Feasts and the Jubilee

“There are six days for work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath, a day of solemn rest and a holy gathering. Don’t do any kind of work on it. It is the Lord’s Sabbath, wherever you live.

“These are the Lord’s set feasts, the holy gatherings you are to announce, each at its own time. The Lord’s Passover comes in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening.

“On the fifteenth day of the same month comes the Lord’s Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. The first day is a holy gathering, with no regular work. For seven days, bring the Lord an offering made by fire. The seventh day is a holy gathering too, with no regular work.”

On the day the sheaf was waved, they were to offer the Lord a one-year-old male lamb with nothing wrong with it, as a burnt offering. With it went a meal offering: two tenths of an ephah of fine flour, about a gallon, mixed with oil. It was an offering made by fire, a pleasant smell to the Lord. There was also a drink offering of wine, a quarter of a hin, nearly two quarts.

“Don’t eat bread, or roasted grain, or fresh grain, until that same day, when you have brought your God his offering,” the Lord said. “This is a law forever, for every generation, wherever you live.”

From the day after the Sabbath, the day they brought the sheaf for a wave offering, they were to count seven full Sabbaths. That brought them to the day after the seventh Sabbath, fifty days in all. On that day they were to bring the Lord a new meal offering.

From their homes they were to bring two loaves of bread as a wave offering, made from two tenths of an ephah of fine flour. They were to be baked with yeast, as the first of the harvest for the Lord. With the bread went seven one-year-old lambs with nothing wrong with them, one young bull and two rams. These were burnt offerings, with their meal offerings and drink offerings, a pleasant smell to the Lord. There was also to be one male goat for a sin offering, and two male lambs a year old for a sacrifice of peace offerings. The priest was to wave the two lambs with the bread in the Lord’s presence. They were holy to the Lord, and they were for the priest.

That same day was to be announced as a holy gathering, with no regular work. This too was a law forever, for every generation, wherever they lived.

“When you reap the harvest of your land,” the Lord said, “don’t harvest all the way into the corners of your field, and don’t gather up the grain that is left over. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.”

“But the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement,” the Lord said. “It is to be a holy gathering for you. Afflict yourselves, and bring the Lord an offering made by fire. Do no work of any kind that day. It is the day when atonement is made for you in the presence of the Lord your God.

“Anyone who doesn’t deny himself on that day will be cut off from his people. If anyone does any kind of work on that day, I will destroy that person from among his people. Do no work of any kind. This is a law forever, for every generation, wherever you live.

“It is to be a Sabbath for you, a day of solemn rest, and you are to deny yourselves. Your Sabbath starts at evening on the ninth day of the month, and you are to keep it from that evening to the next.”

“These are the Lord’s appointed feasts,” the Lord said. “Announce them as holy gatherings. On each one, on its own day, bring the Lord offerings made by fire: burnt offerings, meal offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings. These are on top of the Lord’s Sabbaths, and on top of your gifts, your vows and the offerings you choose to give the Lord.”

So on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, once they had gathered in the crops of the land, they were to keep the Lord’s feast for seven days. The first day was to be a day of solemn rest, and so was the eighth. On the first day they were to take fruit from majestic trees, branches of palm trees, branches of thick trees and willows from the brook, and celebrate in the presence of the Lord their God for seven days. Every year they were to keep this feast to the Lord for seven days in the seventh month, as a law forever, for every generation.

“Live in booths for seven days,” the Lord said, “in shelters made for a short time. Everyone born in Israel is to live in them, so that the generations after you will know this: when I brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, I made them live in shelters. I am the Lord your God.”

So Moses told the Israelites the Lord’s appointed feasts.

“Take fine flour,” the Lord said, “and bake twelve loaves with it, each made with two tenths of an ephah. Set them in two rows, six on a row, on the pure gold table in the Lord’s presence. Put pure frankincense on each row, as a memorial for the bread, an offering made by fire to the Lord.

“Every Sabbath day he is to set the bread out in order in the Lord’s presence, always. It is a covenant forever, for the Israelites. The bread is for Aaron and his sons, and they are to eat it in a holy place, because it is a most holy part of the Lord’s offerings made by fire. This is a law forever.”

The Israelite woman’s son blasphemed the Name, and cursed. They brought him to Moses. His mother’s name was Shelomith. She was the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.

They kept him under guard until the Lord would tell them what he wanted done.

Then the Lord spoke to Moses. “Bring the man who cursed out of the camp,” he said. “Everyone who heard him is to lay their hands on his head, and the whole community is to stone him.

“And tell the Israelites, ‘Anyone who curses his God will carry the guilt of his sin. Whoever blasphemes the Lord’s name is to be put to death. All the community must stone him. Whether he is a foreigner or born in Israel, anyone who blasphemes the Name is to be put to death.

“‘Anyone who strikes and kills another person is to be put to death. Anyone who kills an animal is to make up for it, a life for a life.

“‘If anyone injures his neighbor, what he did is to be done to him: broken bone for broken bone, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. He is to be hurt the way he hurt someone. Anyone who kills an animal is to make up for it. Anyone who kills a man is to be put to death. There is to be one law for you, the same for the foreigner and for the one born in Israel, because I am the Lord your God.’”

Moses spoke to the Israelites, and they brought the man who had cursed out of the camp and killed him with stones. The Israelites did as the Lord had commanded Moses.

“For six years, plant your fields, trim your vineyards and gather in what they grow. But the seventh year is to be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. Don’t plant your fields or trim your vineyards. Don’t reap what grows by itself, and don’t pick the grapes of the vines you haven’t trimmed. It is a year of solemn rest for the land.

“What the land grows in its Sabbath will be food for you all: for you, for your servant and your servant girl, for your hired worker, and for the foreigner who lives with you. All that it grows will be food for your livestock too, and for the animals in your land.”

“Make the fiftieth year holy, and announce freedom all through the land, for everyone who lives in it. It is to be a jubilee for you. Each of you will go back to his own property, and each of you will go back to his family.

“That fiftieth year is to be a jubilee for you. Don’t plant in it. Don’t reap what grows by itself, or pick the grapes of the untrimmed vines. It is a jubilee, and it is to be holy to you. You will eat what the fields give. In this Year of Jubilee each of you will go back to his own property.

When the Israelites sold anything to a neighbor, or bought from one, they were not to treat each other unfairly. The price was to go by the years since the Jubilee. If there were many years of crops to come, the price was to be higher. If there were only a few, it was to be lower, because the seller was selling the crops of those years. “Don’t treat each other unfairly,” the Lord said, “but fear your God, because I am the Lord your God.

“Do as my laws say and keep my rules, and you will live in the land in safety. The land will give its fruit, and you will eat all you want and live there safely.

“You may ask, ‘What are we going to eat in the seventh year, when we aren’t planting or gathering in our crops?’ In the sixth year I will send you my blessing, and that year’s harvest will be enough for all three years. In the eighth year you will plant, but you will still be eating from the old harvest you stored. You will eat from it until the ninth year, when the new crops come in.

“The land must not be sold forever, because the land is mine. You are only strangers, living with me as foreigners. Wherever you own land, if it is sold, it must be possible to buy it back.”

“If a man has no one to buy it back for him, but later does well and has enough to buy it back himself, he is to count the years since the sale and pay the buyer back for the years that are left. Then he can go back to his property. But if he can’t get it back for himself, the buyer keeps what he sold until the Year of Jubilee. Then it is released, and he goes back to his property.

“If a man sells a house in a city with walls, he may buy it back any time in the full year after it was sold. If it isn’t bought back within that year, the house in the walled city belongs forever to the one who bought it, and to his children after him. It is not released in the Jubilee. But houses in villages with no wall around them are treated like the fields of the countryside. They may be bought back, and they are released in the Jubilee.

“But the Levites may buy back the houses in their own cities at any time. A house sold in one of their cities is released in the Jubilee, because the houses in the Levites’ cities are what they own among the Israelites. And the pasture fields around their cities may not be sold, because they belong to them forever.

“If your brother becomes poor and can’t support himself among you, you are to help him. He is to live with you like a foreigner, or like someone staying with you for a time. Don’t take interest or profit from him, but fear your God, so that your brother can live among you. When you lend him money, don’t charge him interest, making him pay back more than he borrowed. And don’t sell him your food for a profit.

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.”

“They are my servants. I brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they are not to be sold as slaves. Don’t rule over him harshly, but fear your God.

“As for slaves, men and women, you may buy them from the nations that are around you. You may buy them as well from the children of the foreigners who live among you, and from their families born in your land. They will be your property. You may hand them down to your children after you, for them to own. You may keep them as slaves forever. But you Israelites are brothers. You are not to rule harshly over one another.

“A foreigner, or someone staying with you for a time, may grow rich. Your brother beside him may grow poor, and sell himself to that foreigner, or to someone from the foreigner’s family. After he is sold, he may be bought back. One of his brothers may buy him back, or his uncle, or his uncle’s son, or any close relative from his family. Or if he grows rich, he may buy himself back.

“He and the man who bought him are to count the years from the year he sold himself until the Year of Jubilee. His price is to go by the number of years, and his time with the buyer is to be counted the way a hired worker’s is. If many years are still left, the price of his freedom is to match them, and he is to pay it out of the money he was bought for. If only a few years are left until the Jubilee, he is to count them with his buyer, and pay a price for his freedom that matches his years of work.

“He is to be with his buyer like a worker hired from year to year, and the buyer is not to rule over him harshly while you look on. If he isn’t bought back in any of these ways, he is to go free in the Year of Jubilee, and his children with him. The Israelites are servants to me. They are my servants. I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”