Atone-ment by the sound of a ram’s horn on the tenth day of the Tishri (7th month). Therefore, Year of Jubilee is called yobel which means “ram’s horn” or “trumpet.” On the 7th year, they were to let the land rest for the Sabbatical Year (Lev 25:4), and they were to calculate Sab-batical years to keep the Year of Jubilee (Lev 25:8-13). Sabbatical year returned every 7 years and Year of Jubilee returned every 49 years, which are all multiples of 7. The number 7 is the addition of the heaven’s number 3 and the earth’s number 4. This number 7 is a number in which God uses and holds His will from the beginning to the end.

Important Regulations of Sabbatical Year and Year of Jubilee
Regulations of Sabbatical Year
①   Rest the land which was sowed for 6 years (Exod 23:10-11; Lev 25:3-5; 26:34-35).
②   Free Hebrew slave who served for 6 years (Exod 21:2; Deut 15:12-18).
③   Grant a remission of all debts for 1 year (Deut 15:1-2; Neh 10:31).
④   Teach the Word of God to all Israelites (Deut 31:10-13).

Regulations of Year of Jubilee (Year of Jubilee is reinforcement of the Sabbatical Year)
①   Release from slavery to one’s original inheritance (Lev 25:10, 39-43, 54).
②   Redeem the land and the house to original owner (Lev 25:23-34, ‘returning year’ - Ezek 46:17, Ref Neh 5:1-5, 2 Cor 8:13-15).
③   Cancel all debt (Lev 25:35-38, Isa 63:4, Matt 18:27).
④   Comfort all who mourn (‘day of vengeance’ - Isa 61:1-2).
⑤   Rest the land without sowing (Lev 25:11-13).

Standards of Year of Jubilee and Sabbatical Year

The system of Year of Jubilee and Sabbatical Year became nominal due to greed and stubbornness of the Is-raelites. As a result, the Israelites, who failed to obey Sabbath day and Sab-batical Year and committed idolatry, were captivated by Babylon ( Jer 2:28, 11:13, 16:10-11, 17:21-27). Since they did not obey and kept the Sab-batical year, their failure to keep the Year of Jubilee was inevitable. God counted all the Sabbatical Years Isra-elites did not keep, God forced the land to rest for 70 years by delivering the Israelites to captivity to Babylon (2 Chr 36:21).
During the time the Israelites were insensitive to the Sabbatical Year and Jubilee and failed to keep them, God had been keeping an accurate count of the cycles. Then, when ‘the full-ness of the time’ (Gal 4:4) came, Jesus came down to this earth and proclaimed the Year of Jubilee at age 30 (Luke 4:16-21). The tradition of a synagogue worship in those days con-sisted of an adult Jew reading the scriptures and preaching. There, Jesus found and read the part where Isaiah prophesized about the Year of Jubilee (Isa 61:1-2), and He proclaimed, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”*
Jesus was born is 4 BC. The time when Jesus proclaimed the Year of Jubilee was right after He kept the first Passover after His ministry started ( John 2:13,23). That was when Jesus became 30 years old (Luke 3:23) which is 26 AD. Hence, the year when Jesus proclaimed the Year of Jubilee was 26 AD, which was the 30th Year of Jubilee from the year of the exodus (1446 BC) (First Year of Jubilee was the tenth day of the seventh month in 1445 BC, [1445 + 26]/49 = 30). Therefore, 26 AD becomes the important standard point of the Year of Jubilee.

Jesus Christ, the Lord of Sabbatical Year and Year of Jubilee
When Jesus proclaimed that Isaiah’s prophesy of Year of Jubilee has been fulfilled in their hearing at the synagogue in Nazareth, the Israelites wondered at the gracious words (Luke 4:21-22). However, they did not realize that the Lord of Sabbatical Year and Year of Jubilee was Jesus, so when they were filled with rage, they tried to throw Him down the cliff (Luke 4:28-29).

We should not focus on the calculation of Year of Jubilee, but on Jesus who is the Year of Jubilee Himself. True Year of Jubilee is when we believe that Jesus is God who is the root of life and that He is our Savior. In the Old Testament, people were bound by the dates of Sabbath day, Sabbatical Year and Year of Jubilee. However, when the saints of today sincerely place Jesus in the center of their hearts, that day will become the true Sabbath day, Sabbatical Year and Year of Jubilee. Colossians 2:16-17 states, “Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day ? things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.

*1 In Isaiah 61:1, “freedom to prisoners” is translated as ‘aphesis (?φεσι?)’ in Septuagint and this word means forgiveness of sins and freedom. This word was used 17 times in Old and New Testament and the whole Bible indicates that it’s a gospel of victory from sins and death.