Leviticus 25 Footnotes

25:4 Allowing the land to lie fallow every seventh year helped to reduce the amount of sodium in the soil due to irrigation. But it was also a way to recognize that the Lord is the ultimate owner of the land.

25:10 The Year of Jubilee, the fiftieth year, would follow the seventh Sabbatical year. Thus, when the Jubilee was celebrated the land would remain uncultivated for two consecutive years.

This verse also is inscribed on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This legislation has contributed to the Western ideal that every family has a right to own property. The Sabbath Year foreshadows the time when creation will be delivered from the bondage of corruption (Rm 8:21).

25:39-55 These laws are designed to make slavery as humane as possible. Slavery in the OT was somewhat akin to imprisonment in the modern world and served a roughly similar purpose, enabling a man who could not pay a debt to work it off directly. In some respects it was less degrading and demoralizing than the modern penitentiary; for one thing the man was not cut off from outside society as he would be in prison. Harshness characterized slavery in Egypt (Ex 1:13-14).