Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to faithhopegodlove@aol.com In Christ, Mark
“ 'Count off seven sabbaths of years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields. " 'In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to his own property. " 'If you sell land to one of your countrymen or buy any from him, do not take advantage of each other. You are to buy from your countryman on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee. And he is to sell to you on the basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops. When the years are many, you are to increase the price, and when the years are few, you are to decrease the price, because what he is really selling you is the number of crops. Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the Lord your God. " 'Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land. Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety. You may ask, "What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?" I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in.
" 'The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants. Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land. " 'If one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells some of his property, his nearest relative is to come and redeem what his countryman has sold. If, however, a man has no one to redeem it for him but he himself prospers and acquires sufficient means to redeem it, he is to determine the value for the years since he sold it and refund the balance to the man to whom he sold it; he can then go back to his own property. But if he does not acquire the means to repay him, what he sold will remain in the possession of the buyer until the Year of Jubilee. It will be returned in the Jubilee, and he can then go back to his property. " 'If a man sells a house in a walled city, he retains the right of redemption a full year after its sale. During that time he may redeem it. If it is not redeemed before a full year has passed, the house in the walled city shall belong permanently to the buyer and his descendants. It is not to be returned in the Jubilee. But houses in villages without walls around them are to be considered as open country. They can be redeemed, and they are to be returned in the Jubilee. " 'The Levites always have the right to redeem their houses in the Levitical towns, which they possess. So the property of the Levites is redeemable—that is, a house sold in any town they hold—and is to be returned in the Jubilee, because the houses in the towns of the Levites are their property among the Israelites. But the pastureland belonging to their towns must not be sold; it is their permanent possession.”
Leviticus 25:8-34
Much of the major tenets of the Year of Jubilee had to do with land. And there were some rather unique requirements, ones that seem odd to us given our 21st century ways of handling real estate transactions.
For our current ways follow the general rule of thumb that you will own the home and land you purchase and will continue to own it until you decide to sell it (or today…maybe until the bank forecloses on it but that’s getting a bit off the subject).
As we see in our scriptures from Leviticus, Chapter 25, Old Testament real estate dealings were quite a bit different.
For if you were the original owners of land and happened to sell that land to someone else, the land would still technically belong to you because you were the original owners. The people who bought your land would only possess it temporarily…up to the year of Jubilee when they were required to transfer custody of the land back to the original owners.
But there were also some other guidelines and ways to recover land even before the Year of Jubilee rolled around.
For let’s say that a person became impoverished and had to sell his land and home off to alleviate the financial burden. Well, scripture tells us that one of two things could happen that would allow the original owner to get the home back before the Year of Jubilee. Either the person could get back on their feet financially and reacquire the property or a relative could step in and redeem the property for the relative. This is where the term kinsman-redeemer came from, one that we will see played out in vivid detail when we examine the Book of Ruth.
Notice that if the land was repurchased by the original owner prior to the coming of the Year of Jubilee, the person losing the home and land weren’t evicted without compensation. Scripture shows that they are to be properly compensated using the remaining years before the next Year of Jubilee as the calculation factor to the compensation amount.
Our scripture also highlights that land within walled cities fell under a different set of rules than land and homes in the countryside. Ditto for homes that has Levitical ties.
Owners of homes within walled cities were safe from having the home rebought before the next year of Jubilee once a year had passed after purchase. This was because it was a privilege to live within the walled city and real estate there was at a premium. Homes in the countryside could be bought back anytime between Years of Jubilee.
Levitical homes were a little different. Most were located within the walled cities and Levites typically did not own property in the country. But the one year marker protecting buyers from having their homes repurchased prior to the Year of Jubilee did not apply to the Levites> They always had the right to redeem their houses.
So indeed, there were many rules and standards established by the Lord and you might be sitting there and thinking, “I’m sure glad we don’t have to live under those rules today.” And in thinking that, you would be correct for we aren’t under those guidelines. But there was one statement that the Lord spoke in this passage that will never change. It reigned true in the Old Testament. It reigns true today. And it will reign true forever until the Lord decides to change this world that He created…the land that He allows us to live on.
For listen again to the Lord’s words as He addresses all mankind saying, “the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants.” This world we live on was created by God and He allows us to live here. He is our Heavenly Landlord and we are His tenants. He leases His land to us and blesses us with places to live. Yet, we seem to forget this. Why? Because the world doesn’t quite see it this way. In fact, the world doesn’t acknowledge God. The world is in the world and of it…and believers, if not careful, can be sucked into living as the world lives, failing to acknowledge and recognize the Supreme Creator of everything.
Question: Do you see the place you live as belonging to you or to God? Do you truly recognize that having a place to live, especially if it is a home you have been blessed to purchase, is a privilege that God has given to you? Or do we tend to just take it all for granted…like so many other matters of life that are simply abundant blessings from the One who gives us every good and perfect gift from above?
Friends, is not God so good to us that He would allow us to share a piece of what He created with His own Holy Hands? What a blessing it is to have such an awesome God…who is also such an awesome Landlord. Should we not pause to praise and worship His goodness, not just today but every day?
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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