Leviticus 25: Jubilee

Every seventh year, Israel’s land was to be allowed to rest. After seven of those cycles, they were to let it rest again. During this fiftieth year, all sorts of things were to be returned, started over, begun again—we might call it a “clean slate.” The concept is truly amazing, and the plan would have been productive. But they didn’t follow it through. When the Lord later announced that the Babylonian captivity would last for seventy years, it was because the seventh year rest had not been observed seventy times! That’s 490 years—including nine Jubilees! What a pity when God’s plan is ignored (2 Chronicles 36:20-21).