The Laws of the Seventh and Fiftieth Years

Roy Gane

The Sabbatical and Jubilee laws prescribed in Leviticus 25 present problems relating to chronology, real estate tenure and servitude. The progression of main points gained by analysis of these laws is as follows: 1. The Jubilee year is cyclical, following the seventh sabbatical year and coinciding with the first year of the following sabbatical year cycle. 2. The land tenure change occurring in the Jubilee year applies to agricultural ancestral real estate alienated by sale. 3. Unlike the slave laws of Exodus and Deuteronomy, Lev 25 connects the issue of land sale to that of debt servitude and provides an on-going solution to the problem of how disenfranchised persons could survive in an agrarian society.

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