Redeeming Your Brother
25:47-55 and 26:1-2
Redeeming your brother DIG: What was the family’s responsibility? Could the one who had sold himself into slavery redeem himself? How was the price set? How does the work of the kinsman redeemer help us to better understand the work of the Messiah on our behalf?
REFLECT: You have been bought with a price, redeemed by ADONAI to become His “servant” (25:55). How do your actions demonstrate your redemption (Romans 6:15-23)? What can you do to remind yourself of your “servanthood?” Who can you tell this week?
Our Great Redeemer has bought us back; We are free, but our allegiance now belongs to Him.
Should your brother become so impoverished that he must sell himself as a slave to pay his creditor, it is the family’s prerogative to redeem him (see the commentary on Exodus, to see link click Bz – Redemption). Even if he is sold to a Gentile, the family retains the right to buy him back from slavery. If a foreigner living with you has grown rich, and a member of your people has become poor and sells himself to this foreigner living with you or to a member of the foreigner’s family, he may be redeemed after he has been sold. One of his brothers may redeem him; or his uncle or his uncle’s son may redeem him; or any near relative of his may redeem him (25:47-49a).
But, if he should come to sufficient means, he could redeem himself. If he becomes rich, he may redeem himself. His term of service should be no longer than six years, but if the Year of Jubilee comes first, he must be released at the Jubilee. He will calculate with the person who bought him the time from the year he sold himself to him to the Yovel Year (see En – The Freedom of the Year of Jubilee).
The price at which the person would be redeemed was based upon the wages one would pay a hired servant for the same amount of time. Thus, if there were only three years of his seven-year service until the Jubilee, his redemption price would be calculated at three years-worth of labor. The amount to be paid will be according to the number of years and his time at an employee’s wage. If many years remain, according to them, he will refund the amount for his redemption from the amount he was bought for. If there remain only a few years until the Year of Yovel, then he will calculate with him; according to his years will he refund the amount for his redemption. He will be like a worker hired year by year. You will see to it that he is not treated harshly. If he has not been redeemed by any of these procedures, nevertheless he will go free in the Year of Yovel – he and his children with him (25:49b-54).
The great significance of these mitzvot is that they provide us the biblical model for redemption. By studying the mitzvot of the kinsman redeemer (see the commentary on Ruth Ba – Bo’az Obtains the Right of Redemption), we are able to better understand the work of Messiah on our behalf. We are the impoverished ones who could not pay our debt. The accumulation of our sin was too great, and we fell into slavery. The Master warns us: Amen, Amen, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave to sin (John 8:34). Don’t you know that if you present yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, then, of the one whom you are obeying, you are slaves – whether of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to being made righteous (Romans 6:16)?
Nevertheless, our Great Redeemer has redeemed us. He tells us: If the Son makes you free, you are free indeed (John 8:36). We are free, but our allegiance now belongs to Him. As it is written: For to me the people of Isra’el are slaves; they are my slaves whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; I am ADONAI your God (25:55). In the same way, having been redeemed by YHVH, we are slaves to His righteousness, servants of Yeshua, “Having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness” (Romans 6:18).519
Summary mitzvot (26:1-2): Parashah b’Har is a single chapter of the Torah except that it includes the first two verses of Leviticus Ch 26. Herein a few brief mitzvot summarize most of the commandments of Leviticus. We are reminded against making or serving idols. We are reminded to keep the Lord’s Sabbaths and we are told again to revere His Sanctuary. These mitzvot are the fundamentals of Torah life, encompassing most of the 613 commandments in one way or another.520 You are not to make yourselves any idols, erect a carved statue or a standing-stone, or place any carved stone anywhere in your land in order to bow down to it. I am ADONAI your God. Keep My Shabbats, and revere My Sanctuary; I am ADONAI.
The basic principle to stress in this chapter as the rationale behind the mitzvot is ADONAI’s often repeated expression: The land is Mine, for you are strangers and sojourners with Me (25:23). God is sovereign over the affairs of the world; thus, He has the right to release from slavery whomever He wishes, to remove the rich from the land at the Jubilee and distribute it as He wishes. This truth keeps any Israelite in the physical world, and should keep us in the spiritual world, from personalizing the work given to us, from taking credit for it, or from jealously guarding it as our own. It is a sacred trust to be removed some day when the Lord makes all things new (see the commentary on Revelation Fr – Then I Saw a New Heaven and a New Earth). The truth in this passage ought to humble us in our work before God.521
Haftarah B’har reading: Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah) 32:6–27
(see the commentary on Deuteronomy Af – Parashah)
While imprisoned during the siege of Jerusalem, Jeremiah heard from God – to redeem the property of his indebted kinsman (see the commentary on Jeremiah Fs – Jeremiah Buys a Field). Even though exile was prophesied for the next seventy years (see Jeremiah Gu – Seventy Years of Imperial Babylonian Rule)! The Land needed rest under God’s ownership, since the Sabbath Years (see El – The Sabbath Year) had not been observed. Only then, did Ha’Shem show mercy and return His captive people to the Land (see the commentary on Ezra-Nehemiah Ah – Cyrus Decrees: Rebuild the Temple). So, God instructed Jeremiah to pay silver and write a deed of purchase to redeem the ancestral plot. Jeremiah deposited the legal document of redemption into long-term storage as a sign that the children of Isra’el will again return to buy and sell in the Land. God leaves His people with an unfailing hope. His mercy never fails – even when exile.
B’rit Hadashah reading: Luke 4:21
It is one thing to proclaim freedom (see En – The Freedom of the Year of Jubilee). Any prophet could proclaim freedom. It is quite another thing to authorize release. Only the Deliverer can set the captives free. This is the role reserved exclusively for Messiah. Yeshua preached Good News for the poor, release for the captives, sight for the blind, and freedom for the oppressed (Luke 4:18, quoting Isaiah 61:1). He also proclaimed the Year of Jubilee, a year of God’s favor (Luke 4:19a and Isaiah 61:2a). Then, closing the haftarah scroll and with all eyes fixed on Him, Yeshua told those at the synagogue at Nazareth: Today, as you heard it read, this passage of the TaNaKh has been fulfilled (Luke 4:21). Therefore, the Messiah proclaimed the Year of Release from spiritual oppression as the Kingdom of God had come within their midst.522
Dear Heavenly Father, Praise Your great Almighty power, for by Yeshua’s sacrificial death as the Lamb of God (John 1:29) and his resurrection. You released/set free all who love You from sin’s power and brought them into Yeshua’s glorious Kingdom! He rescued us from the domain of darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of the Son whom He loves. In Him we have redemption – the release of sins (Colossians 1:13-14).
All who enter your holy Kingdom, must be holy. Praise and thanks to You our Awesome Father for giving me Messiah’s righteousness. I can live with You in your kingdom. He made the One who knew no sin to become a sin offering on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21). We look away from our trials and problems and focus on how to please You now, in gratitude for all You have done for us and for our future sure hope that You will bring all who love You to glory! Focus your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Messiah in God. When Messiah, who is your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him, in glory! (Colossians 3:2-4). In Yeshua’s holy name and power of His resurrection. Amen
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