The Liberty Bell numbers among our best-known national icons. There is a biblical quote inscribed on the bell: “Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto the inhabitants thereof. Lev. XXV v. X.”1 Curiously, those words were cast into the bell about a generation before the Declaration of Independence, at a time when most American colonists still considered themselves loyal British subjects. It was also a moment when Quakers still maintained control of Pennsylvania’s legislature with the help of their Mennonite and Dunker allies. In this country, we often associate “liberty” with independence, individual rights, and freedom from restraint. However, the larger scriptural context of the quote steers us toward collective values of interdependence, mutual responsibility, and the common good. Leviticus 25, together with a few other passages, intended to institute an equitable and sustainable society. Furthermore, Jesus’ messianic proclamation at Nazareth includes this system as a key plank in his platform.
I steer readers to Leviticus 25:8-12 for two reasons. First, it gives us context for the Liberty Bell inscription. Second, it serves as a representative sample of the sources of sabbatical and jubilee practices found in the Torah (i.e., the first five books of the Hebrew Bible). I plan to summarize the regulations that appear in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, followed by later reports concerning ancient Israel’s actual practice. From there I will move to economic circumstances in 1st Century Palestine under Roman rule and references to sabbatical and jubilee in Jesus’ teachings. Finally, I will share some recent thoughts on current issues.
We find the basic sources for sabbatical and jubilee in Exodus chapters 21 and 23, Deuteronomy 15, and Leviticus 25. The system was based on seven-year sabbatical cycles culminating in the jubilee. Summarizing from all these sources, every seven years fields and vineyards were to be left fallow or untended. All debts were canceled. Also, slaves were set free. At the end of seven of these seven-year cycles, the jubilee, all three of those provisions were to be carried out, plus all land was returned to the family of origin.2
Let’s take a closer look at each of the scriptural sources. The Exodus passages were part of the primitive Covenant Code3 rooted in northern Israel. Exodus 21:1-6 covers conditions that slaves would serve six years and be released on the seventh. Later in Exodus 23:10-11, the land would be worked six years and left fallow on the seventh. The given rationale was to allow poor people and wildlife to glean volunteer crops from fields, orchards, and vineyards.
The Deuteronomy passages are part of a larger collection known as the Deuteronomic Code.4 This material also originated in northern Israel and was later adapted in Judah. Deut. 15:1-6 spoke of canceling loans every seven years. Vv. 7-11 more specifically addressed charitable loans, admonishing creditors to give money as needed for the poor to live, even if the sabbatical year was near. In the case of canceling both regular and charitable loans, the rationale given was God’s blessing. In vv. 12-18, Hebrew servants were not only to be released at the end of six years of service but not to be sent away empty-handed. They were to be given livestock, grain, and wine. Here folks were reminded that YHWH freed them from slavery in Egypt.
The sabbatical and jubilee provisions in Leviticus 25 are part of a larger unit known as the Holiness Code,7
Evidence indicates that Israel’s practice of these laws was inconsistent. However, the ideal became part of the prophetic tradition. The tension was already apparent in I Samuel 8, when the elders of Israel met with Samuel, the last judge of tribal Israel, requesting that he appoint a king. Samuel reluctantly acquiesced to the demand but warned that centralizing Israel’s military structure under a monarch would also result in the concentration of wealth.
In Jeremiah 34, during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, King Zedekiah of Judah made “a proclamation of liberty”, freeing Hebrew slaves. After the siege was lifted, due to Egypt’s intervention, slaveholders re-enslaved people they had recently set free. The Prophet Jeremiah thunders YHWH’s response. Your forebears neglected the sabbatical provisions of the covenant, but you recently repented and did the right thing. “…but then you turned around and profaned my holy name when each of you took back his male and female slaves….” (v.16). The curse pronounced upon Judah’s elite begins with wordplay, “…I proclaim to you liberty to the sword, to pestilence and to famine, says YHWH….” (v.17). Judah fell to Babylon because those in power refused to practice sabbatical and jubilee. Though it has been thought that the seven-year fallow cycle was the portion most consistently practiced, II Chronicles 36 (the final chapter) suggests that seventy years of exile and desertion of the land made up for missed Sabbaths of the past (v. 21).8
Ezekiel addressed the princes of Judah at least twice in later chapters as he laid out a vision of a new community while still in exile. 45:7-9 called upon the princes to be satisfied with their generous land allotments and respect the ancestral allotments among the tribes. “…Put away violence and oppression, and execute justice and righteousness; cease your evictions of my people….” (v.9). 46:16-18 recognized that jubilee applied to royal allotments too. A prince was permitted to give a piece of his land to a servant from his allotment, but it would revert to the prince or his heirs during “the year of liberty”. More importantly, the prince was not to confiscate other people’s inheritance to give to his heirs. The royal heirs’ inheritance would be limited to the prince’s allotment.9
Following the return from exile, there was a famine in Judah, which forced many households to mortgage their land for food. They also were borrowing money to pay the king’s tax on that property. They were at the point of selling their children into slavery to meet their debts when they complained to Nehemiah, governor of Judah on behalf of Cyrus of Persia. Nehemiah gathered the local officials and sternly admonished them to stop charging interest, return land and release slaves. The officials agreed to these conditions. (5:1-13).10
