I got hung up today on “the year of the Lord’s favor”, or as the Inclusive Bible puts it, “a year of favor from YHWH.” You will remember from Leviticus 25, every 50th year was “the year of the Lord.” Any land that had been sold was returned to the seller; anyone who had sold herself into slavery was freed; any debts were forgiven. Everything was reset to ZERO – the poor didn’t owe anything, and the rich had just enough.
Of course, most scholars think this rarely, if ever, happened. Probably, the priests and/or lawyers conveniently “forgot” that this was the 50th year, or they were bribed to neglect to mention it. And they were probably the only people who could count and keep records to even know that this was the 50th year.
But the real JOY of the year of Jubilee was that God would set everything right again!
It seems we really, really need God to set everything right right now! Come, Lord Jesus.
An Aging Liberal Hippy from the Left Coast 