The Year of Jubilee… 49 or 50?
To most Believers, the subject of the year of Jubilee holds very little interest. However, to those of us who have moved past the elementary principles of salvation (see Hebrews 6:1–2), into the meat of His word, subjects of interest include the detail of Covenant Law. The subject of the years of Jubilee certainly falls into this category.
Within such circles, the discussion revolves around the question of the number of years within a Jubilee cycle. Some believe the count to be 49 years. Others believe it to be a 50-year duration of time. The source for such ambiguity is found in Leviticus 25, one of the 36 chapters of your Bible that hold the words written within The Book of The Covenant, aka, The Book of The Law.
“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. 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. 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. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it, you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You may eat the produce of the field.” Leviticus 25:8–12
Then there is this text later in the chapter.
“And if you say, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year when its crop arrives.” Leviticus 25:20–22
So, upon reading these two texts, how could anyone believe the Jubilee count is anything other than 50 years in length, Right? Well, just as Solomon wrote in his wisdom:
“He who answers a matter before he hears it, It is folly and shame to him.” Proverbs 18:13
So too, one would be a fool to not consider the other side of the coin.
Enter The Book of Jubilees. Most Believers have never even heard of such a book, let alone have the Bearens to consider its contents.
Now, to my knowledge, there are no direct instructions in the Book of Jubilees on how to count the year of Jubilee. However, there are examples of periods that use the years of a 49-year Jubilee count to total the number of years that a person lived.
“And all the days of the life of Sarah were one hundred and twenty-seven years, that is, two jubilees and four weeks and one year: these are the days of the years of the life of Sarah.” Jubilees 19:7
And
“And Noah slept with his fathers, and was buried on Mount Lubar in the land of Ararat. Nine hundred and fifty years he completed in his life, nineteen jubilees and two weeks and five years.” Jubilees 10:15–16
And
“And Yisrael lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years, and all the days which he lived were three jubilees, one hundred and forty-seven years, and he died in the fourth year of the fifth week of the forty-fifth jubilee.” Jubilees 45:13
So from these examples, you can see and deduce a more exact time called one single Jubilee to be exactly 49 years, which tells a very different story from that of The Bible text in Leviticus 25.
So what gives?
Well, before I lend my conclusion to answering that very question, allow me to introduce a word to you that needs some explanation. That word is Pseudepigrapha. Pronounced Sue-defi-graph-ia, the word is a single compound word constructed from the meanings of two words.
Psuedeph- which means a false imitation.
Grapha — which means writing or authorship.
Now before you conclude that I am making the case that the Book of Jubilees is a psuedephigraphian work of fiction, please know, that is not what I am saying at all. Fact is… Many books of the Bible fall into this category.
A careful study of the authorship of the books of the Bible lends us the knowledge that certain books of the Holy Scripture were not penned until generations later, after the fact. If this statement shocks you, I completely understand. It wasn’t until I studied the topic in detail and considered critically the nuts and bolts of how scripture arrived at us that I now have a great peace about the matter.
You see, Scripture is YHWH breathed via the inspiration of YHWH’s direction. YHWH is the literal author of The Bible. Not all the Books of the Bible are shorthanded accounts of the events as they occurred. Again, if that shocks you, then you simply haven’t thought it through.
The Book of Jubilees is no different. The Book of Jubilees has been called a second-century BC work of psuedegraphian nature. Most who label Jubilees in such light, really have no idea what they are saying, failing to realize just about all Books of The Bible fall into the same category.
The question then becomes, was the Book of Jubilees YHWH breathed and inspired accordingly? Or was it a man-made interpretation apart from the inspiration of YHWH?
I have read and listened to all that I can get my hands on concerning this topic. Every time, whenever someone makes the case against The Book of Jubilees a large amount of historical supposition raises its ugly head, and such conjecture is void of context.
Likewise, whenever someone makes a case in support of the Book of Jubilees, it usually, without fail rises to the level of supremacy above that of scripture, also void of historical context outside of the work itself. In other words, those who lift Jubilees as scripture itself, never consider that one of the proofs any given text is scripture is based upon other historical, archaeological, and linguistic confirmations accordingly. In other words, there has to be other pieces of evidence that affirm and vet the work as YHWH inspired… And it has to certainly match the scripture itself.
The sin of the matter is that those who lift Jubilees as being scripture hold scripture to the standard of The Book of Jubilees. In other words, whenever a controversy arises between Jubilees and Scripture… And there are tons of them, Jubilee’s proponents always without exception make the standard, Jubilees, rather than scripture itself.
Now, please know… I am the first one to tell you that The Bible as we know it has plenty of tranSLAYtional errors in it. The Enemy has made The Bible a literal work of deception. However, the scriptures are allowed to come through upon a careful study of the text, if you have eyes to see and ears to hear. In other words, there are avenues that now avail themselves to us, through YHWH’s divine proclivity, such as concordances and lexicons to be able to catch enough mistranSLAYtions to allow the truth to shine through.
The glaring fact about The Book of Jubilees is, that there is no such material that one can check the text of Jubilees against, other than the scripture itself. This instantly raises my eyebrows in a great amount of doubt. The above comparison is a classic example… And again, there are many others, which aid in answering the question, what gives?
So, now, allow me to lend my conclusions on the matter of whether or not Jubilees is a 49 or 50-year count, which will answer the authenticity of The Book of Jubilees itself.
