sundayword:BY PROSPER TINGINI
A jubilee is a 50th year celebration which is proclaimed in the scriptures. In Leviticus 25:8-12, the Lord our God spoke to the people as a nation: “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. 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 trumpet throughout all your land. And you shall make holy 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 to his family. A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be to you; in it you shall neither sow, nor reap what grows of itself, nor gather the grapes from the undressed wines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat what it yields out of the fields.”
Zimbabwe gained its independence in 1980, thus making 2030 its 50th year. As an independent nation, the year 2030 is the Jubilee Year for its inhabitants. Why the current President of Zimbabwe (or those around him) arrived at that same year to proclaim the motto of Vision 2030 for the nation is of some inspiration, a visionary directive from the Lord. In accordance with the national vision and as a chosen people of God, we should proclaim that year as a holy year for the nation in line with God’s instruction and directives. Let’s try and trace the Lord’s route for His arrival at the Jubilee Year, which is not fully explained in the scriptures. The number, seven, always has a special place and significance to the Lord. I could label it as the sacred number. On the seventh day, He rested from His works of creation. We now refer to this day as the Sabbath day. It was the creation of the weeks.
The number seven is also extended into the months. The tenth day of every seventh month of each year was also proclaimed to be holy. In Leviticus 16:29-34, the Lord instructed His people; “It shall be a statute to you forever that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict yourselves, and shall do no work, either the native or the stranger who works or lives among you; for on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you, from all your sins you shall be clean before the Lord. It is a Sabbath of solemn rest to you; it is a statute forever.” On this seventh month of the 49th year, on the tenth day of that month, large trumpets shall be sounded across the nation to mark the beginning of the Jubilee.
The number seven also extends into the years. Every seventh year is proclaimed as a Sabbath year to the Lord, to be observed by every nation. God spoke to His people in Exodus 23:10-11: “For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but in the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild beasts may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard and with your olive orchard”.
At the end of every seventh year, the Lord our God also pronounced the Year of Release. In Deuteronomy 15:1-11, the Lord spoke to His people: “At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbour; he shall not force it out of his neighbour, his brother, because the Lord’s release has been proclaimed. Of a foreigner you may demand it, but whatever yours is with your brother, your hand shall release. There will be no poor amongst you, if only you will obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all these commandments which I command you this day. For the Lord your God will bless you as he promised you and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow; and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you . . .”
The Lord continues to apply the number, seven, to calculate and arrive at the Jubilee Year. A week of years is as good as a seven-year period. Why the Creator is grouping years into a unit of seven is this: Each unit of seven years has a total of 364 weeks, the same number as the 364 days of each year. He is thus grouping every Sabbath of Years into one unit of 364 weeks, to equal and represent the 364 days in each of the years. The Sabbath of years is in combination with the Year of Release, in which we should forgive our debtors. The Lord our God thus navigates through these sacred dates and events to arrive at the Jubilee Year.
The Day of Atonement, as already mentioned, is an annual sacred day that also signals the start of the Jubilee Year. On that particular day in the 49th year of our national day of independence, trumpets should be sounded across the nation to prepare people for the oncoming 50th year. I presume the Jubilee Year should start in earnest on the first day of the first month of our 50th year of our independence. Day of Atonement signifies our release from sin and from bondage. It represents a fresh start in life.
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What should then happen in the Jubilee Year is that those people who had been forced out of their inheritance of land or property, for whatever the reasons, should be allowed to come back and reclaim their inheritance. In the colonial period, the natives were forced out of their ancestral lands by the colonial administration who wanted to make way for the prime lands of Zimbabwe to be parcelled out to the white settlers. Thousands of indigenous inhabitants of land were dispossessed of their land without compensation. Most were moved to remote areas unsuitable for farming and detached from family roots. These displaced people should be allowed to come back to settle in their original homelands if they so wish. If their land was taken away without compensation, then they should be allowed to return and settle back without paying for the land, or property.
The land redistribution exercise that happened after Zimbabwe’s independence was a correction of the wrong, except that it did not give priority of resettlement, in each particular area, to the original disposed hereditary owners of that land. First option should have been given to people of the clans or related family groups that had originally been residents in that area, to come back to settle in their former ancestral lands, taken away forcibly. This would have helped to reunite families of relatives that had been separated. The Zimbabwean Jubilee would give opportunity for those who want to return to their fatherlands to do so. God also allows those who had sold their lands and properties out of poverty to buy back their properties at the prevailing market value, should such property belong to a family heritage.
l Prosper Tingini is the scribe of God Missionary Assembly. Contact 0771 260 195 or email: [email protected]
