JUBILEES
53J
JUBILEES
number of crops it would produce before the year of
Jubilee, and provided, also, he redeemed it before that
period. If not reclaimed then or before that period, it
was understood to be dedicated forever. The details
of these exchanges of property probably varied at dif-
ferent times. Josephus informs us that the temporary
proprietor of a piece of land made a settlement with its
owner at the year of Jubilee on the following terms:
after making a statement of the value of the crops he
had obtained from the land, and of what he had ex-
pended upon it, if his receipts exceeded the expenses,
the owner got nothing; but if the reverse was true, the
latter was expected to make good the loss (Bissell,
"Biblical Antiquities", 231).
The third enactment (contained in Leviticus, x.x\', 39-54) enjoins that all those Israelites who through poverty have sold themselves as slaves to their fellow- Israelites or to foreigners resident among them, and who, up to the time of the Jubilee year, have neither completed their six years of servitude, nor redeemed themselves, nor been redeemed by their relatives, are to be set free in the Jubilee year to return with their children to their family and to the patrimony of their fathers. Exception, of course, is made in the case of those slaves who refuse to become free at the expira- tion of the appointed six years' servitude. In this case they are allowed to become slaves forever and, in order to indicate their consent to this, they are re- quired to submit to the boring of their ears (Ex., xxi, 6). This exception, of course, is in no way in contra- diction with the Jubilee-year's enactment. It is not necessary, therefore, in order to explain this apparent contradiction, to maintain that the two legislations belong to two distinct periods, or, still less, to main- tain that the two legislations are conflicting, as some modern critics have maintained. It is important, how- ever, to remark that the legislation concerning the various enactments of the Jubilee year contained in Leviticus, is not sufficiently expanded so as to cover all possible hypotheses and cases. This want has been more or less consistently remedied by later Talmudic and rabbinical enactments and legisla- tions.
The design and importance of the Jubilee-year leg- islation, in both its social and economic aspects, has been well pointed out by Dr. Ginsburg, as follows: "The design of this institution is that those of the people of God who, through poverty or other adverse circumstances, had forfeited their personal liberty or property to their fellow-brethren, should have their debts forgiven by their co-religionists every half cen- tury, on the great day of atonement, and be restored to their families and inheritance as freely and fully as God on that very day forgave the debts of his people and restored them to perfect fellowship with himself, so that the whole community, having forgiven each other and being forgiven by God, might return to the original ortler which had been disturbed in the lapse of time, and being freed from the bondage of one an- other, might unreservedly be the servants of him who is their redeemer. The aim of the jubilee, therefore, is to preserve unimpaired the essential character of the theocracy, to the end that there be no poor among the people of God (Deut. xv, 4). Hence God, who re- deemed Israel from the bondage of Egs'pt to be his peculiar people, and allotted to them the promised land, will not suffer any one to usurp his title as Lord over those whom he owns as his own. It is the idea of grace for all the suffering children 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 sym- bol of the Messianic year of grace (mn'^ |1VTnJtJ'. Is., Ixi, 2), when all the conflicts in the universe shall 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, shall be restored into the glorious
liberty of the sons of God (comp. Is. Ixi, 1-.3; Luke, iv,
21; Rom. viii, 18-23; Heb. iv, 9).
The importance of this institution will be apparent if it is considered wliat moral and social advantages would accrue to the community from the sacred ob- servance of it. 1. It would prevent the accumulation of land on the part of a few to the detriment of the community at large. 2. It would render it impossible for any one to be born to absolute poverty, since every one had his hereditary land. 3. It would preclude those inequalities which are produced by extremes of riches and poverty, and which make one man domineer over another. 4. It would utterly do away with slavery. 5. It would afford a fresh opportunity to those who were reduced by adverse circumstances to begin again their career of industry, in the patrimony which they had temporarily forfeited. 6. It would periodically rectify the disorders which creep into the state in the course of time, preclude the division of the people into nobles and plebeians, and preserve the theocracy inviolate (C. D. Ginsburg in Kitto, "Cyclo- ptedia of Biblical Literature", s. v. "Jubilee, i'he Year of").
Kiel, Nowack, Benziger, and Bissell's works on Biblical archaeology, as well as Dillmann, Baentsch, and Bertholet'b commentaries on Leviticus; Harford-Battersby in Hast., Did. of the Bible, s.v. Sabbatical Year; LEsfcTRE in Vic. Diet, dela Bible. a.v.Jubilaire (.Annee): The Jewish Encyclopedia , s.v.
Gabriel Oussani.
Jubilees, Book OP (t4 'lu/STjXafa). — An apocryphal writing, so called from the fact that the narratives and stories contained in it are arranged throughout in a fanciful chronological system of jubilee — periods of forty-nine years each; each event is recorded as having taken place in such a week of such a month of such a Jubilee year. The author assumes an impossible solar year of 364 days (i.e. twelve months of thirty days each, and four intercalary days) to which the Jewish ecclesiastical year of thirteen months of twenty-eight days each exactly corresponds. The whole chronology, for which the author claims heavenly authority, is based upon the number seven. Thus the week had 7 days; the month 4x7=28; the year 52 x 7=364; the year week 7 years; and the Jubilee 7 x 7=49. It is also called "Little Genesis" (^ AeirxT) r^wiris), or "Lepto-Genesis", not on account of its size, for it is considerably larger than the Canonical Genesis, but owing to its minor or inferior authority as compared with the latter. It is also called " Apocalypse of Moses", "The Life of Adam", and in Ethiopic it is called "Kufale". In the "Decretum Gelasianum", concerning the canonical and apocryphal books of Scripture, we find among the apocrypha a work en- titled "Liber de filiabus Ada? Leptogenesis " (Book of the daughters of Adam Little Genesis), which is probably a combination of two titles belonging to two separate works. The book is also mentioned by Je- rome, in his Epistle "ad Fabiolam", in connexion with the name of a place called Rissa riDI (Num., xxxiii, 21), and by Epiphanius and by Ditlymus of Alexandria, which shows that it was well known both in the East and in the West.
The Book of Jubilees was originally written in He- brew, and, according to Charles (" Book of Jubilees", London, 1902), partly in verse; but it has come down to us in its complete form only in Ethiopic, and also in various fragments, Greek and Latin. The Ethiopic text was first edited by Dillmann in 1S59 (" Kufale sive Liber Jubila-orum, sethiopice ad duorum librorum manuscriptorum fidem, primum edidit Dillmann", Kiel, 1859), who in 1850-51 had already published a German version of it in Ewald's "Jahrbiicher der Biblischen WLssenschaft", vol. II, 1850, pp. 230-256; vol. Ill, 1851, pp. 1-96. The incomplete Latin version was first discovered and edited in 1861, by the late Monsignor Ceriani, prefect of the Ambrosiana, in his "Monumenta Sacra et Prof ana".
