HEBREW WORD STUDY – JUBILEE – YAVEL   יובל  Yod Vav Beth Lamed

Leviticus 25:11:  “A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather [the grapes] in it of thy vine undressed.”

When I hear the word jubilee my mind automatically goes back to a time when I was about five or six years old and we were visiting some kin folk in Missouri.  One day we all packed into our cars and I was told we were going to a Jubilee.  I don’t know if it was one church that sponsored it or several churches but we arrive at a picnic ground where there were a lot of people.  Today as I look back as best as I can remember I would say over 100 people crowded that picnic ground where there were a number of tables set up filled with pot luck food.   I remember it was a happy and joyful time with people laughing and smiling and greeting everyone like old friends.  I do recall being told a number of times by white gloved ladies that I was cute.  After the meal we all sat down in old wooden folding chairs.  There was a platform where there was also a tinny sounding piano.  One man walked up and started to sing “Jubilee, Jubilee, happy happy happy Jubilee.”  We all joined in singing and this was followed by many other Gospel songs, all happy joyful songs.   To this day whenever I see an old wooden folding chair or hear the word Jubilee I am instantly transported to that time many years ago where I felt just absolute joy around people who loved Jesus.  

I used to take a walk around the old Methodist Camp Ground in Des Plaines, Illinois.  It is now pretty well run down with most of the old dilapidated frame houses in disrepair and abandoned.  I would peered into the old tabernacle where my family and I would attend services when I was a child.  There was still sawdust on the floor and wooden benches. This was another time another place I head the song Jubilee. As I peered into that old tabernacle, now abandoned and in ruin, in my mind I saw the crowds of people, clapping their hands and again felt the joy as they sang that joyful song: “Jubilee, Jubilee, happy happy happy Jubilee.”   I would go into the old hotel which was apparently still in operation. In the meeting room was a piano and I would sit down and play a couple old songs just enjoying that old tinny sound that those pianos made when I was a child.  I wished I could have played “Jubilee” but I need the music to play something as I can’t play by ear. Yet in my mind’s eye I may have been playing some other Gospel song I knew how to play without music but what my ears heard was “Jubilee.”  

I never bothered to study the Hebrew word for Jubilee; I just thought it meant something joyful.  So you can imagine my shock when I heard from a former student the other day who asked me what the word Jubilee meant because he heard somewhere it was a call to battle.  I was really taken aback by this, not my precious word Jubilee, a word I always associated with joy and happiness, a word which brings such pleasant memories actually means a call to fight or do battle?

There are a lot of precious memories at stake in this study but I decided to research it come what may.  In Judaism the year of Jubilee was a special year kept on a fifty year cycle when farming was abandoned, Hebrew slaves set free and all debts were canceled 

There really is no Biblical requirement to observe the Jubilee year after the Northern Ten Tribes of Israel were exiled. Hence the jubilee year has not been celebrated for over 2,500 years. Many believe the next cycle for the jubilee year is around 2029 give or take a year. Although Jews have not really followed the regulations of the Jubilee year for centuries many orthodox Jews still recognize it as a festival day.  

The word Jubilee in Hebrew is yoval which is simply the word for a trumpet. Some scholars feel it derives from the word yovel which means ram as the ram’s horn or shofar which was sounded to announce the Jubilee. But that really defines the word shofar and as the Talmud teaches there are no synonyms in the Classical Hebrew there must a difference between yoval and shofar. The Septuagint expresses the word yoval as a trumpet blast of liberty.  

The English word Jubilee comes from the Latin word jubilo which means a shout of joy.  Now that is the jubilee I know and love. Unfortunately, the Hebrew word yoval has nothing to do with a shout of joy.  It simply means a trumpet.  In the Canaanite language the word meant a stream or a watercourse, sort of like the rapids.  The Akkadian used the word for a violent rain storm. That is beginning to sound more like my student’s understanding of Jubilee as a call to battle. Of course, historically a trumpet or shofar blast was usually a just call to assemble. So, what does a violent rain storm, a running rapid stream of water and a shofar blast have in common? In ancient times when a trumpet was sounded crowds would quickly gather or assemble because some important news was to be given. People would push and shove to get as close to the speaker as possible to hear what the news was. It could be joyful and there would be a violent outpouring of joy and rejoicing similar to the old camp meetings or the Jubilee celebration I so fondly remember.  It could also be a call to violent out pouring of aggression against a common enemy not unlike my student’s perception as a call to battle. 

So, what is our spiritual lesson from all this?  In more 2,500 years since the exile the Jews, they have not had any year of Jubilee.  They have lived a seemingly endless chain of Shemittah cycles. A Shemittah cycle started as soon as the Jews settled in the Holy Land where they began to count and observe seven year cycles. Every cycle would culminate in a Sabbatical year known as the Shemittah which means to release. After seven Shemittah years (49 years) the following year was the 50th year of the cycle which was the year of Jubilee.  However, for over 2, 500 years the Jews have been unable to celebrate the year of Jubilee because all twelve tribes were not gathered together since the Assyrian captivity of 740 BC.  However, Jewish belief teaches that when the Messiah comes He will arrive with the third temple which will settle in Jerusalem on Mt. Moriah and He will gather all the Jews from all twelve tribes together and restore the Sovereignty of the House of David to its former glory and power. Then this cycle of seven will once again yield to its’s ultimate, all embracing perfection of the year of Jubilee.

But for us Christians the Messiah has already come and in a spiritual sense He has achieved the ultimate and all embracing perfection of spirituality through the death and resurrection of the Messiah Jesus and hence we have entered that year of Jubilee through the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  So, we can truly sing: “Jubilee, Jubilee, happy happy happy Jubilee.”   

​

Hi there! Thank you for reading this Daily Word Study. Can I ask a favor? Share this Daily Word Study with your friends on Facebook and Twitter by clicking one of the icons below.

Thanks & Blessings, it means a lot to me!