By the first century A.D., common folk in Israel/Palestine were subjected to additional economic burdens, as an occupied territory. Taxes were extracted by contracted tax farmers, who bought the job of collecting taxes for a region. These tax collectors were free to charge people as they wished, as long as a set amount was handed over to local officials or representatives of Rome. Tax collectors were despised not only as imperial collaborators but also as cheats for overcharging the public for private gain. Absentee land ownership also became common. Stewards working on behalf of absentee owners frequently demanded higher rents than warranted to fill their pockets.11
In addition, religious leaders devised a system to circumvent the sabbatical debt cancellation cycle. Even the Deuteronomy 15 passage recognized the natural reluctance of creditors to loan money as the seventh year grew closer. To avoid freezing credit, Rabbi Hillel created a system called prosboul, which allowed a creditor to transfer to a court the right to collect a debt in his name. Oddly, the development of prosboul hints at the resilience of the sabbatical/jubilee ideal in the Jewish community.12
It was in this context that Jesus drew on the prophetic tradition in announcing his agenda in Luke 4 by quoting Isaiah 61:1-2. A strong case has been made that indeed Jesus was declaring a jubilee year. While that was truly “good news” to the poor, it is clear that it also angered many in the hometown crowd. Creditors likely opposed debt cancelation. Others may have worried about leaving their fields and vineyards fallow. Still, others may have understood from Jesus’ brief comments following the reading that he wished to extend the jubilee beyond the Jewish community. The townspeople responded by nearly lynching him, hustling him to the edge of a cliff to throw him off. Somehow, he managed to walk out of the situation, right through the midst of the mob.
Jesus never directly addressed the fallow year. The literature suggests that he did not need to because it was the most consistently practiced piece of these laws. However, Jesus did echo the concern expressed in Leviticus about where a family’s livelihood would come from when the soil was given its Sabbath rest. Many of us can recall Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-6) in which folks are admonished “…do not be anxious about your life…Look at the birds of the air…Consider the lilies of the field….” (Matt. 6:25-34). This was no happy-go-lucky philosophy. People relied on surpluses of the 6th year crop and basic foraging to meet their needs. Rather it was an assurance that if one works hard six days or even six years, God will provide as he does for the birds and flowers. The sabbatical and jubilee assume a world of plenty rather than scarcity, but not one where the gifts of creation may be hoarded. Rather it is an economy of enough.13
More central to Jesus’ message was the remission (forgiveness) of debt and liberation of slaves. Consider from the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:9-13) the familiar line, “And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors;”. The actual Greek word makes particular reference to money debt, rather than trespasses, sins, and general difficulty with others. The Greek verb (άφίημι) behind the English “to forgive”, shares a root with the noun form (άφσις). It was used to translate the Hebrew word for “jubilee” (yobel) in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible commonly used in the ancient Mediterranean world. The brief commentary in vv. 14-15 expands the sabbatical/jubilee themes into a broader theological sense equating the jubilee with the grace of God. Unfortunately, the Christian community has often overlooked the original meaning to avoid the economic implications. However, Jesus doesn’t just admonish creditors to show mercy to their debtors. In Matt. 5:25-26, he prodded debtors to take responsibility for their debts by communicating with their creditors before the case winds up in court. This was likely a way to keep from freezing credit in the community.14
We find the theme showing up in at least two of Jesus’ parables. In the parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matt. 18:23-35) A king settles accounts with his servants. One of them owes an astronomical amount, suggesting that this servant was a steward or high-ranking manager of a royal estate, not just a typical peasant. After the servant begs for more time, the king simply cancels the debt. However, when the servant leaves the palace and meets someone who owes him a much smaller debt, he has his debtor thrown into prison rather than showing mercy. Some fellow servants see what happened and report it to the king. The king then recalls the servant, thundering at him for not forgiving the fellow servant’s minor debt just after the king had forgiven him a much larger debt. The unforgiving servant was then thrown in jail until the entire debt is paid.15
The second parable is a very odd story of the Unjust Steward (Luke 16:1-9). Stewards were in the habit of over-charging tenants for personal gain. This steward also was caught falsifying the records he presented to the landholder—double-dipping. Since he is about to be fired, the steward decided to go back to the various tenants and reduce their payments of oil and wheat. Likely, he dropped their debts to the level truly owed. Curiously, the landholder commends the cleverness of the steward, since he knew how to make friends with the debtors. In a sense, he had figured out sabbatical/jubilee values, even if it was to save his skin.16
There is also the story of Zacchaeus found in Luke 19:1-10, which many of us remember from childhood. Zacchaeus was a tax collector living in Jericho. He was a short man and ends up climbing a sycamore tree to see Jesus over the crowd. Jesus sees him in the tree and calls him down. Then, Jesus invites himself to Zacchaeus’ house. We might wonder if Zacchaeus had already been at a point of re-thinking life. He pledges to give half his wealth to the poor and repay anyone he had overcharged four times. Zacchaeus caught the spirit of sabbatical/jubilee.17
Sadly, Christians have often avoided the financial, in-this-world implications of sabbatical and jubilee. An individualist reading does make it easier to ignore our responsibilities to each other. That understanding is deeply rooted in the classic Protestant emphasis of grace over law. Interesting how that works, since much of what we understand about grace is rooted in the spirit of sabbatical and jubilee.
