The Law given by Moses prescribed certain restrictions on land and property. It concerned various matters dealing with the way the Land was to be farmed, property redeemed after being sold to another party, the poor cared for, and safeguards within the Levitical system for reprieve from the bondage of slavery. Although these subjects appear to be a kind of hodgepodge of unrelated topics, they were all addressed by a single aspect of the Levitical Law.

The Lord spoke concerning restrictions upon tilling the Land While Moses and the Twelve Tribes of Israel were still at Mount Sinai.

Hence, not only were the people to observe a Sabbath day rest every seventh day, but the Land was also to observe a Sabbath year rest every seventh year. During that year, the Land was to lay fallow so that poor people and beasts might partake of its fruit.

The Lord continued with an additional provision.

The Jubilee years thereby periodically returned property back into the hands of persons who had lost their inheritance through sale, confiscation, or some misfortune, with all prior debts being forgiven. Similarly, those who had been delivered into voluntarily or involuntarily slavery were released from all prior commitments and set free. Thus, the Jubilee year provided a built-in safeguard within the Law to prevent long-term inequities in the distribution of the Land, overbearing imbalances in the wealth of the citizens, and permanent conditions of impoverishment.

In addition to the spiritual connotations that might be implied by such provisions, the very existence of Sabbatic/Jubilee years also provided Israel with a cyclic calendar that could be used to tie together events removed from each other by many decades. Therefore, in our quest for a better understanding of Biblical history, it would be desirable to reconstruct that timeline, for just as with the Convocation dates studied above, so might certain Sabbath and Jubilee years also serve to identify significant events from God’s viewpoint.

The job of reconstructing the original Sabbatic/Jubilee Levitical calendar is frustrated by the fact that the one used in Old Testament times has been lost in antiquity, although numerous attempts to reconstruct it have been offered.

Some Jewish rabbis have long held that there is prophetic significance embodied in the Sabbatic/Jubilee timeline, and for this reason have expended considerable effort to derive it. In a 1975 article entitled "Chrono-messianism", Rabbi Ben Zion Wacholder reported that ancient rabbis believed that the prophecy in the book of Daniel concerning "70 Weeks" actually referred to seventy sets of seven-year cycles, each concluding with a Sabbath year (Daniel 9.24). Furthermore, he noted that they covered a total of 490 years that included ten Jubilees, so the "70 Weeks" (actually "70 Sevens") of Daniel’s prophecy should conclude with a final Jubilee year. Rabbi Wachholder also reported that the year of the Bar Kochba revolt (AD 132/33) happened to be the only Jubilee recorded in history. If true, this one historical account would be enough to allow the calculation of all the Jubilees since they occur on a 50 year cycle. Maybe this is why the modern State of Israel was prompted recently to designate 1980/1981 as a Sabbath year for the Land?

From another source, ancient Talmudic tradition apparently held that the first Sabbath year fell on the 21^st year after the Hebrews entered the Promised Land, and that the first Jubilee came on the 64^th year.

Unfortunately, it takes only a little arithmetic to show that Wacholder and this Talmudic tradition do not agree with each other nor do they agree with Biblical chronology based on Edwin Thiele, discussed in the REDEMPTIVE PLAN portion of OLIVE TREE STUDIES. A Jubilee in the 64^th year after entering the Land will not produce a Jubilee anywhere close to AD 132/33, nor does an AD 132/33 Jubilee agree with Thiele’s chronology.

Since a decision is forced between Thiele’s dates that are tied to known secular history versus these Rabbinical ones that appear to be based more on tradition, we shall choose to pursue the Thiele dates. In this way, at least the outcome will be solidly grounded on a great deal of historical and archaeological evidence.

The chronological portion of REDEMPTIVE PLAN concluded that the date for the Hebrews’ entrance into the Land should have been 1406/05 BC. Joshua had been told at the outset of their venture to follow the rules of the Law to the letter when the Lord admonished him.

After such a solemn warning, it is hard to imagine that Joshua, who remained alive for a number of years after the occupation of the Land, would have deliberately disregarded the stipulations of the Law that defined the way the Sabbath years were to be counted. No, we should rather expect that he would have been scrupulous to make sure that the Sabbatic/Jubilee calendar was initiated in the way commanded. If that had been done, the first Sabbath year should have been 1400/99 BC on the basis of a 1406/05 BC date for the entrance into the Land. Then the next should have been 1393/92 BC, etc.

This approach leads to the Sabbatic/Jubilee calendar shown below, and it yields a date for the first Jubilee year after Joshua led Israel into the Land that is at least consistent with Edwin Thiele and all of the chronology outlined in REDEMPTIVE PLAN.

let’s see what will happen when a Sabbatic/Jubilee Calendar as constructed above is overlaid upon the important secular dates already determined in REDEMPTIVE PLAN. The resulting Jubilee Calendar is projected both forward and backward over the entire chronology of the Bible from Abraham through the New Testament so that its possible application to all of the Biblical events discussed in REDEMPTIVE PLAN may be examined. These results are shown in the following chart.

