Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Prayer Meeting Lesson Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/pm/pm20080709.htm
THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Leviticus: Fellowship With A Holy God
Part III: Acceptable Living Before A Holy God, Leviticus 11:1-27:34
Q. Heeding God's Call To Assist The Poor
(Leviticus 25:8-55)
- Introduction
- One of the marks of the Early Church was its commitment to assist materially impoverished people. The Apostles were concerned about the poor (Gal. 2:10), and Early Church believers of means would their sell lands to give to the needs of impoverished fellow brethren, Acts 2:44-45; 4:34-35 (1 John 3:16-18).
- This consideration was extensively taught in the Leviticus 25:8-55 Year of Jubilee stipulations as follows:
- Heeding God's Call To Assist The Poor, Leviticus 25:8-55.
- God required that after the seventh land sabbatical, that is, after the forty-ninth year, the following year, the fiftieth year, was to be observed by Israel as the Year of Jubilee, Leviticus 25:8-10a.
- That was a year when the trumpet was to be sounded on the Day of Atonement, the day God forgave Israel her sins, and liberty would be proclaimed throughout the land for all Hebrews, liberty from all debts when all could return to possess their tribal lands regardless who then owned them, Leviticus 25:10b. Thus, all Hebrews who had sold themselves into slavery due to financial debts, or who had sold their tribal lands out of financial need, were to have their liberty and/or property restored, with all financial debts forgiven!
- This would also be a land sabbath year when neither sowing nor reaping was done, Lev. 25:11-12.
- God then made practical provisions so Israel could effectively celebrate the Year of Jubilee, 25:13-23:
- To avoid abuses, the price of land or other property, including personal slavery to pay off a debt, was to be figured in accord with the years that remained before the year of jubilee when all debts would be forgiven, Lev. 25:13-18. The greater the length of time that remained until the Year of Jubilee, the greater would be the value of the property or servitude proportionate to its (his) annual yield!
- To compensate for the lack of crops harvested by annual sowing and reaping for two sabbatical years in a row, God promised to give a triple bounty of crops in the forty-eight year to cover for Israel's material needs in the respective forty-ninth and fiftieth years, Leviticus 25:19-22.
- The land belonged to God, the Real Landowner of Canaan, so the buying and selling of the land was not to be done in perpetuity, but it was thus to be restored in the Year of Jubilee, Leviticus 25:23.
- God also gave specific rules on the redemption of possessions before the Year of Jubilee, Lev. 25:24-34:
- The restoration of the land could occur before the Year of Jubilee if a near kinsman would redeem it for the one who had lost it, Lev. 25:24, 25-28. However, if no near kinsman-redeemer was available, as a last resort for the afflicted, the Year of Jubilee would cause the land to revert back to him.
- If a house in a city was sold and not redeemed in one year, it became the permanent possession of the purchaser regardless of the Year of Jubilee, 25:29-30; however, property bought from the landowner that was not in a walled city was to revert back to the original owner in the Year of Jubilee, 25:31-32.
- This rule did not apply to the Levitical cities, for the Levites were of limited means, and so could buy back their homes in a city at any time (Lev. 25:32-33), and their land could never be sold, Lev. 25:34.
- God gave specific regulations on the handling of people who had gone into slavery due to debts, 25:35-55:
- Impoverished Hebrew slaves were to be assisted in every way possible without usury; if a fellow Israelite sold himself to a fellow Hebrew as a slave to pay a debt, he was to be treated as a hired help and not as a Gentile slave, Lev. 25:35-46; Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978 ed., ftn. to Lev. 25:35-46.
- In those cases where a Hebrew became a slave to a resident Gentile, the Hebrew slave's relatives could redeem him, reckoning the price in accord to how many years remained until the Year of Jubilee as in other cases with fellow Hebrew slave owners, Leviticus 25:47-55.
Lesson: ALL God's people were HIS SUBJECTS for whom HE PROVIDED the LIVELIHOODS of ALL, including their forgiveness of sins on the Day of Atonement, so GOD expected them to RESPECT and to AID the impoverished in their midst akin to how GOD provided for THEM ALL.
Application: May we CONSIDER and ADDRESS each other's needs as GOD wills that we do!