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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.
hypothesis of a "land-reclamation" redaction of Lev 25 remains, in the words of Norman Gottwald, purely an "exercise in historical imagination"20. That does not necessarily mean it is false, only unsubstantiated. It is fair to ask, however, whether the hypothesis does indeed meet even the standards of "historical imagination".
II. Does the Jubilee Legislation Serve the Interests
of the Returning Exiles?
1. Who Benefited from the Jubilee?
A common assumption of the "land-reclamation" hypothesis is that the jubilee legislation served the interests of the returning exiles. In order to examine this assumption critically, it is necessary to ascertain (1) which socio-economic groups benefited from the jubilee, and (2) which socio-economic groups were exiled.
Although many points of interpretation of the jubilee are hotly debated, there is remarkable unanimity concerning the beneficiaries of the legislation. The two scholars who have devoted monographs to the subject in the past fifty years — North and Fager — are in agreement:
It would be more directly evident ... that the whole concern of Lev 25 is with the independent small farmer ...21.
Since the purpose of the jubilee seems to have been to preserve the economic integrity of the peasant farmer, there was no need to protect urban property from alienation22.
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