In an age of growing economic inequality, it seems appropriate to consider the biblical mandate to level the playing field. One measure of increasing wealth concentration is the ratio between chief executive officer pay and the average employee income. From the 1950s through the mid-1960s the ratio remained relatively stable at about 20:1, based on Standard & Poor’s list of publicly traded companies. It increased to 42:1 by 1980, 120:1 by 2000, and reached as high as 331:1 in 2013.18(Most recently in 2020, the gap was 299:1.)19 When CEO compensation was compared to minimum wage workers, the ratio was a staggering 774:1 (2013). Curiously, the American Enterprise Institute reduced the ratio to 3.8:1 by reaching beyond the 300 plus firms on Standard & Poor’s list to include seven million firms of widely differing scales.20 I would simply note that many individual shopkeepers, service providers, farmers, and small manufacturers have more in common with average workers than multi-millionaire corporate executives do. The pandemic has been especially hard on low-wage workers, many of whom were unemployed during the shutdowns or had to quit to care for children or older relatives. It has begun a more serious discussion moving beyond a “minimum wage” to a living wage. The reluctance of many low-wage workers to return to the workforce is bringing new pressure to the issue.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about economic justice issues that reach back to the European settlement of the United States. Much of the financial capital of this country was built on the labor of enslaved Africans and real estate mostly stolen from Native Americans. I take these concerns seriously because of the long history my family has had in North America, having arrived in the 17th and 18th Centuries.
Our Dunker ancestors forbade slave-owning among their members. Slave owners who wished to join the church had to first free their slaves. Yearly Meeting minutes from 1782 and 1797 required former slave owners to provide adults with a new set of clothes. Children could remain under their care until the age of majority, but in the meantime, they were to be taught to read and write, a rather subversive act at the time. By 1854, Yearly Meeting also required former slave owners to pay back wages for past labor as determined by the local congregation, and provide safe transportation to “a land of liberty.”21 Perhaps our ancestors were thinking of the provisions in Deuteronomy 15 to not free people empty-handed. This comes close to what today we would think of as reparations.
Recently a friend noted that his Dunker congregation was founded in the same year that the Potawatomi were forcefully removed from Indiana in 1838. I am aware of at least two of my ancestral couples who settled nearby and helped found neighboring congregations during the same period. The discovery led my friend’s congregation to study that history and to have conversations with remnants of the tribe.22Cliff Kindy, “Complicity and accountability as disciples of Jesus” Messenger, November 2020, pp. 12-13.[/efn_efn]Though our ancestors played no direct role in their removal or the flawed treaty negotiations, we have benefited from those actions. As a native of Pennsylvania, I grew up with a sense of a friendly relationship between William Penn and the Lenni Lenape. The longer colonial history was more complicated. Penn’s sons were less honorable in their dealings with native peoples. Disagreements between colonial officials also resulted in inconsistent policies. While I believe both parties had the best of intentions at first contact, it is clear that they came to negotiations with very different understandings of land use and ownership. While Lenape leaders thought they were simply agreeing to allow newcomers to share their homeland, Penn believed he was gaining title to the real estate. How do we as beneficiaries of their dispossession make amends to their descendants?
Sharing God’s gifts more equitably grants everyone more freedom, choice, and agency. May the words cast on the Liberty Bell remind us that personal liberty requires mutual responsibility. As Civil Rights activist Fanny Lou Hammer said, “Nobody is free until everybody is free.”
Tom Wagner is a former pastor in the Church of the Brethren. He earned his B.A. in peace studies at Manchester University and studied at Bethany Theological Seminary. He was born in Lebanon County Pennsylvania and spent his teenage years in DeKalb County, Indiana. For over 30 years he has lived and worked in Muskegon County, Michigan. For over 25 years he has served on the Muskegon County Cooperating Churches board of directors. He is author of two essay collections: A Pilgrim’s Provender (2005) and Work and Hope (2011), both were published by MCCC.
