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The First Commandment: Statues and Precepts (40)
Leviticus 25.25-28
25 “If one of your brethren becomes poor, and has sold some of his possession, and if his redeeming relative comes to redeem it, then he may redeem what his brother sold. 26 Or if the man has no one to redeem it, but he himself becomes able to redeem it, 27 then let him count the years since its sale, and restore the remainder to the man to whom he sold it, that he may return to his possession. 28 But if he is not able to have it restored to himself, then what was sold shall remain in the hand of him who bought it until the Year of Jubilee; and in the Jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his possession.”
Here is a perfect example of how the Law of God and the divine economy turn “upside-down” our thinking about the way things are or ought to be. In the American economy, property tends to improve in value, and people who buy property typically expect to turn a profit when they sell it.
In Israel the value of property was fixed by the amount of harvest a portion of land could expect to yield. When one sold his land, perhaps because he could not work it as the land deserved, he was paid the price of harvests remaining until the Year of Jubilee. The person who bought the land would then have incentive to work it, because the only hope of real gain he might have would depend on his ability to produce more from the land than the standard yield (which was itself subject to price controls).
If one who sold the land decided to buy it back, all he had to pay was the price as determined by the number of harvest remaining until the Jubilee. Thus, he would not pay more to redeem his land, but less, and the one from whom he redeemed it, if he were diligent during his tenure on the land, would end up with more than he had originally invested. At the very least, he would not receive less.
Thus greed, speculation, and indolence were all checked and controlled by devotion to God and proper stewardship of His land.
T. M. Moore
The Law of God is the soil which, fertilized by the rest of God’s Word and watered by His Spirit, brings forth the fruit of Christian life. If you’d like to understand this process better, and how to make best use of the Law in your walk with and work for the Lord, order the book, The Ground for Christian Ethics, from our online store.
Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.