All Land Belongs to The Lord

Leviticus 25:18–34
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Henri Nouwen wrote a book called Sabbatical Journeys, in which he wrote about friends who were trapeze artists. They told Nouwen that there is a special relationship between the flyer and the catcher on the trapeze. This relationship is governed by important rules, such as “ … More

Sabbatical

If you obey my laws and teachings, you will live safely in the land and enjoy its abundant crops (vv. 18-19). Don’t worry about what you will eat during the seventh year when you are forbidden to plant or harvest (v. 20). I will see to it that you harvest enough in the sixth year to last for three years (v. 21). In the eighth year you will live on what you harvested in the sixth year, but in the ninth year you will eat what you harvest in the eighth year (v.22). No land may be permanently bought or sold. It all belongs to me: it isn’t your land, and you only live there for a little while (v. 23). When property is sold, the original owner must be given the first chance to buy it (v. 24). If any Israelites are forced to sell the closest relative must buy it back (v. 25). Later, if you buy it, you must pay the present owner any lose for the next Year of Celebration (vv. 26-27).

But if you don’t have the money to pay the present owner a fair price, you will have to wait until the Year of Celebration, when the property will once again become yours (v. 28). If you sell a house in a walled city, you have only one year in which to buy it back (v. 29). If you don’t buy it back before that year is up, it becomes the permanent property of the one who bought it, and it will not be returned to you in the Year of Celebration (v. 30). But a house out in a village may be bought back at any time just like a field. And it must be returned to its original owner in the Year of Celebration (v. 31). If any Levites own houses inside a walled city, they will always have the right to buy them back (v. 32). And any houses that they do not buy back will be returned to them in the Year of Celebration, because these homes are their permanent property among the people of Israel (v. 33). No pastureland owned by the Levi tribe can ever be sold (v. 34).

Application

I need to take God at His Word and trust Him when others may think that what I’m doing is foolish.

Leviticus 25:18-34 (English Standard Version)

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