(All Bible quotes are from The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, copyright 1984 by Thomas Nelson Publishers Inc., Nashville TN. I leave the verse numbers out because they get in the way.)
And the Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: "Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are--northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give you and your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered. Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you." Then Abram moved his tent, and went and dwelt by the terebinth trees of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and built an altar there to the LORD.
Then He said to [Abram], "I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it." And he said, "LORD GOD, how shall I know that I will inherit it?" So He said to him, "Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon." Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds in two. And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. Then He said to Abram: "Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there was a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: "To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates--the Kenites, the Kenezzites, and the Kadmonites; the Hittites, the Perizzites, and the Rephaim; the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites."
"As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you; and kings shall come from you. And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their GOD ."
Then the LORD appeared to [Isaac], and said: "Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and bless you; for to you and your descendants I give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father. And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws." So Isaac dwelt in Gerar.
Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of GOD were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the LORD stood above it and said: "I am the LORD GOD of Abraham your father and the GOD of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you."
Sarah lived one hundred and twenty-seven years; these were the years of the life of Sarah. So Sarah died in Kirjath Arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. Then Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spoke to the sons of Heth, saying, "I am a foreigner and a sojourner among you. Give me property for a burial place among you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight." And the sons of Heth answered Abraham, saying to him, "Hear us, my lord: You are a mighty prince among us; bury your dead in the choicest of our burial places. None of us will withhold from you his burial place, that you may bury your dead." Then Abraham stood up and bowed himself to the people of the land, the sons of Heth. And he spoke with them, saying, "If it is your wish that I bury my dead out of my sight, hear me, and meet with Ephron the son of Zohar for me, that he may give me the cave of Machpelah which he has, which is at the end of his field. Let him give it to me at the full price, as property for a burial place among you." Now Ephron dwelt among the sons of Heth; and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the presence of the sons of Heth, all who entered at the gate of his city, saying, "No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field and the cave that is in it; I give it to you in the presence of the sons of my people. I give it to you. Bury your dead!" Then Abraham bowed himself down before the people of the land; and he spoke to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, saying, "If you will give it, please hear me. I will give you money for the field; take it from me and I will bury my dead there." And Ephron answered Abraham, saying to him, "My lord, listen to me; the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver. What is that between you and me? So bury your dead." And Abraham listened to Ephron; and Abraham weighed out the silver for Ephron which he had named in the hearing of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, currency of the merchants. So the field of Ephron which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field and the cave which was in it, and all the trees that were in the field, which were within all the surrounding borders, were deeded to Abraham as a possession in the presence of the sons of Heth, before all who went in at the gate of his city. And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah, before Mamre (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan. So the field and the cave that is in it were deeded to Abraham by the sons of Heth as property for a burial place.
Then [Jacob, renamed Israel] charged [his twelve sons] and said to them: I am to be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite as a possession for a burial place. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife, there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife, and there I buried Leah. The field and the cave that is there were purchased from the sons of Heth." And when Jacob had finished commanding his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed and breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.
Then the angel of the LORDLORD commanded Gad [David's seer] to say to David that David should go and erect an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. So David went up at the word of Gad, which he had spoken in the name of the LORD. Now Ornan turned and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves, but Ornan continued threshing wheat. Then David came to Ornan, and Ornan looked and saw David. And he went out from the threshing floor, and bowed down to David with his face to the ground. Then David said to Ornan, "Grant me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build an altar on it to the LORD. You shall grant it to me at the full price, that the plague may be withdrawn from the people." And Ornan said to David, "Take it to yourself, and let my lord the king do what is good in his eyes. Look, I also give you the oxen for burnt offerings, the threshing implements for wood, and the wheat for the grain offering; I give it all." Then King David said to Ornan, "No, but I will surely buy it for the full price, for I will not take what is yours for the LORD, nor offer burnt offerings with that which costs me nothing." So David gave Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place. And David built there an altar to the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called on the LORD; and He answered him from heaven by fire on the altar of burnt offerings. Then the LORD commanded the angel, and he returned his sword to its sheath.
