Ye shall hallow the fiftieth year— i.e. Ye shall distinguish it from all other years in the manner here appointed. The Hebrew is, the year of the fiftieth year, which may either signify the year preceding the fiftieth year, or the fiftieth year; a round number for 49. Calculators also should remember the great difference between the commencement of the Jewish ecclesiastical and civil year. This and the 11th verse plainly prove what we have observed in a former note, that the year of jubilee was only a more solemn sabbatical year. There is no mention of the jubilees, but while the twelve tribes were in possession of the land of Canaan: the Talmudists pretend that they ceased when the tribes of Gad, Reuben, and the half tribe of Manasseh were carried into captivity; and they are not at all mentioned under the second temple, though the sabbatical years continued still to be observed. Some learned men have attempted to prove, by a calculation which appears pretty exact, that if the Jews had still observed their jubilees, the fifteenth year of Tiberius, when John the Baptist first began to preach, would have been a jubilee, and consequently the last; since fifty years after that the Jewish commonwealth was no longer in being. This particular is of some consequence in our disputes with the Jews, who pretend that the Son of David will come during the last jubilee: and this also exactly agrees with the design of the Gospel, and the end of John the Baptist's coming; which was to proclaim the grand jubilee, the spiritual freedom of the children of God, foretold by Zechariah 9:14 and prefigured by the jubilees of the Jews. See Lamy Appar. chron. p. 142 and L'Enfant, &c. With respect to the chronological disputes concerning the aera of the first jubilee, we take not upon us to determine any thing: following Bishop Usher, we refer to his annals, and to the other writers who have treated on the subject.
Ye shall return every man unto his possession, and—unto his family— This law, which may be called the Agrarian law of the Jews, was so famous, that the heathens themselves took notice of it; insomuch, that Diodorus Siculus says, lib. 11: that it was not lawful for the Jews to sell their own inheritances, i.e. to alienate them for ever from their families. Jameson well observes, that as Moses revived several of the ancient and primitive institutions of the patriarchs, so this appointment of restoring all slaves to their liberty, after a certain term of years, seems to have been one. Considering that all mankind are free by nature, it is highly probable that it was an original institution in the first laws of nations, that no person should absolutely lose his freedom. Many of the ancient heathen writers intimate, that there was such an appointment in the days of Saturn; and in commemoration of this original state of freedom, the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and others, celebrated annually a sort of saturnalia, wherein all slaves for a time enjoyed their freedom.