Leviticus 25:1 Yahweh said to Moses on Mount Sinai, 2 “Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a Sabbath to Yahweh. 3 You shall sow your field six years, and you shall prune your vineyard six years, and gather in its fruits; 4 but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to Yahweh. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. 5 What grows of itself in your harvest you shall not reap, and you shall not gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. 6 The Sabbath of the land shall be for food for you; for yourself, for your servant, for your maid, for your hired servant, and for your stranger, who lives as a foreigner with you. 7 For your livestock also, and for the animals that are in your land, shall all its increase be for food.
Our society has sayings that reflect economic despair such as, “The rich get richer” or “You have to have money to make money.” Socialists and communists play on social and economic inequities to gain support for their totalitarian system. However, God designed a free market economic system for Israel with built-in safeguards that allowed his people to be free, preventing the concentration of wealth in the hands of an elite few. After every six years the following seventh year was a year of sabbatical rest that applied across the entire economy to three main areas of life. After seven sabbatical cycles of years, that is after forty-nine years, the fiftieth year was celebrated as a year of Jubilee.
First, the land was to be given a rest. For six years the land was farmed and the bounty of the land was saved so that in the seventh year the nation lived off of their stores of grain, oil, and other commodities. That meant that there was no plowing, planting, or harvesting. Instead as the land lay fallow, the poor were able to harvest whatever the land voluntarily produced.
Second, at the end of the sabbatical year, creditors were to cancel all debts of all Israelites.
At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel any loan they have made to a fellow Israelite. They shall not require payment from anyone among their own people, because the Lord’s time for canceling debts has been proclaimed. You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your fellow Israelite owes you. However, there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. For the Lord your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you. Deuteronomy 15:1-6
Third, if any Israelite could not support themselves, they could indenture or sell themselves to another as a servant. However, this servitude was never to be permanent. After six years of work the servant was given the option of release. This system also had the added benefit of allowing the industrious six years to learn a skill or a vocation so that after release they would have the ability to support themselves.
If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free. “But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,’ then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life. Exodus 21:2-6
By preventing both the establishment of a rich ruling class and the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few, all three of these laws, a year of rest, release from debts, and release from servitude, gave all of the people, regardless of their economic circumstances, hope for the future.