Leviticus 25 is well-known for the laws of Jubilee. Every 50th year, people were to have their debts cancelled, be released from slavery, and return to their lands. Discussion of these laws tends to focus on the important question of how they foster economic equity and opportunity in general. What I would like to focus on is the way these laws are intended to strengthen families in particular.

The Bible’s concern for strong families 

 The Bible puts an emphasis on strong families. Its laws encourage love from children to parents (Eph 6:1–3), from parents to children (Eph 6:4), and between husbands and wives (Eph 5:22–33). This suggests the Lord created the family to be a place of blessing to those within it and to the world outside. Indeed, modern studies have repeatedly shown the many benefits of strong families, not only for family members but for society at large.¹

Strengthening the family economically

When it came to Israelite families, the Jubilee laws were aimed at strengthening them both economically and socially. Economically, these laws helped in two ways. First, they cancelled overwhelming debt, which can harm families in particular and society in general.

Debt is a huge cause of social disruption and decay, and tends to breed many other social ills, including crime, poverty, squalor and violence…. The jubilee was an attempt to limit its otherwise relentless and endless social consequences by limiting its possible duration. The economic collapse of a family in one generation was not to condemn all future generations to the bondage of perpetual indebtedness.²

Second, these laws returned families to their own land, where they could support themselves through work. As Wright notes, “The jubilee aimed to restore social dignity and participation to families through maintaining or restoring their economic viability.”³ This was an important complement to debt cancellation, which would be of little use if the family was still unable to provide for themselves.

Strengthening the family socially

But these laws go further. By returning Israelites to their own land, they accomplished an important social goal: reuniting larger family units and thus providing the Israelites with a social support network of relatives. In Israel, “family” extended beyond the nuclear family to include cousins, uncles and aunts, and grandparents. This social unit was large enough to provide a small community of help and support.

The questions for us to ask

The Jubilee laws thus take a multi-faceted approach to strengthening families. Economically, they remove crushing debt and enable Israelites to provide for themselves through work. Socially, they provide the Israelites with a support structure—their own mini-community of relatives.

Those who follow the Lord and seek to embody his practical love to others will thus be asking themselves, “What does it mean for us to show this love to those around us? How do we encourage economic policies and laws that fight against structures perpetuating debt? How do we encourage policies and laws that allow people to maintain social dignity and provide for their needs? How can we strengthen families in our communities? How can the church serve as a support structure for its families, especially when they encounter difficulties?”

These types of questions are not easy to answer, but we must wrestle with them if we are to follow the Lord’s lead in loving others, especially by seeking the economic and social well-being of families. Consider:

The prophets speak of a day when all will be made right, a day when ‘everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree’ (Mic. 4:4a; cf. Zech. 3:10). The Year of Jubilee was to be a foretaste of that great day. All the Israelites would return to their own land, surrounded by their own families, having no debts, enjoying a year of Sabbath rest, looking forward to years of safety and prosperity in a land flowing with milk and honey, and living in soul-satisfying fellowship with their covenant Lord…In short, the Year of Jubilee looked backwards to Eden and forward to heaven.⁴

And this again leads us to ask: how might we live out the principles of Jubilee today? What does it look like to embody them in such a way that we give others a taste of Eden and a foretaste of heaven? May the Lord help us to answer such questions well.

Dr. Jay Sklar is VP of Academics and Professor of Old Testament at Covenant Theological Seminary. He adapted this article from his new commentary on Leviticus in the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament. He has also put together a website with resources for those preaching or teaching in the Pentateuch (preachandteachthebible.com).

Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash.

1.  See Linda J. Waite and Maggie Gallagher, The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially (New York: Doubleday, 2000).

2. Wright, Ethics, 208.

3. Ibid.

4. Sklar, Leviticus, 311.