From: Allegro, John M., The Treasure of the Copper Scroll, Doubleday, Garden City, NY 1960 pp 56-57. All parenthetical notes are Allegro's
It was not until six months after the opening and the first decipherment of the copper scroll that news of its general contents was released from Jerusalem to the general public. The initial reaction of most people was to dismiss the scroll as a fairy tale, and this, indeed, was the purport of the first press announcement made from Jerusalem.
Tales of buried treasure are to be found in any folklore, and Jewish literature has them in full measure. There they largely concern the fabulous wealth of King Solomon and the Temple he built. The Bible dwells lovingly on the splendour of this building, lavishly equipped in all respects, and the pride of its chief architect (I Ki 6). Its double doorway, some fifteen feet wide, was inlaid with gold, as were the walls, panelled with cedar and engraved with palm trees, open flowers, chains and cherubim. Around the main hall were placed items of sacred furniture: the golden candlesticks, the table for the shewbread, and a small cedarwood altar overlaid in gold leaf. In the innermost sanctum, the Holy of Holies, stood the great olivewood cherubim, fifteen feet high and sheathed in gold, guarding the Temple's most sacred possession, the Ark of the Covenant. This was a wooden box, said to contain the two stone tablets engraved with the Ten Commandments. The sacred utensils included shovels and fleshhooks, tongs, cups, snuffers, basins, spoons, and firepans, most of which had their equivalents in the later Temple in existence at the time of our scroll (cf. Item 12).
Solomon's Temple was destroyed by the Assyrian armies of Nebuchadnezzar in the sixth century B.C., and the disposal of its wealth forms the basis of many a legend, handed down from generation to generation. The Second Book of Maccabees, for example, makes Jeremiah the chief custodian of the treasure after the fall of Jerusalem. Following a divine warning, the prophet "commanded the Tabernacle and the Ark to accompany him" and went to Mount Nebo on the eastern side of the Dead Sea. There he found a cave in which he placed the Tabernacle, the Ark, and the incense altar , and then sealed its entrance. Even the prophet's followers did not know its whereabouts, but he promised that it would be revealed when "God shall gather His people together again, and receive them unto His mercy" (2: 4-8). Another version elaborates the story still further: only Aaron would bring forth the Ark, and only Moses would be allowed to touch the stone tablets inside. The location of the cave is here specified as "between the two mountains on which Moses and Aaron lay buried" (Torrey, JBL Monogr. I, 36).
We can only speculate on what peculiar iconoclasm causes Allegro to refer to the Babylonian armies which destroyed Jerusalem as "Assyrian," which is a different empire. Back to text.
(Jeremiah, keep in mind, was the prophet at the time of the destruction of the first Temple by Nebuchadnezzar's armies, around 586 BC. There followed a 70 year long captivity in Babylon which ended when the city was taken by the Medeo-Persian armies in 539 BC and the Persian king, Cyrus, issued an edict allowing the Jews to return and rebuild their Temple. The rebuilding of the Temple by Nehemiah, mentioned here, was in 515 BC.)It is also found in the records that the prophet Jeremiah ordered those who were carried away to take some of the fire, as has been described, and that after giving them the Law, the prophet charged those who were carried away not to forget the Lord's commands, and not to be led astray in their minds when they saw gold and silver idols and their ornamentation. And with other similar exhortations he told that the Law should not pass from their hearts. It was also in the writing that the prophet, in obedience to a revelation, gave orders that the tent and the ark should accompany him, and that he went away to the mountain where Moses went up and beheld God's inheritance
. And Jeremiah came and found a cave-dwelling, and he took the tent and the ark and the incense altar into it, and he blocked up the door. And some of those who followed him came up to mark the road, and they could not find it. But when Jeremiah found it out, he blamed them and said, "The place shall be unknown until God gathers the congregation of his people together and shows his mercy. Then the Lord will show where they are, and the glory of the Lord will appear, as they were shown in the days of Moses, and when Solomon asked that the place might be made very sacred."
