Gary North
Leviticus is the third book in the Pentateuch. It focuses on laws: Mosaic Israel’s seed laws, land laws, priestly laws, and also universal laws. This volume deals with Part 5 of Leviticus: inheritance.
Chapter 23 is on the sabbatical year. One year in seven the Israelites were forbidden to plant their fields. This was also a year of debt forgiveness for zero-interest charitable loans. These were seed laws. They applied to Israel, based on Israel’s conquest of the land under Joshua.
Chapter 24 is on the jubilee land laws. In year 49, the heirs of the original conquest generation were to be given their share of the family rural land. The judicial basis of the jubilee laws was the military conquest of the land under Joshua. It never applied to Jews living outside the land.
Chapter 25 deals with economic oppression. It was illegal to use the state to oppress people economically.
Chapter 26 is on the food miracles: the triple crop in year 48.
Chapter 27, is on the right of redemption. A man who had sold his land until the jubilee year could buy it back on a pro-rated basis. So could his nearest of kin.
Chapter 28 deals with poverty and usury. It was illegal to lend at interest to a poor brother in the faith for a loan to offset an unexpected disaster. This law did not apply to commercial loans, which were governed by the jubilee year law, not the sabbatical year law.
Chapter 29 is on the role of adoption in liberating men from bondage.
Chapter 30 is on permanent slavery for the children of foreigners, and adoption as a way of deliverance.
Chapter 31 deals with the redemption of a Hebrew who had been sold into slavery to pay commercial debts. The kinsman-redeemer could make a pro-rated payment.
Chapter 32 is on nature as an agency of God’s sanctions.
Chapter 33 is on the limits to economic growth.
Chapter 34 is on God’s escalating wrath in history.
Chapter 35 is on a special payment to enter the priestly tribe, the Levites.
Chapter 36 is on the redemption-price system for animals.
Chapter 37 is on tithing on domestic work animals.
Click here to view and download Boundaries and Dominion, vol. 3.
(Originally published here: https://www.garynorth.com/public/9236.cfm)
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