Year of jubilee:
1. A nation's joy. On every fiftieth year of national life, as the sun went down on the great Day of Atonement, when the sins of the nation had been forgiven, and peace with God was once more assured, the sound of many trumpets ushered in the blessed year of jubilee. Then
No nation now can expect to enjoy such an institution as this; we must learn to dispense with such miraculous arrangements as that which made the year of jubilee a possible thing to Israel (Leviticus 25:20-22). It is our national wisdom to bring about, by
A nation may truly rejoice, and may feel that its jubilee is approaching, when it is attaining to:
1. Freedom from degrading poverty; the community not being constituted of a few wealthy men and a multitude of paupers, but being composed of those who earn an honourable livelihood by self-respectful industry, there being general, widespread prosperity.
2. The possession of liberty—individual and national, civil and religious; every cruel, degrading, injurious bond being broken, and all men being free to exercise their God-given faculties without hindrance or restraint.
3. Domestic well-being; purity, love, order in the household.
4. Piety; the recognition of indebtedness to God, and a full and deep understanding that we are, above all things, his servants.
5. Charity; a kind and generous regard to those who are "waxen poor and fallen into decay;" a ready hand to help the needy, and give them a new start in the race of life. Let a nation only be advancing in these elements of goodness and prosperity, and it may rejoice greatly in its inheritance, for then "God, even our own God, will bless it;" and though no trumpet sound the note of jubilee, then shall its "light break forth as the morning … and its righteousness shall go before it; and the glory of the Lord shall be its reward" (Isaiah 58:8).—C.