The intelligent reader will discern a strong moral link between this
and the preceding chapter. In chapter xxiv, we learn that the house of
Israel is preserved for the land of Canaan; in chapter xxv, we learn
that the land of Canaan is preserved for the house of Israel. Taking
both together, we have the record of a truth which no power of earth
or hell can obliterate--"All Israel shall be saved," and "the land
shall not be sold forever." The former of these statements enunciates
a principle which has stood like a rock amid the ocean of conflicting
interpretations, while the latter declares a fact which many nations
of the uncircumcised have sought in vain to ignore.
The reader will, I doubt not, observe the peculiar way in which our
chapter opens.--"And the Lord spake unto Moses _in Mount Sinai_." The
principal part of the communications contained in the book of
Leviticus is characterized by the fact of its emanating "from the
tabernacle of the congregation." This is easily accounted for. Those
communications have special reference to the service, communion, and
worship of the priests, or to the moral condition of the people, and
hence they are issued, as might be expected, from "the tabernacle of
the congregation," that grand centre of all that appertained in any
way to priestly service. Here, however, the communication is made
from quite a different point. "The Lord spake unto Moses _in Mount
Sinai_." Now, we know that every expression in Scripture has its own
special meaning, and we are justified in expecting a different line of
communication from "Mount Sinai" from that which reaches us from "the
tabernacle of the congregation." And so it is. The chapter at which we
have now arrived treats of Jehovah's claims as Lord of all the earth.
It is not the worship and communion of a priestly house, or the
internal ordering of the nation; but the claims of God in government,
His right to give a certain portion of the earth to a certain people
to hold as tenants under Him. In a word, it is not to Jehovah in "the
tabernacle"--the place of _worship_; but Jehovah in "Mount Sinai"--the
place of _government_.
"And the Lord spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai, saying, 'Speak unto the
children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land
which I give you, then shall the land keep a Sabbath unto the Lord.
Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy
vineyard. That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou
shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed; for
it is a year of rest unto the land. And the Sabbath of the land shall
be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and
for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee,
and for thy cattle, and for the beast that are in thy land, shall all
the increase thereof be meat.'" (Ver. 1-7.)
Here, then, we have the special feature of the Lord's land. He would
have it to enjoy a sabbatic year, and in that year there was to be the
evidence of the rich profusion with which He would bless those who
held as tenants under Him. Happy, highly privileged tenantry! What an
honor to hold immediately under Jehovah! No rent! no taxes! no
burdens! Well might it be said, "Happy is the people that is in such a
case; yea, happy is the nation whose God is Jehovah." We know, alas!
that Israel failed to take full possession of that wealthy land of
which Jehovah made them a present. He had given it _all_; He had given
it _forever_. They took but _a part_, and that _for a time_. Still,
there it is. The property is there, though the tenants are ejected for
the present. "The land shall not be sold _forever_: for _the land is
Mine_; for ye are strangers and sojourners _with Me_." What does this
mean, but that Canaan belongs specially to Jehovah, and that He will
hold it through the tribes of Israel? True, "the earth is the Lord's,"
but that is quite another thing. It is plain that He has been pleased,
for His own unsearchable purposes, to take special possession of the
land of Canaan, and to submit that land to a peculiar line of
treatment, to mark it off from all other lands, by calling it His own,
and to distinguish it by judgments and ordinances and periodical
solemnities, the mere contemplation of which enlightens the
understanding and affects the heart. Where, throughout all the earth,
do we read of a land enjoying a year of unbroken repose--a year of
richest abundance? The rationalist may ask, How can these things be?
the skeptic may doubt if they could be; but faith finds a satisfying
answer from the lips of Jehovah--"And if ye shall say, What shall we
eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our
increase: then I will command My blessing upon you in the sixth year,
and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. And ye shall sow the
eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year; until her
fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store." (Ver. 20-22.) Nature
might say, What shall we do for _our sowing_? God's answer is, "I will
command _My blessing_." God's "blessing" is better far than man's
"sowing." He was not going to let them starve in His sabbatic year.
They were to feed upon the fruits of His blessing, while they
celebrated His year of rest--a year which pointed forward to that
eternal Sabbath that remains for the people of God.