As we are about to celebrate the purification of the temple, on the twenty-fifth day of the month of Chislev, we think it necessary to inform you, so that you too may observe the Camping Out festival and the kindling of the fire, when Nehemiah, who built the temple and the altar, offered sacrifices. For when our forefathers were being taken to Persia, the pious priests of that day took some of the fire on the altar and hid it secretly in the hollow of an empty cistern, where they made it secure, so that the place was unknown to anyone. Many years after, when it pleased God, Nehemiah was commissioned by the king of Persia, and sent the descendants of the priests who had hidden the fire to get it. But when they reported to us that they could not find any fire but only muddy water, he ordered them to dip some out and bring it to him. And when the things to be sacrificed had been put in place, Nehemiah ordered the priests to sprinkle the water on the wood and the things that were laid on it. And when this was done and some time had passed, and the sun, which had been clouded over, shone out, a great blaze was kindled, so that they all wondered. And the priests uttered a prayer while the sacrifice was being consumed- the priests and all present, Jonathan leading and the rest responding, as Nehemiah did. And this was the prayer: "O Lord, Lord God, creator of all things, who are terrible and strong and upright and merciful, who alone are king and good, the only patron, who alone are upright and almighty and eternal, who save Israel from every evil, who chose our forefathers and sanctified them, accept this sacrifice on behalf of all your people Israel, and watch over your allotment, and make it holy. Gather together our scattered people, set at liberty those who are in slavery among the heathen, look upon those who are despised and abhorred, and let the heathen know that you are our God. Afflict our oppressors and those who are violent in their arrogance. Plant your people in your holy place, as Moses said." Then the priests struck up the hymns. And when the things that were sacrificed were consumed, Nehemiah ordered them to pour the water that was left on large stones. And when this was done, a flame was kindled, but when the light shone back from the altar, it went out. And when the thing became known, and the king of Persia was told that in the place where the priests that were deported had hidden the fire, water had appeared, and with it Nehemiah's people had burned up the things they sacrificed, the king, after investigating the matter, made the place a sacred inclosure, and the king exchanged many different gifts with his favorites. Nehemiah's people called this Nephtar, which is translated "Purification," but most people call it Nephtal.Back to text.
"Hear, O Israel: You are to cross over the Jordan today, and go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to heaven, a people great and tall, the descendants of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you heard it said, `Who can stand before the descendants of Anak?' Therefore understand today that the LORD your God is He who goes over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and bring them down before you; so you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the LORD has said to you. Do not think in your heart, after the LORD your God has cast them out before you, saying, `Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land'; but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out from before you. It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD your God drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
And He said [to Moses, before the wandering in the wilderness]: "Behold, I make a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the LORDLORD. For it is an awesome thing that I will do with you. Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I am driving out from before you the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst. But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images (for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot with their gods and make sacrifice to their gods, and one of them invites you and you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters play the harlot with their gods and make your sons play the harlot with their gods."
Then the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, the days approach when you must die; call Joshua, and present yourselves in the tabernacle of meeting, that I may inaugurate him." So Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves in the tabernacle of meeting. Now the LORD appeared at the tabernacle in a pillar of cloud, and the pillar of cloud stood above the door of the tabernacle. And the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, you will rest with your fathers; and this people will rise and play the harlot with the gods of the foreigners of the land, where they go to be among them, and they will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them. Then My anger shall be aroused against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured. And many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say in that day, `Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?' And I will surely hide My face in that day because of all the evil which they have done, in that they have turned to other gods ."
