I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 24-25.

I think the ideas presented with the Sabbath Year and the Year of Jubilee have real lessons for us.  The Sabbath Year solves a problem which modern farmers address by crop rotation and leaving fields fallow every so many years.  However, academia and mission organizations have adopted the idea of a sabbatical year from this concept.  The idea of the Year of Jubilee is to level the economic stratification which happens in society every so many years.  The idea being that everyone should have equal chances in life.  I do not see any way we could make the idea of the Year of Jubilee work in a non-agrarian society, but we should keep its ideal in mind.  Even in this passage there is an exemption made for property within cities.  The Year of Jubilee reminds us that we should seek ways to give those who suffer from the bad economic decisions of their parents, or even their own bad economic decisions, a chance for a fresh start.