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In the bible4/2/2023 ![]() ![]() The believer may not tolerate the forms and the duration of a life of slavery, even as it was practiced by other peoples. Some realities, which involve persons, tools and means to live, are not able to be subjected to unchecked egoism and the insatiable careerism of some people. One ascertains with joy and with appreciation how faith in God also carries Israel's culture, living in it a primacy in time, in work, in relationships. The sources of these laws are found in chapter 23 of the book of Leviticus, and even earlier in chapter 34 in Exodus and chapter 16 of the fifth book of the Bible, Deuteronomy. In particular, Pentecost (fiftieth day), or the feast of the weeks, is celebrated seven weeks after the Saturday of Passover. The feasts of the Hebrew calendar are also marked by seven days such is the duration both of the feast of the unleavened (bread) and of the feast of the tabernacles. Already the first chapter of the first book, Genesis, interprets the creative activity of God with the structure of seven days, even with lucid consciousness of the transcendenceof God who "speaks", and his speech is creative, it is "benediction". The Lord marks the times of work and of rest. Meanwhile it is important to be aware that in the Near East, in the ancient cultures, the cycle of the moon was chosen as the criterion for marking time: the week (seven days) takes on, even before the Judaic legislation, a strikingly religious character. In the same Leviticus there are texts and very precious parallel models for understanding the jubilee year's intention and design. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants it shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his family» ( Leviticus 25, 8-10). ![]() Then you shall send abroad the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month on the day of atonement you shall send abroad the loud trumpet throughout all your land. «And you shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall be to you forty-nine years. The book of Leviticus, in the code of holiness, is the source which tells us of the significance of the jubilee year, a year of liberation "par excellence," which is at the end of seven weeks of years, the fiftieth year. The word "jubilee" is derived from the Hebrew word jobel, which means "ram's horn" since it was precisely that horn which was used as a trumpet, whose sound indicated to everybody the beginning of the jubilee year. Liberation is from physical evils, from interior lacerations, from the condition of slavery consolation is a transformation of the way one feels, of the way one exists: from mourning one passes to joy.Ĭity, countryside, experiences of rural work and sheep farming are tied up in a novelty of life more human and more constructive. And this year expresses itself in two vital, highly positive directions: liberation and consolation. The prophet heralds a year of the Lord's favor and not on his own personal initiative, but by means of an unction worked by the Spirit of the Lord: it is a divine gift. «The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn to grant to those who mourn in Zion - to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit» ( Isaiah 61, 1-3a). And prophecy is the precious service that a man gives to his own brothers, to his own people, interpreting, with the power of God and with the wisdom given by God, the historical events and happenings in which one was involved. ![]() Prophecy interprets that which has been experienced. After the bitter experience of the Babylonian exile, in which the people of God had the experience of being deprived of their own land, of the temple, of their own consistency as a people a horizon of hope, of liberation, opened up. ![]()
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