The Forgotten Feasts: Yom Kippur Part 2: Shmitahs and Jubilees

Speaking of atonement and deliverance from the bondage of sin and death, Yom Kippur is also the day that Shmitah and Jubilee years are initiated. This has actually been one of my favorite topics as of late so I’m not really sure how long it’s gonna take to get to the other side.

There are two corporate things which are announced on Yom Kippur: Shmitahs and Jubilees. Shmitahs have kind of been in the Christian vernacular as of late because of Jonathan Cahn’s book The Harbinger which proposed that God was judging America in Shmitah cycles. Over that last few years that was then tied in with Blood Moon Tetrads and people started predicting the end of the world.

Let’s look at the verses that go into the details of the Sabbath year, Shmitah…

"Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the LORD. For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the LORD. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired worker and the sojourner who lives with you, and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: all its yield shall be for food. (Lev 25:2-7 ESV)

God instituted a workweek for us (Days 1-6) and then we are to rest on the seventh day, and focus on Him. Likewise, God also instituted a workweek for the land. While the Israelites were in the land they were to only farm the land for six years at a time and then they were supposed to let the land have its rest in the seventh year. Actually, the fact that they didn’t do this is the reason that’s given for them being kicked out of the land and sent to Babylon (2 Chr 36:21). And if you really want to do the math on how long they hadn’t been keeping the land’s Sabbath then you’ll see that it goes the whole way back to the time of David, the man after God’s own heart. It’s possible that once they had an earthly king (because they no longer wanted to be ruled by only their heavenly King) they never actually gave the land its Sabbath rest. I’m still looking into all the dates but it’s pretty harrowing to see how quickly we can go astray, even if this was after the time of King David.

This is an ordinance which God gave the Israelites when they were crossing over the Jordan and coming into the land. It would seem to me that any attempt to dictate that this is a law to anyone outside of the Promised Land of Israel is going outside of the words written in the Bible. That doesn’t mean that people should be opposed to stepping out in faith and keeping the Sabbath for their land, if they feel that God is leading them to do that. Especially since giving a sabbath rest to the land has been proven to make good, sound agricultural sense. But, I don’t think you can make prove that this is something that should be done no matter where you live.

There’s another level to the Shmitah that we should look at as well. And that’s that this is a time that all captives go free. This is a time of release and reset. In Deuteronomy 15 we are told the following:

"At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the LORD's release has been proclaimed. Of a foreigner you may exact it, but whatever of yours is with your brother your hand shall release. But there will be no poor among you; for the LORD will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess-- if only you will strictly obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today. For the LORD your God will bless you, as he promised you, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow, and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you. (Deu 15:1-6 ESV)

Can you imagine how revolutionary it would be if we actually started living like this? Is anyone really prepared to personally release all of the debt that anyone owes us every seven years? Our entire societal structure is, seemingly, made up on the building blocks of never ending debt. And it should also be noted that this was supposed to be carried out without predatory lending practices like giving a higher interest rate as you get closer to the Sabbath year. Loans should be done at the same rate no matter if you were in year one or in year six. Actually, you weren’t even supposed to charge interest to other members of the Commonwealth of Israel (Deut 23:19). Are we honest enough to admit that this seems outrageous to us in today’s culture?

When we look at the Jubiliee year, it’s an even more extreme version of the Shmitah year. It’s a celebration of even greater liberty and deliverance than the normal seven year cycle provides. I guess I’ll first provide the Scriptural reference spelling out what a Jubilee year is:

"You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You may eat the produce of the field. "In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property. (Lev 25:8-13 ESV)

It's fairly evident that this time is all about liberty and deliverance, but should that be surprising? We have to remember that the Israelites were given these Holy Days after just having been delivered and given their liberty from Egypt. The concept of liberty from oppression is foundational to the very core of the nation of Israel. If we keep this in mind when we’re looking at the Shmitah and the Jubilee years then you see that these are not only remembrances of the deliverance which they were given, but they are also celebrations which allow the people who were once delivered to take part in the deliverance. If God is righteous (and He is), and we are supposed seek after His righteousness (and we are), then this is an opportunity which the Father has given his people to practice a part of His righteousness.