- Other than the quote from the Liberty Bell, all biblical quotes are from the Revised Standard Version.
- I am greatly indebted to three sources for much of the Hebrew Bible material on sabbatical and jubilee themes and the connections to Jesus’ ministry. Ch. 2 and 3 André Trocmé, Jesus and the NonviolentRevolution, ed. Charles E. Moore, trans. Michael H. Shank & Marlin E. Miller, (Walden, NY: Plough Publishing House, 2014), Ch. 2 and 3 John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1972) and Ch. 5 and 6 Donald B. Kraybill, The Upside-Down Kingdom, (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1978). A summary of the sabbatical and jubilee provisions can be found in Trocmé p. 23, Yoder p. 64 and Kraybill p. 98. Kraybill was especially helpful in listing particular scriptural references pp. 97-98.
- Information on Covenant, Deuteronomic, and Holiness Codes was not part of the original Trocmé-Yoder-Kraybill material. I included it as further context. See Norman K. Gottwald, The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-Literary Introduction, (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1985) p. 207.
- Gottwald, pp. 208, 316.
- Gottwald, pp. 478-479.5 which covers several topics from diet to fabric to sexuality, and came into its current form during or after the exile. The chapter begins with a discussion of the seven-year fallow cycle (vv. 1-7) giving Sabbath rest to the land as a rationale. The jubilee material follows in vv. 8-24. This includes the promise that if the people follow these rules, especially the seven-year fallow cycle, there will be plenty of food to get through the fallow years. Furthermore, it was made clear that humans do not own the land they tend. Ultimately, YHWH is landlord. Though land could be bought and sold, we might think of it as a long-term lease rather than a final sale. Other provisions cover how to redeem or buy back land sold between jubilees outside of the kinship or extended family network (vv. 25-34) and issues concerning poverty relief, slavery, and redemption (vv. 35-55).
There is a logic to this system in the context of a tribal agrarian society where land was the foundation of wealth. Land controlled by Israel was allocated to the tribes. Tribal leaders in turn allocated plots to individual families. In the normal course of a growing season, one might have to borrow money for seed, equipment, draft animals, and laborers’ wages at planting time. The land became security for the loan. If all goes well, the loan was paid off at the end of the harvest. However, things don’t always go according to plan. A bad harvest or other hardship would put one further into debt. This could easily result in mortgaging or even selling land. When land was no longer available, a householder might have to sell himself and members of his family into slavery. It should be noted that this form of debt slavery within the Hebrew community might best be thought of as indentured servitude. In two of the texts, service ended with the seventh year, the same time at which debts were canceled. The Leviticus text seems to extend the deadline to the jubilee year, but suggests ways that the land or slaves could be released earlier by the intervention of relatives, or if the debtor himself eventually found means to pay the debt. Indeed, the Leviticus text makes it a duty for next of kin to buy back or redeem property sold to cover debts. They were also expected to redeem relatives who had indentured themselves to non-Jews. The system was set up to maintain the land and labor resources of each clan. Resetting the economic clock every seven years and even more drastically on the fiftieth would have helped level out the relative positions of rich and poor in their society.6Trocmé, p. 25, Yoder, p. 68.
- Trocmé, p. 24, Yoder, p. 38, Kraybill, pp. 99-100.
- Kraybill, p. 100.
- Trocmé, p. 24, Kraybill, p. 100.
- Trocmé, p. 35.
- Trocmé, pp. 35-36, Yoder, pp. 72-73, Kraybill pp. 119-121.
- Trocmé, pp. 29-30, Yoder, pp. 64-66, Kraybill, pp. 115-117.
- Trocmé, pp. 30-31, Yoder, pp. 66-67, Kraybill, p. 105.
- Trocmé, pp. 31-32, Yoder, pp. 67-69, Kraybill, pp. 108-109.
- Trocmé, pp. 35-36, Yoder, pp. 72-73, Kraybill, pp. 119-121.
- Trocmé, pp. 40-41, Kraybill, pp. 131-133.
- http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathryndill/2014/04/15/report-ceos-earn-331-times-as-much-as-average-workers-774-times-as-much-as-minimum-wage-earners/.
- https://aflcio.org/press/releases/average-sp-500-company-ceo-worker-pay-ratio-rises-299-1-2020
- https://www.aei.org/publication/when-we-consider-all-us-chief-executives-the-ceo-to-worker-pay-ratio-falls-from-3311-to-below-41/.
- Minutes of the Annual Meetings of the Church of the Brethren 1778-1909, (Elgin, IL: Brethren Publishing House, 1909) pp. 7-8, 18-19, 142-143.