Torah Portion: Leviticus 25-26:2

Behar (‘On the mount’)

This parashah is about Sabbath years, the year of Jubilee and how people who find themselves in financial trouble can hope for redemption. Having read it through several times, I think God gave the people of Israel a thoughtful, caring property/life management system that leaves our British welfare services standing on the starting blocks. But God was giving so much more…

Provision of Hope

At the beginning of Genesis and thereafter through Scripture, we are confronted by the stark reality of paradise lost, and the terrible consequences that resulted from this for fallen, sinful man. The words of the preacher in Ecclesiastes 1:2-3 paint a depressing picture of this state of affairs, which continues to this day:

Pointless! Pointless! – says Kohelet [the preacher] – Utterly meaningless! Nothing matters! What does a person gain from all his labour at which he toils under the sun?

But, on the contrary, this parashah in Leviticus 25 is permeated with hope. It was given to the people of Israel in advance of them entering the Promised Land - the land flowing with milk and honey; a foreshadow of paradise regained. Every seventh year was to be a Sabbath (a whole year’s holiday), a reprieve from the Genesis 3:17 curse on the ground requiring man’s continual toil to make a living in order to eat.

In Leviticus 25:18 God said “…keep my regulations and act accordingly. If you do, you will live securely in the land. The land will yield its produce, you will eat until you have enough, and you will live there securely.”

Even if people messed up by disobeying God, there were provisions made in this parashah to help them redeem what had been lost. And if some fell through that safety net, there was the Jubilee: every fiftieth year, when the shofar was sounded (once or maybe twice in a lifetime), “you will return everyone to the land he owns, and everyone is to return to his family”, for another Sabbath year (vv10-13).

Our Redemption

Jeremiah (32:6-27) saw a bigger picture in this Levitical process of redemption. He acted out a parable, upon God’s instruction, redeeming family land for a cousin at a time when all hope was apparently lost for Judah.

Why waste money buying back your family property when the country was about to be destroyed? By this simple action God showed Judah that He hadn’t finished with them. He would again redeem them and bring them back to their Promised Land.

Isaiah also took up this picture of redemption; moreover, by using the word ‘everlasting’ he spoke of the Kingdom of God yet to come:

Those ransomed by Adonai will return and come with singing to Tziyon; on their heads will be everlasting joy. (Isa 51:11)

The Apostle Paul saw this picture of redemption as the very action that our Lord Yeshua carried out for all who trust in Him:

By God’s grace, without earning it, all are granted the status of being considered righteous before him, through the act redeeming us from our enslavement to sin that was accomplished by the Messiah Yeshua. (Rom 3:24)

Paul also, referencing the shofar, alludes to a final Jubilee to which we believers look forward:

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven…with God’s shofar; those who died united with the Messiah will be the first to rise; then we who are left still alive will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we will always be with the Lord. (1 Thess 4:16)

Having received the promise of my redemption, I am waiting with anticipation for that great Jubilee when we will enter into God’s Promised Land, Eden restored and his eternal Sabbath! 

Author: John Quinlan