Jubilee

After seven cycles of seven years, totaling forty-nine years, a trumpet is to sound throughout the land on the Day of Atonement, the tenth day of the seventh month. The fiftieth year is kept holy, without sowing or the usual harvesting.

Ancestral land sold because of poverty returns to the original family. Israelites who have sold themselves because of poverty are released with their children to return to their families and ancestral property. Separate rules allow foreign slaves to be held permanently and passed on as an inheritance.

There are exceptions to the return of property. A house in a walled city that is not bought back within a year of its sale does not return at Jubilee. Houses in the Levites’ cities follow separate rules for redemption and return.