Now it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah [604 BC], that this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: "Take a scroll [1] of a book and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel, against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah even to this day. It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the adversities which I purpose to bring upon them, that everyone may turn from his evil way, that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin." Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah; and Baruch wrote on a scroll [2] of a book, at the instruction of Jeremiah, all the words of the LORD which He had spoken to him. And Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying, "I am confined, I cannot go into the house of the LORD. You go, therefore, and read from the scroll [3] which you have written at my instruction, the words of the LORD, in the hearing of the people in the LORD's house on the day of fasting. And you shall also read them in the hearing of all Judah who come from their cities. It may be that they will present their supplication before the LORD, and everyone will turn from his evil way. For great is the anger and the fury that the LORD has pronounced against this people." And Baruch the son of Neriah did according to all that Jeremiah the prophet commanded him, reading from the book the words of the LORD in the LORD's house. Now it came to pass in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, that they proclaimed a fast before the LORD to all the people in Jerusalem, and to all the people who came from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem. Then Baruch read from the book the words of Jeremiah in the house of the LORD, in the chamber of Gemariah the son of Shaphan the scribe, in the upper court at the entry of the New Gate of the LORD's house, in the hearing of all the people. When Michaiah the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, heard all the words of the LORD from the book he then went down to the king's house, into the scribe's chamber; and there all the princes were sitting- Elishama the scribe, Delaiah the son of Shemaiah, Elnathan the son of Achbor, Gemariah the son of Shaphan, Zedekiah the son of Hananiah, and all the princes. Then Michaiah declared to them all the words that he had heard when Baruch read the book in the hearing of the people. Therefore all the princes sent Jehudi the son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, to Baruch, saying, "Take in your hand the scroll [4] from which you have read in the hearing of the people, and come." So Baruch the son of Neriah took the scroll [5] in his hand and came to them. And they said to him, "Sit down now, and read it in our hearing." So Baruch read it in their hearing. Now it happened, when they had heard all the words, that they looked in fear from one to another, and said to Baruch, "We will surely tell the king of all these words." And they asked Baruch, saying, "Tell us now, how did you write all these words--at his instruction?" So Baruch answered them, "He proclaimed with his mouth all these words to me, and I wrote them with ink in the book." Then the princes said to Baruch, "Go and hide, you and Jeremiah; and let no one know where you are." And they went to the king, into the court; but they stored the scroll [6]in the chamber of Elishama the scribe, and told all the words in the hearing of the king. So the king sent Jehudi to bring the scroll [7] and he took it from Elishama the scribe's chamber. And Jehudi read it in the hearing of the king and in the hearing of all the princes who stood beside the king. Now the king was sitting in the winter house in the ninth month, with a fire burning on the hearth before him. And it happened, when Jehudi had read three or four columns, that the king cut it with the scribe's knife and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the scroll [8] was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth. Yet they were not afraid, nor did they tear their garments, the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words. Nevertheless Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah implored the king not to burn the scroll [9]; but he would not listen to them. And the king commanded Jerahmeel the king's son, Seraiah the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah the son of Abdeel, to seize Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet, but the LORD hid them. Now after the king had burned the scroll [10] with the words which Baruch had written at the instruction of Jeremiah, the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying: "Take yet another scroll [11], and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll [12] which Jehoiakim the king of Judah has burned. And you shall say to Jehoiakim king of Judah, `Thus says the LORD: "You have burned this scroll [13], saying, `Why have you written in it that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and cause man and beast to cease from here?'" Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: "He shall have no one to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat of the day and the frost of the night. I will punish him, his family, and his servants for their iniquity; and I will bring on them, on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and on the men of Judah all the doom that I have pronounced against them; but they did not heed."'" Then Jeremiah took another scroll [14] and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, who wrote on it at the instruction of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire. And besides, there were added to them many similar words.
And the LORD spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho, saying: "Command the children of Israel that they give the Levites cities to dwell in from the inheritance of their possession, and you shall also give the Levites common-land around the cities. They shall have the cities to dwell in; and their common-land shall be for their cattle, for their herds, and for all their animals. The common-land of the cities which you shall give the Levites shall extend from the wall of the city outward a thousand cubits all around. And you shall measure outside the city on the east side two thousand cubits, on the south side two thousand cubits, on the west side two thousand cubits, and on the north side two thousand cubits. The city shall be in the middle. This shall belong to them as common-land for the cities. Now among the cities which you will give to the Levites you shall appoint six cities of refuge, to which a manslayer may flee. And to these you shall add forty-two cities. So all the cities you will give to the Levites shall be forty-eight; these you shall give with their common-land. And the cities which you will give shall be from the possession of the children of Israel; from the larger tribe you shall give many, from the smaller you shall give few; each shall give some of its cities to the Levites, in proportion to the inheritance that each inherits."
Back to text.Thus to the children of Aaron the priest they gave Hebron with its common-land (a city of refuge for the slayer), Libnah with its common-land, Jattir with its common-land, Eshtemoa with its common-land, Holon with its common-land, Debir with its common-land, Ain with its common-land, Juttah with its common-and Beth Shemesh with its common-land; nine cities from those two tribes
; and from the tribe of Benjamin, Gibeon with its common-land, Geba with its common-land, Anathoth with its common-land, and Almon with its common-land; four cities. All the cities of the children of Aaron, the priests, were thirteen cities with their common-lands.
