Awesome Hands – Part 122: “The land belongs to the Lord”

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Awesome Hands – Part 122

”The land belongs to the Lord”

September 29, 2017

Previously, we looked at the commandments of the Lord pertaining to “not offering sacrifices from a strangers hand”. Obviously, the sacrifices were holy to the Lord and filled different purposes for service and redemption unto the Lord.

For this study, we are going to examine the next iteration of the word 'hand' in Hebrew and how it relates to the year of the jubilee.

The Year of Jubilee

The year of the jubilee contains a lot of details about the plan of God for Israel and also for those who are Jews inwardly. For this study, we are only going to cover a few details about the jubilee as it pertains to the Awesome Hands series.

Lev 25:8  “You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years.
Lev 25:9  Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land.
Lev 25:10  And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan.

The jubilee would indeed have been a wonderful thing for the people of Israel if they had followed it as the Lord had prescribed. I am confident that the nation, as a whole, did do so from time to time.

However, just like with all things related to humanity, the carnal mind has a way of stepping in and justifying NOT doing exactly what it is told.

The first set of verses for consideration today containing the word hand are found in Leviticus 25.

Lev 25:12  For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You may eat the produce of the field.
Lev 25:13  “In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property.
Lev 25:14  And if you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another.
Lev 25:15  You shall pay your neighbor according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of years for crops.
Lev 25:16  If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you.

An easier way to understand this is:

(ERV)  If you want to buy your neighbor's land, count the number of years since the last Jubilee, and use that number to decide the right price. You are only buying the rights for harvesting crops until the next Jubilee.

What does this mean for us today, since we are not under the old testament but are rather under a spiritual law?

The first clue we are given is that the jubilee equals freedom. Freedom is given to those that had debt and to those who may themselves be “servants” to their brothers in Israel. Also, if land had been sold, it was returned to the rightful owners.

Applying these concepts today, we must first understand what is spiritually applicable for the jubilee.

So, what does the jubilee represent spiritually?

H3104
yôbêl    yôbêl
yo-bale', yo-bale'
Apparently from H2986; the blast of a horn (from its continuous sound); specifically the signal of the silver trumpets; hence the instrument itself and the festival thus introduced: - jubile, ram’s horn, trumpet.
Total KJV occurrences: 27

H3104
yôbêl
BDB Definition:
1) ram, ram’s horn, trumpet, cornet
1a) ram (only in combination)
1a1) ram’s horn, trumpet
1b) jubilee year (marked by the blowing of cornets) (metonymy)
Part of Speech: noun masculine
A Related Word by BDB/Strong’s Number: apparently from H2986

That gives us some clues, but is there more to glean from this Hebrew word?

H2986
yâbal
yaw-bal'
A primitive root; properly to flow; causatively to bring (especially with pomp): - bring (forth), carry, lead (forth).
Total KJV occurrences: 18

H2986
yâbal
BDB Definition:
1) to bring, lead, carry, conduct, bear along
1a) (Hiphil)
1a1) to bear along, bring
1a2) to carry away, lead away
1a3) to lead, conduct
1b) (Hophal)
1b1) to be borne along
1b2) to be borne (to the grave)
1b3) to be brought, be led, be conducted
Part of Speech: verb
A Related Word by BDB/Strong’s Number: a primitive root

It seems like we are getting closer, but what else can we learn? A few of the verses for the root of jubilee are found in:

Job 21:28  For ye say, Where is the house of the prince? and where are the dwelling places of the wicked?
Job 21:29  Have ye not asked them that go by the way? and do ye not know their tokens,
Job 21:30  That the wicked is reserved to the day of destruction? they shall be brought forthH2986 to the day of wrath.
Job 21:31  Who shall declare his way to his face? and who shall repay him what he hath done?
Job 21:32  Yet shall he be broughtH2986 to the grave, and shall remain in the tomb.
Job 21:33  The clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him, and every man shall draw after him, as there are innumerable before him.
Job 21:34  How then comfort ye me in vain, seeing in your answers there remaineth falsehood?

These verses are, of course, Job complaining that the wicked prosper, and where’s the justice for that? His friends go on to tell him how horrible he is or that he must have done something horrible to incur the Lord’s wrath, and Job continually defends himself here.

Another example is found in Psalms 45:

Psa 45:13  The king's daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold.
Psa 45:14  She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework: the virgins her companions that follow her shall be brought unto thee.