"And thou shalt number seven Sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times
seven years; and the space of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be
unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of
the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; in the day
of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your
land." (Ver. 8, 9.) It is peculiarly interesting to note the various
methods in which the millennial rest was held up to view in the Jewish
economy. Every seventh day was a sabbatic day; every seventh year was
a sabbatic year; and every seven times seven years there was a
jubilee. Each and all of these typical solemnities held up to the
vision of faith the blessed prospect of a time when labor and sorrow
should cease; when "the sweat of the brow" would no longer be needed
to satisfy the cravings of hunger; but when a millennial earth
enriched by the copious showers of divine grace, and fertilized by the
bright beams of the Sun of righteousness, should pour its abundance
into the storehouse and wine-press of the people of God. Happy time!
happy people! How blessed to be assured that these things are not the
pencilings of imagination or the flights of fancy, but the substantial
verities of divine revelation, to be enjoyed by faith, which is "the
substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."
Of all the Jewish solemnities the jubilee would seem to have been the
most soul-stirring and enrapturing. It stood immediately connected
with the great day of atonement. It was when the blood of the victim
was shed that the emancipating sound of the jubilee trump was heard
through the hills and valleys of the land of Canaan. That longed-for
note was designed to wake up the nation from the very centre of its
moral being--to stir the deepest depths of the soul, and to send a
shining river of divine and ineffable joy through the length and
breadth of the land. "In the day of atonement shall ye make the
trumpet sound throughout _all_ your land." Not a corner was to remain
unvisited by "the joyful sound." The aspect of the jubilee was as wide
as the aspect of the atonement on which the jubilee was based.
"And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty
throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be
a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession,
and ye shall return every man unto his family. A jubilee shall that
fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which
groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine
undressed. For it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall
eat the increase thereof out of the field. In the year of this jubilee
ye shall return every man unto his possession." (Ver. 8-13.) All
estates and conditions of the people were permitted to feel the
hallowed and refreshing influence of this most noble institution. The
exile returned; the captive was emancipated; the debtor set free; each
family opened its bosom to receive once more its long-lost members;
each inheritance received back its exiled owner. The sound of the
trumpet was the welcome and soul-stirring signal for the captive to
escape, for the slave to cast aside the chains of his bondage, for the
man-slayer to return to his home, for the ruined and poverty-stricken
to rise to the possession of their forfeited inheritance. No sooner
had the trumpet's thrice-welcome sound fallen upon the ear than the
mighty tide of blessing rose majestically and sent its refreshing
undulations into the most remote corners of Jehovah's highly favored
land.
"And if thou sell aught unto thy neighbor, or buyest aught of thy
neighbor's hand, ye shall not oppress one another: according to the
number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbor, and
according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto
thee. According to the multitude of years thou shalt increase the
price thereof, and according to the fewness of years thou shalt
diminish the price of it; for according to the number of the years of
the fruits doth he sell unto thee. Ye shall not therefore oppress one
another; but thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the Lord your God."
(Ver. 14-17.) The year of jubilee reminded both buyer and seller that
the land belonged to Jehovah and was not to be sold. "The fruits"
might be sold, but that was all: Jehovah could never give up the land
to any one. It is important to get this point well fixed in the mind;
it may open up a very extensive line of truth. If the land of Canaan
is not to be sold--if Jehovah declares it to be His forever, then for
whom does He want it? who is to hold under Him? Those to whom He gave
it by an everlasting covenant, that they might have it in possession
as long as the moon endureth--even to all generations.
There is no spot in all the earth like unto the land of Canaan in the
divine estimation. There Jehovah set up His throne and His sanctuary;
there His priests stood to minister continually before Him; there the
voices of His prophets were heard testifying of present ruin and
future restoration and glory; there the Baptist began, continued, and
ended his career as the forerunner of the Messiah; there the blessed
One was born of a woman; there He was baptized; there He preached and
taught; there He labored and died; from thence He ascended in triumph
to the right hand of God; thither God the Holy Ghost descended, in
Pentecostal power; from thence the overflowing tide of gospel
testimony emanated to the ends of the earth; thither the Lord of glory
will descend ere long, and plant His foot "on the Mount of Olives;"
there His throne will be re-established and His worship restored. In a
word, His eyes and His heart are there continually; its dust is
precious in His sight; it is the centre of all His thoughts and
operations as touching this earth; and it is His purpose to make it an
eternal excellency, the joy of many generations.
It is, then, I repeat, immensely important to get a firm hold of this
interesting line of truth with respect to the land of Canaan. Of that
land Jehovah hath said, "IT IS MINE." Who shall take it from Him?
Where is the king or the emperor--where the power, human or
diabolical, that can wrest "the pleasant land" out of Jehovah's
omnipotent grasp? True, it has been a bone of contention, an apple of
discord, to the nations. It has been, and it will yet be, the scene
and centre of cruel war and bloodshed. But far above all the din of
battle and the strife of nations, these words fall with divine
clearness, fullness, and power upon the ear of faith: "_The land is
Mine!_" Jehovah can never give up that land, nor those "twelve
tribes" through whom He is to inherit it forever. Let my reader think
of this; let him ponder it deeply; let him guard against all looseness
of thought and vagueness of interpretation as to this subject. God
hath not cast away His people, or the land which He sware to give unto
them for an everlasting possession. "The twelve loaves" of Leviticus
xxiv. bear witness to the former, and "the jubilee" of Leviticus xxv.
bears witness to the latter. The memorial of the "twelve tribes of
Israel" is ever before the Lord, and the moment is rapidly approaching
when the trump of jubilee shall be heard upon the mountains of
Palestine. Then, in reality, the captive shall cast off the
ignominious chain which for ages has bound him; then shall the exile
return to that happy home from which he has so long been banished;
then shall every debt be canceled, every burden removed, and every
tear wiped away. "For thus saith the Lord, 'Behold, I will extend
peace to her [Jerusalem] like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles
like a flowing stream: then shall ye suck, ye shall be borne upon her
sides, and be dandled upon her knees. As one whom his mother
comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in
Jerusalem. And when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your
bones shall flourish like an herb; and the hand of the Lord shall be
known toward His servants, and His indignation toward His enemies.
For, behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with His chariots like
a whirlwind, to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with
flames of fire. For by fire and by His sword will the Lord plead with
all flesh: and the slain of the Lord shall be many.... For I know
their works and their thoughts; it shall come that I will gather all
nations and tongues; and they shall come and see My glory. And I will
set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto
the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal
and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard My fame, neither
have seen My glory; and they shall declare My glory among the
Gentiles. And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto
the Lord, out of all nations, upon horses, and in chariots, and in
litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to My holy mountain
Jerusalem, saith the Lord, as the children of Israel bring an offering
in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord. And I will also take of
them for priests and for Levites, saith the Lord. For as the new
heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me,
saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall
come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath
to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me, saith the
Lord.'" (Isaiah lxvi. 12-23.)
And now let us look for a moment at the practical effect of the
jubilee--its influence upon the transactions between man and
man.--"And if thou sell aught unto thy neighbor, or buyest aught of
thy neighbor's hand, ye shall not oppress one another. According to
the number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbor,
and according to the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto
thee." The scale of prices was to be regulated by the jubilee. If that
glorious event were at hand, the price was low; if far off, the price
was high. All human compacts as to land were broken up the moment the
trump of jubilee was heard, for the land was Jehovah's; and the
jubilee brought all back to its normal condition.
This teaches us a fine lesson. If our hearts are cherishing the
abiding hope of the Lord's return, we shall set light by all earthly
things. It is morally impossible that we can be in the attitude of
waiting for the Son from heaven, and not be detached from this present
world. "Let your moderation be known unto all men: the Lord is at
hand." (Phil. iv.) A person may hold "the doctrine of the millennium,"
as it is called, or the doctrine of "the second advent," and be a
thorough man of the world; but one who lives in the habitual
expectation of Christ's appearing must be separated from that which
will be judged and broken up when He comes. It is not a question of
the shortness and uncertainty of human life, which is quite true; or
of the transitory and unsatisfying character of the things of time,
which is equally true. It is far more potent and influential than
either or both of these,--it is this: "_The Lord is at hand._" May our
hearts be affected and our conduct in all things influenced by this
most precious and sanctifying truth.