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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.
This Law of the Jubilee originates from the later exilic times and should open to the people returning from the exile the possibility of regaining in the homeland the rights of land-owning, which probably had been lost during the years of their absence2.
Wallis also argues that the interval of forty-nine years "means" either the time between the first deportation (597 BCE) and Second Isaiah (548 BCE) or between the second deportation (587 BCE) and the edict of Cyrus (538 BCE).
Wallis’s suggestion was taken up by several important scholars of the jubilee legislation and related texts, such as Innocenzo Cardellini (1981)3, Baruch Levine (1983)4, and Sharon Ringe (1985):
The new compilation [of the Holiness Code] would resolve a major problem accompanying the people’s return from the exile, namely, the allocation and subsequent management of the land5.
Interpretations along similar lines were offered by Marvin Chaney (1991)6, Jeffrey Fager (1993)7, Norman C. Habel (1995)8, and most notably, Norman K. Gottwald:
The jubilee programme can thus be viewed as the political and economic ploy of the Aaronid priests to achieve leadership in restored Judah by dispensing benefits to a wide swath of the popu-lace, presumably with the civil and military support from the Persians9.
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