Isaiah 53 is a familiar passage saying:

Isa 53:5  But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Isa 53:6  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Isa 53:7  He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is broughtH2986 as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

These few verses show us that the main association to be made here is that the root word for jubilee represents something that is being brought forth or carried forth to the subject matter contained in the verses. However, another point to be made is that a lot of these verses, within the 19 times it is used in the old testament, do not bold well for the subject of those verses.

The spiritual application to take away from this is that the jubilee is BAD for the FLESH, but great for the new man.

You might be thinking that the jubilee is something great for the Israelites, and it was. They received their freedom in some cases, got their land back, were forgiven debt, and so forth.  However, what do you think their flesh did with these wonderful blessings? They did the same thing you and I do when we are forgiven our debts. We have a clean plate on which to pile up more debt!

That isn’t to say that some people learned their lessons, but the point of the jubilee is that every 50 years freedom would have to be given back, debt would be forgiven and land would be returned. These things couldn’t/wouldn’t be granted unless they were happening, so that is what I mean by more things being piled back on the clean plate.

Here is an example, and it is the next mentioning of the word 'hand' which is found in this same chapter.

Lev 25:23  “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me.
Lev 25:24  And in all the country you possess, you shall allow a redemption of the land.
Lev 25:25  “If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, then his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold.
Lev 25:26  If a man has no one to redeem it and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it,
Lev 25:27  let him calculate the years since he sold it and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and then return to his property.
Lev 25:28  But if he does not have sufficient means to recover it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of jubilee. In the jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his property.

One of the most profound points of how the concept of the jubilee applies to us today spiritually is found in Leviticus 25:23 and 24. The “land” will “not be sold in perpetuity” because we are STRANGERS and SOJOURNERS with the Lord. Very interesting!

1Ch 29:13  Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name.
1Ch 29:14  But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.
1Ch 29:15  For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.
1Ch 29:16  O LORD our God, all this store that we have prepared to build thee an house for thine holy name cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own.
1Ch 29:17  I know also, my God, that thou triest the heart, and hast pleasure in uprightness. As for me, in the uprightness of mine heart I have willingly offered all these things: and now have I seen with joy thy people, which are present here, to offer willingly unto thee.

Heb 11:13  These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
Heb 11:14  For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.
Heb 11:15  And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.

1Pe 2:10  Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
1Pe 2:11  Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;
1Pe 2:12  Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.

Spiritually speaking, we are sold to the land into which we were born. Physically speaking, this is NO DIFFERENT. When we are born we have no choice in the matter. We can’t choose our parents, our color, our gender, our genetics, the country in which we are born, etc. Why then do we think there is a choice to OBEY the MASTER of our flesh and the law that is placed in it?

That is why we should rejoice! The “land” will not be sold forever, and there is a jubilee coming to all of mankind.

The main thrust of these verses is to give us a way to know that redemption, hope and reconciliation are coming. The Lord has instituted methods for the children of Israel to be returned to what He alone has appointed to be their share of His nation and His kingdom.

Another point to be made is that when our brother who has become poor comes to us, we help them out of their situation by purchasing their land. Another way of thinking about this is that the land is not to be sold to foreigners. It is to always remain with Israel.

As a result, we too, can partake of the fruit of that land until our brother becomes able to redeem the land. What we really are talking about is benefitting from the fruit that the land can produce.

Deu 1:25  And they took of the fruit of the land in their hands, and brought it down unto us, and brought us word again, and said, It is a good land which the LORD our God doth give us.

Mic 7:13  Notwithstanding the land shall be desolate because of them that dwell therein, for the fruit of their doings.

What we do with our “land” and “the fruit of our doings” is directly connected. When we know what the land represents, and can connect the land to selling or gaining land, then we can know how it is that “the fruit of our doings” are either going to be positive or negative. Our desire is for the old man to decrease and the land he owns, versus the new man increasing and taking back the land the Lord has preordained WILL BE HIS and for HIS CHILDREN.

Deu 1:8  Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them.

Deu 20:16  But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:

Deu 12:1  These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the LORD God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth.
Deu 12:2  Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree:
Deu 12:3  And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.
Deu 12:4  Ye shall not do so unto the LORD your God.
Deu 12:5  But unto the place which the LORD your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come:

The jubilee is truly a time for us to take joy. It is the time that the Lord will redeem His people and place them in the land which they truly have been promised. For the sons of God now, we are pilgrims who await the jubilee trumpets.


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