From The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Volume 3, p686, David Noel Freedman editor in chief, Doubleday 1992:
We know very little about Jeremiah's early life aside from what is mentioned in the superscription to his book (1:1). His father was very glad the day he was born (20:15), and he too was joyful earlier in life (8:18: "My joy is gone"). Jeremiah was born the son of Hilkiah, a priest at Anathoth. Anathoth was a village 2-3 miles north of Jerusalem in the old territory of Benjamin. That village is likely Ras el-Kharrubeh, a half mile or so S of the modern village of `Anata. Hilkiah could well be a descendant of Abiathar, a priest of David whom Solomon retired to Anathoth when he became king (1 Kings 2:26-27). The family possessed land (32:9) and may have been of some means.
(Ibid, p 43)
The son of Jeremiah's uncle Shallum (Jer 32:6,8,9) and the cousin whose field at Anathoth the prophet purchases. This incident, widely held to be authentic, occurred during the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem (587 B.C.E.) while Jeremiah was imprisoned. Included in that part of the book of Jeremiah known as the "Book of Consolation" (Jeremiah 30-33), the purchase of Hanamel's field expresses hope for Yahweh's restoration of Judah following the Exile: "Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be boughtBack to text.in this land" (Jer 32:15) * . The purchase of Hanamel's field occurs according to the right of redemption (Lev 25:25); so the event has been of particular interest because the detail of the text provides a glimpse into the social, economic, and legal practices of ancient Israel. It is widely held (Theophoric Personal Names in Ancient Hebrew, Fowler, J.D., 82) that Hanamel's name derives from hnn 'l, "God is gracious," though how this bears upon Jer 32:6-15 is uncertain.
Back to text.And the LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: `When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to the LORD. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in its fruit; but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the LORD. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. What grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine, for it is a year of rest for the land. And the sabbath produce of the land shall be food for you: for you and your servant, for your maidservant and your hired servant, for the stranger who sojourns with you, for your livestock and the animals that are in your land- all its produce shall be for food. And you shall count seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven time seven years, and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. <*Israel celebrated its forty-sixth anniversary in May, 1994*> It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family. That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee to you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of its own accord, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine. For it is the Jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat its produce from the field. In this Year of Jubilee, each of you shall return to his possession. And if you sell anything to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor's hand, you shall not oppress one another. According to the number of years after the Jubilee you shall buy from your neighbor, and according to the number of years of crops he shall sell to you. According to the multitude of years you shall increase its price, and according to the fewer number of years you shall diminish its price; for he sells to you according to the number of the years of the crops. Therefore you shall not oppress one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the LORD your God. So you shall observe My statutes and keep My judgments, and perform them; and you will dwell in the land in safety. Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill, and dwell there in safety. And if you say "What shall we eat in the seventh year, since we shall not sow nor gather in our produce?" Then I will command My blessing on you in the sixth year, and it will bring forth produce enough for three years. And you shall sow in the eighth year, and eat old produce until the ninth year; until its produce comes in, you shall eat of the old harvest. The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me. And in all the land of your possession you shall grant redemption of the land. [verse 25] If one of your brethren becomes poor, and has sold some of his possession, and if his kinsman-redeemer comes to redeem it, then he may redeem what his brother sold. Or if the man has no one to redeem it, but he himself becomes able to redeem it, then let him count the years since its sale, and restore the balance to the man to whom he sold it, that he may return to his possession. But if he is not able to have it restored to himself, then what was sold shall remain in the hand of him who bought it until the Year of Jubilee; and in the Jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his possession. And if a man sells a house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; within a full year he may redeem it. But if it is not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house in the walled city shall belong permanently to him who bought it, throughout his generations. It shall not be released in the Jubilee. However the houses of villages which have no wall around them shall be counted as the fields of the country. They may be redeemed, and they shall be released in the Jubilee. Nevertheless the cities of the Levites, and the houses in the cities of their possession, the Levites may redeem at any time. And if a man purchases a house from the Levites, then the house that was sold in the city of his possession shall be released in the Year of Jubilee; for the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel. But the field of the common land of their cities may not be sold, for it is their perpetual possession."