P136 Parash 32 Behar (On Mount) Vayikra/ Leviticus 25:1-26:2 Synopsis -- On the mountain of Sinai, G-d communicates to Moses the laws of the sabbatical year. Every seventh year, all work on the land should cease, and its produce becomes free for the taking for all, man and beast. Seven sabbatical cycles are followed by a fiftieth year -- the jubilee year, on which work on the land ceases, all indentured servants are set free, and all ancestral estates in the Holy Land that have been sold revert to their original owners. Behar also contains additional laws governing the sale of lands, and the prohibitions against fraud and usury. LEVITICUS 25 In this chapter the Israelites are directed, when come into the land of Canaan, to observe every seventh year as a sabbatical year, in which there was to be no tillage of the land, and yet there would be a sufficiency for man and beast, Lev_25:1; and every fiftieth year as a year of jubilee, in which also there was to be no tillage of the land, and every man was to return to his possession or estate, which had been sold to another any time before this, Lev_25:8; and a promise of safety and plenty in the seventh year is made to encourage the observance of it, Lev_25:18; and several laws and rules are delivered out concerning the sale of lands, the redemption of them, and their return to their original owner in the year of jubilee, Lev_25:23; and the sale of houses, and the redemption of them, and the difference between those in walled cities and those in villages, with respect thereunto, Lev_25:29; and also concerning the houses of the cities of the Levites, and the fields of the suburbs of them, Lev_25:32; to which are added some instructions about relieving decayed, persons, and lending and giving to them, without taking usury of them, Lev_25:34; and other laws concerning the release of such Israelites as had sold themselves for servants to the Israelites, in the year of jubilee, since none but Heathens were to be bondmen and bondmaids for ever, Lev_25:39; and of such who were sold to proselytes, Lev_25:47.

• published: 14 May 2014
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