But there’s more…

Moses was the instrument God used to deliver His people out of bondage to Egypt, and he’s remembered as such. But the Israelites were told of another prophet who would come who would be like Moses (Deut 18:15), and in Acts 3:22-23 we are told (not that we needed too much arm-twisting) that this prophet was Jesus.

A prophet like Moses. What could that mean?

Throughout Scripture there are many prophets but one of the things which sets Moses apart is that not only did he speak for God, but he also brought deliverance for the entire nation (plus some)! So this prophet like Moses (who we’ve already established to be Jesus) would not only be known for speaking the very Word of God, but He would also be the instrument which would bring the people out of bondage and slavery. In John 8:34 Jesus shows his hand when he says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.” Paul doubles down in Romans 6 when he wrote, “you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.”

It would appear that the deliverance that this prophet like unto Moses was going to provide was going to be something even greater than the deliverance which came at the time of Moses. In the book of Jeremiah (16:14-15) it is prophesied that there will be an exodus that will be so great that the exodus of Moses’ time would be overshadowed. In the time of Moses the Israelites were delivered out of the land of Egypt but in the time of the prophet who was to come after Moses the people would be delivered out of all lands. And if the locality from which the people came was to be greater, is it out of the question that the type of deliverance would be greater? At the time of Moses, the people were saved out of physical bondage to Egypt but at the time of Jesus the people were saved out of spiritual bondage to sin and death.

To drive the point home I’d like to look at one of the key Jubilee prophecies in the Old Testament. Isaiah 61 was long considered to be a prophecy of the Messiah bringing a restoration of the Kingdom of God to the people of Israel. Let’s look at the first couple verses of this chapter:

“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn,”

The first thing we should look at is the part where it says, “to proclaim liberty to the captives”. If we go back to where we were first told about the Jubilee year in Leviticus we see that one of the main functions of the Jubilee was to “proclaim liberty throughout the land to all of its inhabitants.” The same words for “proclaim liberty” are used in both instances. You may have already recognized that Jesus, in His first public act recorded in the Gospels, stood in front of the synagogue and read this very passage (minus the very end of the second verse…).

There’s a second thing to look at in that first verse of Isaiah 61. You know that part where it says, “the LORD has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor”? What word do you think was translated in order to get the words “good tidings”? Well, the Hebrew word is bâśar (בּשׂר), but that may not ring that many bells. So what word is used in the New Testament when Jesus quotes this passage from Isaiah? The word is euaggelizō (εὐαγγελίζω) which is used many times in the New Testament. And what is it translated as? You’re probably ahead of me on this one but it’s English translation is “gospel”. So we see in this Jubilee Scripture in Isaiah that Messiah was going to be coming to preach the gospel. In modern Christianity we sometimes get this idea that the gospel was something that was never mentioned before Jesus died on the cross, but the fact that He was going to preach the gospel was prophesied seven-hundred years before He was born into this world.

I want to close this post with a piece of Scripture which I believe is extremely relevant to this new exodus that Messiah has led us through.

And behold, two men talked with Him, who were Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of His decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. (Luk 9:30-31 NKJV)

At first glance, this verse doesn’t necessarily look like it has much to do with this predicted new exodus. But what if we look a little deeper at the Greek word for “decease”. The word used is the Greek word “̓́ξοδος”. It may be a little bit difficult to decipher from the Greek characters but the transliteration is “exodos”. You can probably figure out that word! That word is only used two other times in the Bible. In 2 Peter 2:15 it is used in reference to the death of Peter. In Hebrews 11:12 it is used for the in reference to the exodus of the children of Israel leaving Egypt. So, in light of the prophetic expectation of the Messiah leading the Commonwealth of Israel out of their bondage to sin and death, do you think that it’s possible that Jesus, Moses, and Elijah were talking about this new exodus? And how important do you think this new exodus was that Moses and Elijah showed up to talk to Jesus about it?

In summation, I didn’t really even go over that much pertaining to the Shmitahs and Jubilees, and I didn’t really do justice to the parts that I did go over. In fact, now’s a good time to say that I probably got some stuff wrong. I’ve tried my best to present only the truth, but no one should view me as infallible. Search out the Scriptures and do research. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how much you’ll enjoy what you find, regardless of whether I made a mistake or not…

Until next time…

Blessings and Shalom!