Notice that only four conjunctions between Jubilee years and Biblical events occurred throughout Bible history, but they occurred with respect to three of the most important people in the entire Bible and one of the most important events. Such alignments cannot be expected to occur by pure chance so they need to be examined more closely.

1. The first conjunction shows that Jacob was apparently born in a Jubilee year.
   
   Jacob was the grandson of Abraham and the father of twelve sons who became the progenitors of the nation of Israel. After Jacob had finally completed his years of service with uncle Laban, he returned back to the Promised Land. During that trek, he confronted the Lord in the person of a "Man", wrestling with Him through the night (Genesis 32.22-25). During that bizarre contest, Jacob’s name (deceiver), was changed to "Israel" (one who strives with the Lord) prior to the Lord’s "blessing". Now he had already obtained his father Isaac’s physical blessing years before by living up to his name and deceiving him to believe that he was his twin brother Esau. Therefore, Jacob’s persistence with the Lord must have evoked a different kind of "blessing" from the physical one received years before. When Jacob refused to let the "Man" loose, the Lord said to him,

Therefore by this strange encounter, Jacob was redirected from his life-long pattern of deception to "one who strives with God". Thus "Israel" came into being. Accordingly, we may say that the birth of Jacob in a Jubilee year was tantamount to the birth of the nation that came to have that same name. As descendants of this man, those Hebrews were promised a Land and a Seed who would bless them and all the families of the earth (Genesis 28.13-14). Jacob (Israel) lived in that Land for most of the first 130 years of his life, but he never saw those promises fulfilled.

2. The second conjunction with a Jubilee year occurred 600 years after Jacob’s birth at the time Israel was ready to enter the Promised Land.
   
   During that six century span, Israel had completed their stay in Egypt, received the Law, wandered 40 years in the Sinai wilderness, and were finally ready to receive their inheritance in the Land. Therefore, Jubilee year 1407/06 marked a major new phase in Israel’s history. "Israel" had been born 600 years earlier and now Israel stood at the doorway into the Land about to receive the fulfillment of those original promises given to its "founder".

3. The third conjunction with a Jubilee year concerned a brand new promise given to king David through the prophet Nathan, concerning a future kingdom.

Although David’s son Solomon did indeed build the first Temple in Jerusalem, the prophet Isaiah made it clear that Solomon was not the ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy when he said,

Accordingly, the beginning of David’s kingdom in 1007/06 BC was similarly marked by a Jubilee year to signify its epochal importance with respect to God's prophetic Plan.

4. The fourth conjunction with a Jubilee year marked the birth of Messiah, occurring precisely 2000 years after the Jubilee year birth of "Israel" and exactly 1000 years after the Jubilee year beginning of Israel’s Davidic kingdom.
   
   Just as the man, "Israel" was prototypical of the future Nation to receive the fulfillment of the promises given through him, David was prototypical of a future King who was to be the fulfillment of another promise given through him. As such, the One to come would have to simultaneously fulfill the promises given to both of these men. Is it not axiomatic that His coming should also be associated with a Jubilee year?
   
   At the time of the birth of Messiah, an angel appeared to Joseph proclaiming,

Later, this One was identified in other prophecies as He who would bring light to the Gentiles, and one day set up His Kingdom in judgement.

Therefore the Jubilee Calendar unerringly marks Him as the One who was first to bless Israel, then also the Gentiles, and finally one day in the future to set up His everlasting Kingdom in judgement and justice (Matthew 25.31-46).

It is becoming transparent that this seemingly antiquated Levitical system is actually a very clever "timepiece", dictating the chronology of events that the God of the Bible thinks are important. Just as certain Levitical dates were found to have prophetic meanings, the Jubilee metric of the Levitical calendar itself possesses features relevant to God's prophetic Plan.

Overtly, the Jubilee year had the purpose of governing certain matters dealing with agriculture and the general welfare of the Hebrew people. It provided a time when new starts and new opportunities were possible with regard to their earthly inheritance: Land had to be returned to the original owners, debts had to be forgiven, and slaves had to be set free.

Covertly, the Jubilee year appears to signify God’s future desires for His people. It provides a time when new starts and new opportunities will be possible with regard to their eternal inheritance. The Land of Israel is owned by God and will be reclaimed from those who have thought to appropriate it by "squatters rights" (Leviticus 25.23), sin debts will be forgiven through the shed blood of the One who came to be the Savior of the world, and those who are sold into sin’s slavery will be set free by the power of the Holy Spirit who will be given to them (Ezekiel 36.22-28).

These characteristics make the Jubilee Calendar an extremely useful tool for the business of tying together the temporal aspects of the Old Testament with the eternal aspects of the New Testament. As such, it seems to highlight four essential features of God’s prophetic Plan involving Israel.

• First was the creation of His people, "Israel".

• Second was the identification of their inheritance, the Land.

• Third will be a future eternal Kingdom after the order of David.

• Fourth is His provision of the Savior to make it all possible.

The value of the Jubilee calendar does not necessarily end with the links it creates between the Old and New Testaments, for it can easily be extended from Biblical to modern times, to determine whether it also has prophetic implications in the 20th century. This step will be taken in the "20th Century Timeline".

COMING GLORY

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