The principle of the weekly Sabbath must fully be understood. 12 times in the five books of Moses, the Sabbath command is found to be a two-part command.
Part One — Work six days.
Part Two — Rest the seventh day after the six working days.
In other words, you can’t have a weekly Sabbath void of the six working days preceding the Sabbath rest.
One such example hails from a little earlier in Leviticus chapter 25 as the chapter opens. The example is in years of days, not just days itself. Six plus one making a week of years.
“YHWH spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to YHWH. FOR SIX YEARS you shall sow your field, and FOR SIX YEARS you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, but in the seventh year, there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to YHWH. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired worker and the sojourner who lives with you, and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: all its yield shall be for food.” Leviticus 25:1–7
The keywords in the above text are “FOR SIX YEARS”. Please note the text does not say “For five or six years”. Now with this in mind, allow an explanation concerning the last years of a Jubilee count, into the beginning years of a new Jubilee count. Years 48, 49, and 50, into the new week of years, 1 through 7. Let’s re-read the text.
“And if you say, ‘What shall we eat in the SEVENTH (7th) year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ I will command my blessing on you in the SIXTH (6th) year so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. When you sow in the EIGHTH (8th) year, you will be eating some of the old crop; you shall eat the old until the NINTH (9th) year when its crop arrives.” Leviticus 25:20–22.
Now, it must be noted, that the 24-hour day and the 12-month year are typologies of each other. The calendar day begins at dawn. The calendar year also begins at dawn. The dawn of the year is the moment when light overcomes darkness in length by one minute. Science will mistakenly tell you this moment in the year occurs at the Spring Equinox. Science also fails to consider the morning and evening twilight as a part of the daylight equation, but YHWH called light (any portion of light) day. Thus factoring the twilight periods into the daylight equation, equal light and darkness begins on February 20th, thus February 21st each year is the true beginning of the day solar day.
This means the calendar night follows the day and concerning a year, the calendar winter follows the calendar year. Got it? Good, now let me muddy the waters a bit.
The agrarian order in nature does not follow the order of the calendar in the heavens. Before there can be reaping, there has to be sowing. Thus Sowing, which is started in the fall, basically in the middle of the calendar year. Sowing then reaping. Reaping marks the year. Sowing is not tied to the year in question. Thus the statement, “That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap…” is referring to the sowing of the year before, in the 49th year, and the reaping of the Jubilee year in the Spring and Summer.
Now concerning the last week leading up to the year of Jubilee, the following key is needed.
The 6th year = Year 48 — Reap in the Spring and summer. No sowing in the fall.
The 7th year = Year 49 — No Reaping in the Spring and Summer. No Sowing in the fall.
The 8th year = The 50th year of Jubilee. No Reaping in the Spring and Summer, for nothing was sown the fall before. However, in the fall following the year of Jubilee, there is a brand new crop sown, tied to the first year in the new count.
The 9th year = Year 1 of the new count. The year after the year of Jubilee. Reaping in the Spring and Summer and of course sowing the the fall of that year.
Thus the years of the last week into the first week would be as follows:
The harvest years would be 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, and 48 (six in total).
The Sabbath year, 49 (year 7) is a non-harvest year.
The year of Jubilee, 50 (year 8) is a non-harvest year.
The new Harvest Week would be years 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6… And year 1 is the 9th year of the old count. Then the yearly Sabbath in the seventh year and so on the count goes.
When you lay out this count covering several Jubilee cycles, what you will find is that a single Jubilee has 50 years. Two Jubilees have 100 years. Three has 150 years and so on. The Jubilee count is 50 years.
So, how do the Book of Jubilee proponents count these years of Jubilee? Glad you ask… Allow me to lay it out for you.
The 6th year = Year 48. Reaping in the Spring and Summer. No sowing in the fall of that year.
The 7th year = Year 49. No reaping in the Spring and Summer, for nothing was sown the fall before. No sowing in the fall following that Sabbath year.
The 8th year = The 50th year of Jubilee. IT IS ALSO THE FIRST YEAR OF THE NEW COUNT. No reaping for nothing was sown the fall before. However, there is a brand new crop sown in the fall following this year of Jubilee.
The 9th year = The year after the year of Jubilee is the second year of the new count.
Thus the years of the last week of years into the first week would be as follows:
The harvest years would be 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, and 48 (six in total).
The Sabbath year, 49 (year 7) is a non-harvest year.
The year of Jubilee, 50 (year 8) is a non-harvest year.
The new Harvest Week would be years 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6… Then the yearly Sabbath in the seventh year and so on the count goes.
Thus their count looks like this:
Harvest years of 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48
Sabbath year of 49
Jubilee year of 50/1
Harvest years of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Sabbath year of 7.
Question, do you see any problems with the above count? if not, let me spell it out for you…
There are only five working (harvest) years in the first week of years. Years two, three, four, five and six… Five years, not six before the yearly Sabbath year.
The non-inspired second-century BC authors of The Book of Jubilees were not directed by YHWH and The Enemy of YHWH knew it and revealed it to Believers who might otherwise know the truth concerning this detail of Covenant Law. As I have said many times before… Deception runs deep.
May YHWH bless each one of you in your studies.
Joey Thompson
joeythompson777@aol.com
PrayAndFastForOurNation.com