Jubilee - The Counting of Sevens
In this journey so far, we have discovered that there are amazing correlations between groups of 7. There are 7 days of God's Work Week (Creation), 7 days of Man's Work Week (History), 7 Holidays of God and 7 items in the Tabernacle. There are also 7 Spirits of God. There are literally hundreds of groups of 7 found in scripture that I believe fit perfectly into God's Plan just as we have seen in the ones we have already discussed. Even the counting of time is done through the counting of sevens.
In Leviticus 25 it says, "Count off seven sabbath years---seven times seven years---so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields."
These were instructions given directly by God to Moses to speak to the Israelites. Anything that God says must be very important to God and we must take it to heart. Each counting of seven represents a completed cycle and each counting of seven sevens represents an even greater completed cycle. Just as each week has a sabbath day, each completed cycle of seven sevens (or 49 years) also has a sabbath called a Jubilee (the 50th year). This is a super sabbath! Debts are cancelled, slaves are set free and everyone goes back to his original land and people. This was truly a remarkable time of deliverance. This is God's way of counting time. He counts it in Jubilee (or deliverance) cycles!
In Genesis 6:3, the Lord says, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he is also flesh; nevertheless his days shall be 120 years." I have always been puzzled by this verse because so many people lived beyond 120 years. After God made this statement, Noah lived to be 950 years old, Shem 600, Abraham 175 and Jacob 147. These are only a few examples given in scripture. So what did God mean that man's years would be 120 years? If we apply what we've already learned about God's way of counting time, is it possible he could have been referring to Jubilee cycles? Let's check the numbers and see if this fits into God's plan. If we take 120 and multiply it times 50 (the number for deliverance) then we come to 6000 years. We must ask a very important question here, why would God's Spirit only strive with man for 6000 years? The reason may be that in the 7th millennium, Jesus will have returned to earth and we will no longer need the Spirit of God because we'll have Jesus (Emmanuel) with us in the flesh!
Since we know that God's Work Week lasted 6000 years, we can be confident that Man's Work Week will last 6000 years, or 120 Jubilee cycles! Like hash marks on a clock, these cycles serve as indicators of the passing time. If we begin with Adam & Eve and begin our count, we can imagine God's Plan and his counting of time to appear something like this:
