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Jubilee Cycles
Leviticus 25 prescribes regulations firstly for Sabbatical years, and secondly for Jubilee years.
Sabbatical Years
Verses 1 to 8 say, "The LORD spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai: “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land must observe a Sabbath to the LORD. Six years you may sow your field, and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather the produce, but in the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath of complete rest - a Sabbath to the LORD. You must not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You must not gather in the after-growth of your harvest, and you must not pick the grapes of your unpruned vines; the land must have a year of complete rest. You may have the Sabbath produce of the land to eat - you, your male servant, your female servant, your hired worker, the resident foreigner who stays with you, your cattle, and the wild animals that are in your land - all its produce will be for you to eat."
Jubilee Years
Verses 8-12 say, "You must count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, and the days of the seven weeks of years will amount to 49 years. You must sound loud horn blasts - in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, on the Day of Atonement - you must sound the horn in your entire land. So you must consecrate the fiftieth year, and you must proclaim a release in the land for all its inhabitants. That year will be your Jubilee; each one of you must return to his property, and each one of you must return to his clan. That fiftieth year will be your Jubilee; you must not sow the land, harvest its after-growth, or pick the grapes of its unpruned vines. Because that year is a Jubilee, it will be holy to you - you may eat its produce from the field."
The rest of the chapter then adds detail about the cancelling of debts, the release of slaves, and the return of sold property to its original owners during the Jubilee year. So the year of Jubilee was a year of forgiveness and restoration.
In Leviticus 26, God warns the Israelites of dire consequences if they fail to keep all his laws, and that if they persisted in disobedience he would scatter the Israelites among the nations and make their land desolate. In verses 34-35 God says, "Then the land will make up for its Sabbaths all the days it lies desolate while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land will rest and make up its Sabbaths. All the days of the desolation it will have the rest it did not have on your Sabbaths when you lived on it."
In the 7th century BC, the prophet Jeremiah prophesied that the Jews would be exiled to Babylon for 70 years (Jeremiah 25:11-12 & 29:10). After this was fulfilled, 2 Chronicles 36:20-21 says of King Nebuchadnezzar, "He deported to Babylon all who escaped the sword. They served him and his sons until the Persian kingdom rose to power. This took place to fulfill the LORD’s message spoken through Jeremiah and lasted until the land experienced its sabbatical years. All the time of its desolation the land rested in order to fulfill the seventy years." So the implication is that the land had 70 years of rest to make up for a period of 490 years during which the Jews had failed to observe the sabbatical years each seventh year.
Anchor points
There is also no conclusive biblical record of the Israelites practicing the requirements of the Jubilee years, in the release of debts and slaves, and restoration of land. However, according to the Babylonian Talmud, ancient Jewish rabbis identified the 18th year of Josiah as a Jubilee year (see Josiah's reforms in 2 Kings 22-23 and 2 Chronicles 34-35), and also Ezekiel's vision in Ezekiel 40:1 as occurring at the beginning of a Jubilee year. These two Jubilees give us potential anchor points of 623 BC and 573 BC, respectively, for identifying Jubilee years moving forward. I'll come back to that later.
A Messianic Hope
The prophet Isaiah turns the concept of the Jubilee year into a messianic hope.
Isaiah 61 says:
1 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has chosen me. He has commissioned me to encourage the poor, to help the brokenhearted, to decree the release of captives, and the freeing of prisoners,
2 to announce the year when the Lord will show his favor, the day when our God will seek vengeance, to console all who mourn,
3 to strengthen those who mourn in Zion, by giving them a turban, instead of ashes, oil symbolizing joy, instead of mourning, a garment symbolizing praise, instead of discouragement. They will be called oaks of righteousness, trees planted by the Lord to reveal his splendour.
4 They will rebuild the perpetual ruins and restore the places that were desolate; they will reestablish the ruined cities, the places that have been desolate since ancient times.
5 “Foreigners will take care of your sheep; foreigners will work in your fields and vineyards.
6 You will be called, ‘the Lord’s priests, servants of our God.’ You will enjoy the wealth of nations and boast about the riches you receive from them.
7 Instead of shame, you will get a double portion; instead of humiliation, they will rejoice over the land they receive. Yes, they will possess a double portion in their land and experience lasting joy.
8 For I, the Lord, love justice and hate robbery and sin. I will repay them because of my faithfulness; I will make a permanent covenant with them.
9 Their descendants will be known among the nations, their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will recognize that the Lord has blessed them.”
10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; I will be overjoyed because of my God. For he clothes me in garments of deliverance; he puts on me a robe symbolizing vindication. I look like a bridegroom when he wears a turban as a priest would; I look like a bride when she puts on her jewelry.
11 For just as the ground produces its crops and a garden yields its produce, so the Sovereign Lord will cause deliverance to grow, and give his people reason to praise him in the sight of all the nations.
This is a promise looking forward to the coming of the anointed one, the Messiah, and in effect Isaiah is saying that when he comes he will fulfil what was mandated in the Jubilees by decreeing the release of captives, etc. At the beginning of his ministry, after his baptism in 27 AD, Jesus quoted the first part of this prophecy and claimed to be its fulfilment.
Luke 4:14-21 tells us:
14 Then Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and news about him spread throughout the surrounding countryside.
15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by all.
16 Now Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read,
17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.”
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him.
21 Then he began to tell them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled even as you heard it being read.”
Here, Jesus not only claims to be God's anointed Messiah. In effect he announces the beginning of a Jubilee. But notice that he stops in the middle of Isaiah 61:2, proclaiming the year of the Lord's favour, but not the day of vengeance of our God. The implication is that in his first coming, his mission was limited to declaring God's favour, in the proclamation of the Gospel, in releasing people from bondage and oppression, and in healing the blind and sick. And this is what he did throughout his earthly ministry.
In Acts 10:36-39, the Apostle Peter says, "You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, proclaiming the good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all) - you know what happened throughout Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John announced: with respect to Jesus from Nazareth, that God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil because God was with him. We are witnesses of all the things he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem." It's as though Jesus made Isaiah 61:1-2 his ministry manifesto, and Peter is confirming that he fulfilled that manifesto throughout his ministry.
If we take the anchor points of 623 BC and 573 BC as Jubilee anchor points and count forward, thirteen 50-year cycles from 623 BC, or twelve cycles from 573 BC, takes us to 27 AD, the year that Jesus began his ministry. So it is possible that 27 AD was an actual Jubilee year. According to Leviticus 25:9, the beginning of a Jubilee year was to be announced on 10 Tishri (the Day of Atonement). In 27 AD, the Day of Atonement fell on 27 September. It is possible that this is the very date on which Jesus made his proclamation in Luke 4, although if that were the case it seems surprising that Luke did not mention it. If we link the 40 days of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness with the 40 day period of repentance (known as Teshuvah) leading up to the Day of Atonement, then Luke 4 would appear to be a short time after that. But it is possible.
Given that Jesus fulfilled his Isaiah 61:1-2 manifesto throughout the course of his ministry, I do not believe we should limit the 'year of the Lord's favour' to a literal one-year Jubilee starting on 10 Tishri 27 AD and ending in 28 AD. In effect, I see his declaration in Luke 4 as a declaration of an amnesty. He has declared a period of amnesty such that sinners can repent and turn themselves upon God's mercy, receiving God's no-quibble assurance of forgiveness. And 2,000 years later, I believe we are still in that period of amnesty. Jesus' ministry of proclaiming the Gospel, of releasing the oppressed, and of healing the blind and the sick did not end with his death and resurrection. Rather, he sent his disciples into all the world to continue the ministry that he had started. So while the 'year of the Lord's favour' is based on what the Jubilee year represented, I do not believe we should understand it to have lasted for just one literal year starting on 10 Tishri 27 AD.
Christ's second coming at the sixth seal (Revelation 6:12-17) marks the beginning of the day of wrath. That is the point when the 'year' of the Lord's favour' comes to an end, and the 'day of vengeance of our God' begins (Isaiah 61:2b). And just as the 'year' of the Lord's favour has lasted about 2,000 literal years, the 'day' of God's wrath will not be just one literal day. Rather, it is the period of time in which God releases the trumpet and bowl judgments described in Revelation, and in which Christ's battle judgments take place (see the battle of Edom in Isaiah 63:1-6, and the battle of Armageddon in Revelation 19). Based on Daniel 12:11, I expect that the 'day' of God's wrath will last for 1,290 literal days, or possibly for 1,335 days.
In Isaiah 61, both the 'year of the Lord's favour' and the 'day of vengeance' are necessary for Messiah to fully implement the restoration that the year of Jubilee represents. In verses 3 to 11, Isaiah prophesies the restoration and vindication of the people of Zion (Israel). In verses 3 to 4 we see their restoration to their ancestral homeland, with foreigners serving them as their workforce (verse 5). In verse 6 they are restored to their role as the Lord's priests, just as God said to them in Exodus 19:5-6, "And now, if you will diligently listen to me and keep my covenant, then you will be my special possession out of all the nations, for all the earth is mine, and you will be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." In verse 7, God replaces their shame with everlasting joy. According to verses 8 to 9, it is because of God's faithfulness to his eternal covenant that he will repay them, and then all the nations will recognise that God has blessed them, just as God promised Abraham in Genesis 12:2-3, "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." In verse 10, God clothes the people of Israel in robes that symbolise deliverance and vindication, and they will appear like a bride or groom in all their finery. Here we see echoes of the great wedding feast of the lamb (Matthew 22:1-14, 25:1-13, Luke 14:15-24, Revelation 19:6-9) in which Israel, along with believing Gentiles, is restored figuratively speaking into a marriage covenant with God as their husband (Psalm 45, Isaiah 25:6-9, 54, 62:4-5, Jeremiah 2-3, Hosea 2:19-20). In verse 11, God restores the land so that it produces crops, and likewise causes deliverance to grow such that his people are given reason to praise him in the sight of all nations. All in all, the combination of the year of the Lord's favour together with the day of vengeance of our God results in Israel being fully restored to all that God promised them in the Abrahamic covenant. And as believing Gentiles who have been grafted into the root of Israel (Romans 11:11-24), the amazing thing is that we can share in all these blessings. And so through Israel, all the nations are blessed (Genesis 12:3b).
At his first coming, starting in Jubilee year 27 AD, Jesus began his implementation of the Jubilee restoration by proclaiming the year of the lord's favour, by healing the blind and sick, and by proclaiming freedom to all who are held captive to sin and bondage, a freedom that he purchased for us by his death on the cross. At his second coming he will proclaim the day of vengeance of our God and then complete the full restoration associated with the year of Jubilee, including the restoration of the land of Israel to the people of Israel.
In Acts 3:19-21, the Apostle Peter preached, "Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you - even Jesus. He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets." Here, Peter describes the second coming in the language of Jubilee. He will come to complete the full restoration that he started in his first coming.
Conclusion
If Jesus began his implementation of the Jubilee restoration in Jubilee year 27 AD, the implication is that his completion of the Jubilee restoration will also begin in a Jubilee year. Counting forward in 50-year cycles from 27 AD, the next jubilee year in our present day is 2027, 40 jubilees since his first coming. And 40 is a very significant biblical number. During the Exodus, Israel's entry into the promised land was delayed for 40 years because of their disobedience and lack of faith in God's promises after the twelve spies returned with a bad report about giants in the land. Has Israel's promised restoration been delayed for 40 jubilees because of their rejection of Jesus as their promised Messiah?
Complexities
The reality is that biblical chronology is a complex study, and different scholars come to different conclusions. Complexities include:
1) Scholars debate whether the jubilee cycle should be counted as 50 years, or as 49 years. The Jubilee year is the 50th year (Leviticus 25:10-11) after seven sabbatical cycles. But does the next sabbatical cycle start in year 51, in which case the jubilee year interrupts the sabbatical cycles, or is year 50 also year 1 of the next sabbatical cycle? If the former, then we should count forward 50 years between jubilees, but if the latter, then 49 between jubilees. It appears that ancient Jewish rabbis favoured 49 year cycles, but modern rabbis, including Maimonides (the influentual medieval Jewish scholar) favour 50 year cycles.
2) Related to complexity 1, there is debate as to whether the year described in Ezekiel 40:1 should be understood as 573 BC (which is 50 years after 623 BC), or as 574 BC (which is 49 years after 623 BC).
3) If we count forward in 50-year cycles, then 27 AD was a jubilee year. But if we count in 49-year cycles then 16 AD was a jubilee year, and there was no jubilee year during the course of Christ's ministry.
4) Ezekiel 40:1 says, "In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was struck down, on this very day, the hand of the LORD was on me, and he brought me there." Scholars debate whether Ezekiel meant 10 Nisan in the spring, with the year having started on 1 Nisan, or whether he was referring to the beginning of a Jubilee year which started on 10 Tishri in the fall.
5) Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea in the 4th Century AD, and commonly referred to as the 'Father of Church History', identified the year 472/471 BC as the 71st Jubilee, and 28/29 AD as the 81st Jubilee. He understood 28/29 AD to be the start of Christ's ministry, and counting in 50-year jubilee cycles, 472/471 BC and 28/29 AD are 10 jubilees apart. But did he conveniently place Ezekiel 40:1 in 472/471 BC because it fit with his assumption that Christ's baptism, in the 15th year of Tiberius, was in 28 AD? Wherever chronological ambiguity allows wiggle-room within a year or two, it is tempting to adopt dates that fit with your own theological bias or hypothesis. And every theologian, myself included, has theological bias.
6) Carl Luke Humphreys, in his Messiah 2030 project, assumes that 30 AD was the 80th jubilee, associating the Jubilee year with the year in which Jesus was most likely crucified, instead of the year that Jesus began his ministry and made his Luke 4 proclamation. Without using anchor points like 623 BC or 573 BC as a basis for identifying future jubilee years, he adopts 30 AD as a jubilee year as it fits better with the various "hidden prophecies" that he finds in scripture pointing to the second coming in 2030.
Sabbatical Years
Verses 1 to 8 say, "The LORD spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai: “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land must observe a Sabbath to the LORD. Six years you may sow your field, and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather the produce, but in the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath of complete rest - a Sabbath to the LORD. You must not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You must not gather in the after-growth of your harvest, and you must not pick the grapes of your unpruned vines; the land must have a year of complete rest. You may have the Sabbath produce of the land to eat - you, your male servant, your female servant, your hired worker, the resident foreigner who stays with you, your cattle, and the wild animals that are in your land - all its produce will be for you to eat."
Jubilee Years
Verses 8-12 say, "You must count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, and the days of the seven weeks of years will amount to 49 years. You must sound loud horn blasts - in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, on the Day of Atonement - you must sound the horn in your entire land. So you must consecrate the fiftieth year, and you must proclaim a release in the land for all its inhabitants. That year will be your Jubilee; each one of you must return to his property, and each one of you must return to his clan. That fiftieth year will be your Jubilee; you must not sow the land, harvest its after-growth, or pick the grapes of its unpruned vines. Because that year is a Jubilee, it will be holy to you - you may eat its produce from the field."
The rest of the chapter then adds detail about the cancelling of debts, the release of slaves, and the return of sold property to its original owners during the Jubilee year. So the year of Jubilee was a year of forgiveness and restoration.
In Leviticus 26, God warns the Israelites of dire consequences if they fail to keep all his laws, and that if they persisted in disobedience he would scatter the Israelites among the nations and make their land desolate. In verses 34-35 God says, "Then the land will make up for its Sabbaths all the days it lies desolate while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land will rest and make up its Sabbaths. All the days of the desolation it will have the rest it did not have on your Sabbaths when you lived on it."
In the 7th century BC, the prophet Jeremiah prophesied that the Jews would be exiled to Babylon for 70 years (Jeremiah 25:11-12 & 29:10). After this was fulfilled, 2 Chronicles 36:20-21 says of King Nebuchadnezzar, "He deported to Babylon all who escaped the sword. They served him and his sons until the Persian kingdom rose to power. This took place to fulfill the LORD’s message spoken through Jeremiah and lasted until the land experienced its sabbatical years. All the time of its desolation the land rested in order to fulfill the seventy years." So the implication is that the land had 70 years of rest to make up for a period of 490 years during which the Jews had failed to observe the sabbatical years each seventh year.
Anchor points
There is also no conclusive biblical record of the Israelites practicing the requirements of the Jubilee years, in the release of debts and slaves, and restoration of land. However, according to the Babylonian Talmud, ancient Jewish rabbis identified the 18th year of Josiah as a Jubilee year (see Josiah's reforms in 2 Kings 22-23 and 2 Chronicles 34-35), and also Ezekiel's vision in Ezekiel 40:1 as occurring at the beginning of a Jubilee year. These two Jubilees give us potential anchor points of 623 BC and 573 BC, respectively, for identifying Jubilee years moving forward. I'll come back to that later.
A Messianic Hope
The prophet Isaiah turns the concept of the Jubilee year into a messianic hope.
Isaiah 61 says:
1 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has chosen me. He has commissioned me to encourage the poor, to help the brokenhearted, to decree the release of captives, and the freeing of prisoners,
2 to announce the year when the Lord will show his favor, the day when our God will seek vengeance, to console all who mourn,
3 to strengthen those who mourn in Zion, by giving them a turban, instead of ashes, oil symbolizing joy, instead of mourning, a garment symbolizing praise, instead of discouragement. They will be called oaks of righteousness, trees planted by the Lord to reveal his splendour.
4 They will rebuild the perpetual ruins and restore the places that were desolate; they will reestablish the ruined cities, the places that have been desolate since ancient times.
5 “Foreigners will take care of your sheep; foreigners will work in your fields and vineyards.
6 You will be called, ‘the Lord’s priests, servants of our God.’ You will enjoy the wealth of nations and boast about the riches you receive from them.
7 Instead of shame, you will get a double portion; instead of humiliation, they will rejoice over the land they receive. Yes, they will possess a double portion in their land and experience lasting joy.
8 For I, the Lord, love justice and hate robbery and sin. I will repay them because of my faithfulness; I will make a permanent covenant with them.
9 Their descendants will be known among the nations, their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will recognize that the Lord has blessed them.”
10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; I will be overjoyed because of my God. For he clothes me in garments of deliverance; he puts on me a robe symbolizing vindication. I look like a bridegroom when he wears a turban as a priest would; I look like a bride when she puts on her jewelry.
11 For just as the ground produces its crops and a garden yields its produce, so the Sovereign Lord will cause deliverance to grow, and give his people reason to praise him in the sight of all the nations.
This is a promise looking forward to the coming of the anointed one, the Messiah, and in effect Isaiah is saying that when he comes he will fulfil what was mandated in the Jubilees by decreeing the release of captives, etc. At the beginning of his ministry, after his baptism in 27 AD, Jesus quoted the first part of this prophecy and claimed to be its fulfilment.
Luke 4:14-21 tells us:
14 Then Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and news about him spread throughout the surrounding countryside.
15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by all.
16 Now Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read,
17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.”
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him.
21 Then he began to tell them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled even as you heard it being read.”
Here, Jesus not only claims to be God's anointed Messiah. In effect he announces the beginning of a Jubilee. But notice that he stops in the middle of Isaiah 61:2, proclaiming the year of the Lord's favour, but not the day of vengeance of our God. The implication is that in his first coming, his mission was limited to declaring God's favour, in the proclamation of the Gospel, in releasing people from bondage and oppression, and in healing the blind and sick. And this is what he did throughout his earthly ministry.
In Acts 10:36-39, the Apostle Peter says, "You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, proclaiming the good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all) - you know what happened throughout Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John announced: with respect to Jesus from Nazareth, that God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil because God was with him. We are witnesses of all the things he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem." It's as though Jesus made Isaiah 61:1-2 his ministry manifesto, and Peter is confirming that he fulfilled that manifesto throughout his ministry.
If we take the anchor points of 623 BC and 573 BC as Jubilee anchor points and count forward, thirteen 50-year cycles from 623 BC, or twelve cycles from 573 BC, takes us to 27 AD, the year that Jesus began his ministry. So it is possible that 27 AD was an actual Jubilee year. According to Leviticus 25:9, the beginning of a Jubilee year was to be announced on 10 Tishri (the Day of Atonement). In 27 AD, the Day of Atonement fell on 27 September. It is possible that this is the very date on which Jesus made his proclamation in Luke 4, although if that were the case it seems surprising that Luke did not mention it. If we link the 40 days of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness with the 40 day period of repentance (known as Teshuvah) leading up to the Day of Atonement, then Luke 4 would appear to be a short time after that. But it is possible.
Given that Jesus fulfilled his Isaiah 61:1-2 manifesto throughout the course of his ministry, I do not believe we should limit the 'year of the Lord's favour' to a literal one-year Jubilee starting on 10 Tishri 27 AD and ending in 28 AD. In effect, I see his declaration in Luke 4 as a declaration of an amnesty. He has declared a period of amnesty such that sinners can repent and turn themselves upon God's mercy, receiving God's no-quibble assurance of forgiveness. And 2,000 years later, I believe we are still in that period of amnesty. Jesus' ministry of proclaiming the Gospel, of releasing the oppressed, and of healing the blind and the sick did not end with his death and resurrection. Rather, he sent his disciples into all the world to continue the ministry that he had started. So while the 'year of the Lord's favour' is based on what the Jubilee year represented, I do not believe we should understand it to have lasted for just one literal year starting on 10 Tishri 27 AD.
Christ's second coming at the sixth seal (Revelation 6:12-17) marks the beginning of the day of wrath. That is the point when the 'year' of the Lord's favour' comes to an end, and the 'day of vengeance of our God' begins (Isaiah 61:2b). And just as the 'year' of the Lord's favour has lasted about 2,000 literal years, the 'day' of God's wrath will not be just one literal day. Rather, it is the period of time in which God releases the trumpet and bowl judgments described in Revelation, and in which Christ's battle judgments take place (see the battle of Edom in Isaiah 63:1-6, and the battle of Armageddon in Revelation 19). Based on Daniel 12:11, I expect that the 'day' of God's wrath will last for 1,290 literal days, or possibly for 1,335 days.
In Isaiah 61, both the 'year of the Lord's favour' and the 'day of vengeance' are necessary for Messiah to fully implement the restoration that the year of Jubilee represents. In verses 3 to 11, Isaiah prophesies the restoration and vindication of the people of Zion (Israel). In verses 3 to 4 we see their restoration to their ancestral homeland, with foreigners serving them as their workforce (verse 5). In verse 6 they are restored to their role as the Lord's priests, just as God said to them in Exodus 19:5-6, "And now, if you will diligently listen to me and keep my covenant, then you will be my special possession out of all the nations, for all the earth is mine, and you will be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." In verse 7, God replaces their shame with everlasting joy. According to verses 8 to 9, it is because of God's faithfulness to his eternal covenant that he will repay them, and then all the nations will recognise that God has blessed them, just as God promised Abraham in Genesis 12:2-3, "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." In verse 10, God clothes the people of Israel in robes that symbolise deliverance and vindication, and they will appear like a bride or groom in all their finery. Here we see echoes of the great wedding feast of the lamb (Matthew 22:1-14, 25:1-13, Luke 14:15-24, Revelation 19:6-9) in which Israel, along with believing Gentiles, is restored figuratively speaking into a marriage covenant with God as their husband (Psalm 45, Isaiah 25:6-9, 54, 62:4-5, Jeremiah 2-3, Hosea 2:19-20). In verse 11, God restores the land so that it produces crops, and likewise causes deliverance to grow such that his people are given reason to praise him in the sight of all nations. All in all, the combination of the year of the Lord's favour together with the day of vengeance of our God results in Israel being fully restored to all that God promised them in the Abrahamic covenant. And as believing Gentiles who have been grafted into the root of Israel (Romans 11:11-24), the amazing thing is that we can share in all these blessings. And so through Israel, all the nations are blessed (Genesis 12:3b).
