Because the Bible does not record any particular in- stance of the public celebration of this festival, IMichaelis, Winer, etc., have questioned whether the law of jubilee ever came into actual operation ; while Kranold, Ilup- feld, etc., have positively denied it. The following con- siderations, however, speah for its actual observance: 1. iVll the other Mosaic festivals have been observed, and it is therefore surpassing strange to suppose that the ju- bilee wliich is so organically connected with them, and is the climax of all of them, is the only one that never was observed. 2. The law about the inalienability of landed property, which was to be the result of the jubi- lee, actually obtained among the Jews, thus showmg that this festival must have been observed. Hence it was with a view to observing the jubilee law that the right of an heiress to marry was restricted (Numb. xxxvi, 4, G, 7) ; and it was the observance of this law, forbidding the sale of land in such a manner as to pre- vent its reversion to the original owner or his heir in the year of jubilee, that made Naboth refuse to part with bis vineyard on the solicitation of king Ahab (1 Kings xxi, 1-4). 3. From Ezek. xlvi, 17, where even the icing is reminded that if he made a present of his landed property to any of his servants it could only be to the jubilee j'ear, when it must revert to him, it is ev- ident that the jubilee was observed. Allusions to the jubilee are also to be found in Neh. v, 1-19 ; Isa. v. 7, 8, 9, 10, Ixi, 1, 2; Ezek. vii, 12, 13 (Isa. xxxvii, 30 is less clear). Ewald contends that the institution is emi- nently practical in the character of its details, and that the accidental circumstance of no particular instance of its observance having been recorded in the Jewish his- tory proves nothing. Besides the passages to which reference has been made, he applies several others to the jubilee. He conceives that '-the year of visitation" mentioned in Jcr. xi, 23; xxiii, 12; xlviii, 44, denotes the punishment of those who, in the jubilee, withheld by tyranny or fraud the possessions or the liberty of the poor. From Jer. xxxii, 6-12, he infers that the law was restored to operation in the reign of Josiah (.4 Iterthiimer, p. 424, aiote 1). It is likely, however, that in the gen- eral declension of religious observances under the later monarchs of Judah this institution yielded to the ava- rice and worldUness of landed proprietors, especially as mortgaged property and servants would thereby be re- leased (see Jer. xxxiv, 8-11 ; comp. Neh. v). Indeed, it is intimated that the Babylonian captivity should be of such a duration as to compensate for the years (sab- batical and jubilee together) of which Jehovah had thus been defrauded (2 Chron. xxxvi, 21). 4. The general observance of the jubilee is attested by the unanimous voice of Jewish tradition. This unanimity of opinion, however, only extends to the observance of the jubilee prior to the IJaby Ionian captivity, for many of the later Rabbins affirm tliat it was not kept after the captivity. But in the Seder Olam (cap. xxx), the author of which lived shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem, we are positively assured that it was observed. Josephus, too (Ant. iii, 12, 3), speaks of it as being permanently ob- served. This its, moreover, confirmed by Diodorus Sic- ulus (lib. xl), who tells us that the Jews cannot dispose of their own patrimony {ISiovQ icXi'/poi'e ttwXhj'), hb well as bv the fact that we have distinct records of the
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law respecting the redemption of houses in cities with- out walls, which forms an integral part of the jubilee law, being strictly observed to a very late period (iira- cliin, 31 h\ Bcibu Kama, 8-2 h).
V. Ori'/in, Uesif/n, and Importance of the Jubilee.— The foundation of the law of jubilee appears to be so es- sentially connected with the children of Israel that it seems strange that Michaelis should have confidently affirmed its Egj-ptian origin, while yet he acknowledges tliat lie can ])roduce no specific evidence on the subject (.J/o.s-. Law, art. 73). The only well-proved instance of anything Uke it in other nations appears to be that of the Dalmatians, mentioned by Strabo, lib. vii (p. 315, edit. Casaubon). He says that they redistributed their land every eight years.' Ewald, following the state- ment of Plutarch, refers to the institution of Lycurgus ; but Mr. Grote has given another view of the matter {History of Greece, ii, 530).
The object of this institution was that those of the people of God who, through poverty or other adverse circumstances, had forfeited their personal liberty or property to their fellow -citizens, should have their debts forgiven by their co-religionists everj' half centu- ry, on the great day of atonement, and be restored to their families and inheritance as freely and fuUy as God on that very day forgave the debts of his people and re- stored them to perfect fellowship with himself, so that the whole community, having forgiven each other and being forgiven of God, might return to the original or- der ^^■hich had been disturbed in the lapse of time, and, being freed from the bondage of one another, might im- reservedly be the servants of him who is their redeemer. The aim of the jubilee, therefore, is to presen-e unim- paired tlie essential character of the theocracy, to the end that there be no poor among the people of God (Deut. XV, 4). Hence God, who redeemed Israel from the bondage of Egypt to be his peculiar people, and al- lotted to them the promised land, will not suffer any one to usurp his tiila as Lord over those whom he owns as his own. It is the idea of grace for all the suffering cliildren of man, bringing freedom to the captive and rest to the weary as well as to the earth, which made the year of jubilee the s\'mbol of the Messianic year of grace (Isa. bii, 2), when all the conflicts in the universe should be restored to their original harmony, and when not only we, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, but the whole creation, which groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now, may be restored into the glori- ous liberty of the sons of God (comp. Isa. Ixi, 1-3 , Luke iv, 21; Kom. viii, 18-23: Heb. iv, 9).