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.

have recourse to such a hypothesis⁴¹. Subsequent commentators such as Porter, Wenham, Gerstenberger, Hartley, and Milgrom have felt similarly uncompelled⁴².

        The "land-reclamation" perspective does not have a particular heuristic value, such that upon accepting it, details of the text that were obscure suddenly become meaningful. Rather, the opposite is the case. If the final redaction was a post-exilic power-play for the repossession of real estate, then the extensive instructions regarding the alleviation of debt-slavery in vv. 23-55 — most of the textual unit — become irrelevant to the intent of the final redaction, and thus a distraction from — rather than an indication of — the central thrust of the text.

1. The Forty-nine Years

        One aspect of the text that the "land-reclamation" hypothesis claims to explain is the forty-nine-year duration of the jubilee cycle. Frequently it is asserted that the period between jubilees was somehow inspired by the forty-nine years between the second deportation (587 BCE) and the edict of Cyrus (538 BCE). In other words, the returning priests established the jubilee period at forty-nine years in order to justify, upon their return in 538 BCE, the restoration of land ownership to the situation in 587 BCE. However, this assertion is both implausible and unnecessary, for the following reasons:

        (1) According to both the deuteronomistic historian (2 Kgs 24,14-17; 25,11) and the book of Jeremiah (Jer 52,28-30), a much larger group of exiles was deported in 597 BCE than in 587 BCE⁴³. If the