At his first coming, starting in Jubilee year 27 AD, Jesus began his implementation of the Jubilee restoration by proclaiming the year of the lord's favour, by healing the blind and sick, and by proclaiming freedom to all who are held captive to sin and bondage, a freedom that he purchased for us by his death on the cross. At his second coming he will proclaim the day of vengeance of our God and then complete the full restoration associated with the year of Jubilee, including the restoration of the land of Israel to the people of Israel.
In Acts 3:19-21, the Apostle Peter preached, "Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you - even Jesus. He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets." Here, Peter describes the second coming in the language of Jubilee. He will come to complete the full restoration that he started in his first coming.
Conclusion
If Jesus began his implementation of the Jubilee restoration in Jubilee year 27 AD, the implication is that his completion of the Jubilee restoration will also begin in a Jubilee year. Counting forward in 50-year cycles from 27 AD, the next jubilee year in our present day is 2027, 40 jubilees since his first coming. And 40 is a very significant biblical number. During the Exodus, Israel's entry into the promised land was delayed for 40 years because of their disobedience and lack of faith in God's promises after the twelve spies returned with a bad report about giants in the land. Has Israel's promised restoration been delayed for 40 jubilees because of their rejection of Jesus as their promised Messiah?
Complexities
The reality is that biblical chronology is a complex study, and different scholars come to different conclusions. Complexities include:
1) Scholars debate whether the jubilee cycle should be counted as 50 years, or as 49 years. The Jubilee year is the 50th year (Leviticus 25:10-11) after seven sabbatical cycles. But does the next sabbatical cycle start in year 51, in which case the jubilee year interrupts the sabbatical cycles, or is year 50 also year 1 of the next sabbatical cycle? If the former, then we should count forward 50 years between jubilees, but if the latter, then 49 between jubilees. It appears that ancient Jewish rabbis favoured 49 year cycles, but modern rabbis, including Maimonides (the influentual medieval Jewish scholar) favour 50 year cycles.
2) Related to complexity 1, there is debate as to whether the year described in Ezekiel 40:1 should be understood as 573 BC (which is 50 years after 623 BC), or as 574 BC (which is 49 years after 623 BC).
3) If we count forward in 50-year cycles, then 27 AD was a jubilee year. But if we count in 49-year cycles then 16 AD was a jubilee year, and there was no jubilee year during the course of Christ's ministry.
4) Ezekiel 40:1 says, "In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was struck down, on this very day, the hand of the LORD was on me, and he brought me there." Scholars debate whether Ezekiel meant 10 Nisan in the spring, with the year having started on 1 Nisan, or whether he was referring to the beginning of a Jubilee year which started on 10 Tishri in the fall.
5) Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea in the 4th Century AD, and commonly referred to as the 'Father of Church History', identified the year 472/471 BC as the 71st Jubilee, and 28/29 AD as the 81st Jubilee. He understood 28/29 AD to be the start of Christ's ministry, and counting in 50-year jubilee cycles, 472/471 BC and 28/29 AD are 10 jubilees apart. But did he conveniently place Ezekiel 40:1 in 472/471 BC because it fit with his assumption that Christ's baptism, in the 15th year of Tiberius, was in 28 AD? Wherever chronological ambiguity allows wiggle-room within a year or two, it is tempting to adopt dates that fit with your own theological bias or hypothesis. And every theologian, myself included, has theological bias.
6) Carl Luke Humphreys, in his Messiah 2030 project, assumes that 30 AD was the 80th jubilee, associating the Jubilee year with the year in which Jesus was most likely crucified, instead of the year that Jesus began his ministry and made his Luke 4 proclamation. Without using anchor points like 623 BC or 573 BC as a basis for identifying future jubilee years, he adopts 30 AD as a jubilee year as it fits better with the various "hidden prophecies" that he finds in scripture pointing to the second coming in 2030.
