John Sietze Bergsma, «The Jubilee: A Post-Exilic Priestly Attempt to Reclaim Lands?», Vol. 84 (2003) 225-246

The article examines the hypothesis that the jubilee legislation of Lev 25 was a post-exilic attempt on the part of returning Judean exiles — particularly the priests — to provide legal justification for the reclamation of their former lands. This hypothesis is found to be dubious because (1) the jubilee did not serve the interests of the socio-economic classes that were exiled, and (2) Lev 25 does not show signs of having been redacted with the post-exilic situation in mind. A comparison with Ezekiel’s vision of restoration points out the differences between Lev 25 and actual priestly land legislation for the post-exilic period.

whether the repossession of lands by the returning exiles motivated the redaction. The paper concludes that there are some impediments to accepting the "land-reclamation" hypothesis: (1) the jubilee legislation in its final form did not serve the interests of returning exiles, whether priestly or lay; and (2) the text betrays few signs of having been redacted or augmented with a "land-reclamation" agenda. A comparison of Lev 25 with the vision of land allocation in Ezek 45–48 underscores the differences between the jubilee legislation and what is widely regarded as an actual exilic priestly blueprint for the redistribution of land.

I. A Brief History of Scholarship on the Subject

        The first biblical scholar to suggest that the jubilee legislation was redacted with the intent to justify the recovery of lands by the returning exiles seems to have been Gerhard Wallis in 1969. He summarizes his approach in an English abstract appended to his article "Das Jobeljahr-Gesetz, eine Novelle zum Sabbathjahr Gesetz":