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.

major, permanent migration from Babylon back to Israel probably precludes the possibility that any large group of exiles returned within a year of Cyrus’ edict (538 BCE)⁵¹. If 538 BCE was considered a jubilee year by the redactors of Lev 25 — as most "land-reclamation" proponents seem to hold — most of the exiles would have missed it. This raises another major omission of the text: what happens if one misses a jubilee? The text does not deal with the possibility that an heir to ancestral property might not be present to regain title to his land in the year of jubilee. Does the land then become the permanent possession of the current owner? Must the heir wait for the following jubilee to repossess it? Does it immediately revert to the heir in whatever year following the jubilee that he actually does show up to claim it? The text does not specify. However, the text does imply that jubilees have been counted since Israel’s initial entry into Canaan. If this were actually the case, probably all the returning exiles would have missed a jubilee⁵². Any of the second wave (587 BCE) of deportees and their descendants who returned after 538-537 BCE would have missed the "jubilee" inaugurated by the edict of Cyrus. The larger first wave (597 BCE) of deportees and descendants would have missed two "jubilees": the one in 587-586 BCE and that in 538-537 BCE. Any non-exiled Israelite whose land "the priests" wished to repossess could easily point out that the exiles had missed the last jubilee and therefore forfeited their land.

        The missing of a jubilee is precisely the sort of issue one would expect to be dealt with by a redactor. A short gloss could quickly clarify the situation for the exiles benefit: "And if your brother Israelite should be in exile during the year of jubilee, and unable to reclaim his possession, he shall receive it back on the day that he does return to the land."

        (3) How does the exile effect the land rights of deportees? The third and most critical omission of Lev 25 — when read as a "land-reclamation" text — is that it does not deal with the theological meaning of the exile vis-à-vis the possession of the land: was the exile a divine judgment against the land-claims of the exiles?

        Certainly many non-exiled Israelites interpreted it as such. This is sufficiently clear from (the priest) Jeremiah’s vision of good and bad figs: