by the term apokatastasis. This word means to reestablish something or somebody to his previous state, a restoration or restitution of prisoners or hostages, for example. This is a subject to which Philo devotes several chapters throughout his works (cf. his Decalogue) and it squares beautifully with the basic meaning of the Jubilee. The very purpose of the Jubilee was to “reestablish” the tribes of Israel as they were at the time they entered Canaan.
The New Testament itself uses apokatastasis several times to express the idea of restoration. For instance, it can mean the reestablishment or “recovery” of a sick person.16 In Matthew 17:11, referring to the messianic “restoration” of the kingdom of Israel, Jesus said, “Elijah comes and will restore all things.” In Acts 1:6 the disciples asked Jesus, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” And later in Acts Peter, quoting Deuteronomy 18:15–19, declares, “Jesus must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets. For Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people…’” (Acts 3:21–22).
In the last passage, Peter describes Jesus as a second Moses, who will once again enforce the ancient ordinances. Moses’ return and consequently the reestablishment of the Jubilee through repentance and remission of sins are described as the condition for the great restoration when Jesus returns. Whether referring to the healing of persons or the reestablishment of the king, apokatastasis should be understood as having jubilean connotations. The restoration of the sick, the reestablishment of Israel, and the reestablishment of property were all part of the Messiah’s redemptive task. Jesus’ mission was one of jubilee!
Jubilean Provisions
The year of Jubilee was celebrated every forty-nine years, that is every seventh Sabbath of years (seven times seven).17 Just as the week ended with a “day of release” called the Sabbath and a “week of years” ended with a sabbatical year (every seventh year), each period of forty-nine years ended with a Year of Jubilee.
Why the Year of Jubilee? What were the religious principles upon which the Year of Jubilee was based? We can identify two basic rationales.
First, God is the owner of the land. In Leviticus 25:23 we read, “The land shall not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants.” In the ancient world, such a declaration was not unique. The land, along with the flocks, constituted the only source of capital, and its possession guaranteed wealth and power. As a general rule, the land belonged to the god of the area or country. In practice this meant that it belonged either to the priests of the god or to the king who incarnated the god, as in Egypt. The situation was then somewhat similar to modern socialist states: the king granted the use of his lands to whomever he pleased.
But the remarkable thing about the Jubilee was that it did not lead to this type of state collectivism. On the contrary, the jubilean provisions limited the arbitrariness of the sovereign.18 Furthermore, the interval between Jubilees did not paralyze individual initiative. It gave everyone the opportunity to invest his capital and to buy and sell goods.19
The redistribution of land also prevented the accumulation of capital in the hands of a few. At the time of the Jubilee every tribe repossessed the land it had received when the people of Israel first settled in Canaan. Similarly, each family regained the lands it might have lost in the interval. In this way, even though God was the ultimate owner of the land, he did not operate as a tyrant oppressing his people in slavery. Rather, he acted as a good master, entrusting to his servants the administration of his goods, which he let them enjoy, but whom he would call to account at regular intervals and once again distribute the capital he alone possessed.
Second, God is the liberator and redeemer of his people. The Jubilee is but a social and concrete rendition of God’s redemptive act. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan…” (Lev. 25:38). Because God set Israel free from Egyptian bondage, social liberation (from debts, from slavery, from oppression) is to have the force of law among his people. Deuteronomy justifies the institution of the Sabbath in this way: “The seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God… Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day” (Deut. 5:14–15).
Consequently, the mercy that manifests itself during the “year of favor” is not arbitrary. It is not the result of the king’s despotic benevolence. Nor does it contradict the requirements of justice, which characterize Yahweh’s will for his people. It is, rather, an expression of God’s justice, which occurs at regular intervals to regularize his relations with his people. Israel’s debt to God will not stack up indefinitely; accordingly, debts between fellow Israelites must also be cancelled periodically.
The following rules summarize how the sabbatical year and the Jubilee were to be celebrated:
First Measure – Every seventh year the land was to lie fallow. By a special blessing of Yahweh, the land would produce a double harvest during the sixth year.
Second Measure – During the seventh year all debts between Hebrews were to be cancelled.
Third Measure – After six years of slavery every Hebrew slave was to be set free by his master.
Fourth Measure (reserved for the Jubilee, every 49 years) – Each family was to regain possession of the land and houses it had lost in the meantime. Between two Jubilees a buyer owned the land only temporarily. As the Year of Jubilee approached, the value of the land dropped in proportion to the remaining years of tenure.
Jubilean Practice
It seems that the sabbatical year proved too difficult to apply and was therefore often ignored. This could well be the prime motive behind the year of Jubilee. The economic life of the land would have been paralyzed by the recurrence every seven years of a measure as radical as the abolition of debts or the freeing of slaves. Nevertheless, the year of Jubilee, with its additional requirement of land redistribution, does not seem to have been followed any more closely than the sabbatical year.20
After the return from exile, both the Mishnah and the Talmud justified the neglect of the more rigid sabbatical and jubilean measures with various unconvincing arguments. Actually, the sabbatical year and the Jubilee had already faced opposition from the ownership classes before the exile. In vain the prophets of Israel demanded the restoration of these institutions, which they saw as precursory signs of the coming of David’s reign. Unfortunately, unfaithfulness usually got the upper hand. The two most remarkable attempts at restoring the Jubilee, namely those of Jeremiah and Nehemiah, are relevant here.
Under the reign of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah (598–587 B.C.), the rich had agreed to free their Hebrew slaves according to the Jubilee ordinance but soon regretted their decision and took them back. Their disobedience aroused Jeremiah’s indignation, and he prophesied that it would cause the destruction of Jerusalem.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I made a covenant with your forefathers when I brought them out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I said, ‘Every seventh year each of you must free any fellow Hebrew who has sold himself to you. After he has served you six years, you must let him go free.’ Your fathers, however, did not listen to me or pay attention to me. Recently you repented and did what is right in my sight: Each of you proclaimed freedom to his countrymen. You even made a covenant before me in the house that bears my Name. But now you have turned around and profaned my name; each of you has taken back the male and female slaves you had set free to go where they wished. You
