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.

jubilee cycle by the duration of the second deportation is unnecessary, since there already exists an explanation for the jubilee cycle that is internal to the Holiness Code. The Feast of Weeks (Lev 23,15-16) is based on the same 49 + 1 numerology as the jubilee, and is a much more proximate and likely inspiration for the pattern⁴⁶. However, in their eagerness to attribute the forty-nine years of the jubilee to the duration of the second deportation, advocates of the land-reclamation hypothesis have more or less completely overlooked the similarity between the Feast of Weeks (Lev 23,15-16) and the jubilee (Lev 25,8-10)⁴⁷, despite the fact that the correlation was already recognized by Wellhausen⁴⁸ and — long before him — by the rabbis (Sifra Emor 12,8).

        The 49 + 1 pattern of both the Feast of Weeks and the jubilee has its origin in the "seven-mysticism" that is pervasive in the ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible⁴⁹. Forty-nine is seven times seven, and therefore a quintessentially numinous number. In fact, the text of the jubilee itself stresses the significance of forty-nine as the square of seven: