Commentaria in Leviticum
YOU SHALL HAVE THEM FOR SERVANTS AND SHALL POSSESS THEM FOR EVER,—that is, until the jubilee, says St. Augustine; and if the rule were true which some give from St. Jerome, namely that olam, that is, an age or eternity, signifies the jubilee when it is written without vau, the Hebrew would prove it: for olam is here written without vau. But, as I have already said, the context seems to require another and true eternity, that, namely, the proselyte be and remain a servant always, and for his whole life, so that on the death of his master he passes to his heirs, and serves them as long as he lives. For in this the proselyte servant is distinguished from the Jewish servant, that this one is a servant until the jubilee, that one for his whole life. And so also the rule of St. Jerome about olam holds good here: for olam here does not signify absolute eternity, but only the time of the servant’s life. But St. Jerome says only that olam with vau signifies absolute eternity, but without vau signifies a finite time; and such is the time of a man’s life.
47. IF THE HAND OF A STRANGER GROW STRONG AMONG YOU,—as if to say: If a Gentile stranger who has become a proselyte among you shall have become rich and powerful, so that he buys a Jew who, pressed by poverty, has sold himself into servitude: he shall have him as a servant, not only up to the seventh or sabbatical year, but up to the jubilee: unless this servant be redeemed by repayment of the price at which he was bought. A Jew, therefore, serving a proselyte, went out free only in the year of the jubilee, nor is this strange: for if, conversely, such proselytes sold themselves to Jews as servants, they remained servants for their whole life.
49 and 50. BUT IF HE HIMSELF ALSO BE ABLE, HE SHALL REDEEM HIMSELF, COUNTING ONLY THE YEARS FROM THE TIME OF HIS SELLING UNTO THE YEAR OF JUBILEE.—The sense and the case of these verses up to ver. 54 is this: I will that, as to a hireling the wage is reckoned and paid according to the proportion of time, e.g. of the days or years in which he has worked in a garden, field or house, so here too the wage be reckoned to the Hebrew servant, when he offers the price to his master, even a Gentile proselyte, to redeem himself and claim his liberty; let the wage be reckoned, I say, in proportion to the years in which he served, and be deducted from the price; so that, e.g., if a Jew sold himself as a servant for 40 shekels, when 40 years remained to the jubilee, and then served 10 years, and presently redeems himself, 10 shekels are reckoned to him as wage for the ten years in which he served, and he adds to the master only 30 shekels by which he redeems himself: but if he served 20 years, 20 shekels are reckoned to him as wage, and he adds only 20, which paid to the master he redeems himself, and goes out free, and so proportionally in other cases. That this is the sense is plainer in the Hebrew, Chaldee and Septuagint. So Abulensis. From what has been said in this chapter it is plain that these were the privileges of the jubilee. First, that in it all debts were remitted; for this reason this year was called the year of remission, as is plain ver. 10. Secondly, that in it servants were manumitted and made free. Thirdly, that ancestral possessions returned to the lawful and first heirs, without any price or compensation. By this institution of the jubilee, besides the causes alluded to ver. 10, God first provided for the poor, lest they be for ever excluded from their goods and paternal inheritance, but, the bond of debt being loosed in the jubilee, return to their possessions.
Secondly, God willed the jubilee and the seventh year to serve chronology; for by the sabbatical years and jubilees all things were dated, reckoned and computed, as among the Greeks by Olympiads, and among the Romans by lustra.
Thirdly, he willed the jubilee to be a type of the fullest liberty, grace and gladness, which Christ the Redeemer brought and asserted for us in the new law, as is plain Luke chap. 4, ver. 19. The perpetual jubilee of Christians is placed first in the remission of sins, and in a good and holy conscience. “What is richer,” says St. Bernard, book On Consideration, “what is sweeter in the heart, what is quieter and safer on earth, than a good conscience?”
“It fears not loss of goods, not insults of words, not torments of the body, and is lifted up by death itself rather than cast down.” Nay even the Gentile Cicero, book 6 epist. to Torquatus: “The consciousness of a right will,” he says, “is the greatest consolation in misfortunes.” And Seneca, epist. 94 to Lucilius: “I would not have joy ever fail thee; I would have it born in thy house. It is born, if only it be within thyself. Other mirth does not fill the breast, but only smooths the brow.” And below: “The desire of the true good is safe. Askest thou what it is, or whence it comes? I will tell thee: from a good conscience, from honourable counsels and right actions, from contempt of things of chance, from a placid and continuous tenor of life, treading one way.” This is therefore the continual jubilation and jubilee of the Christian mind.
Secondly, the same is placed in the fear and worship of God. “The fear of the Lord,” says Ecclesiasticus 1:11, “is glory and glorying, and gladness and a crown of joy. The fear of the Lord shall delight the heart, and shall give joy and gladness and length of days.” And Malach. 4:2: “But unto you that fear my name, the Sun of justice shall arise, and health in his wings; and you shall go forth, and shall leap like calves of the herd.” Whence St. Chrysostom, hom. 18 to the People: “The fear of the Lord,” he says, “is stable and unmoved, and supplies so great gladness that no sense of other evils seizes us; for he who fears God as he ought and trusts in him has gained the root of pleasure, and has the whole fountain of gladness.”
Thirdly, it is placed in firm hope of eternal happiness. Hence Christ, Matt. chap. 5:12: “Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven.” And: “Rejoice, that your names are written in heaven.” St. Basil, hom. On Thanksgiving: “The hope of recompense,” he says, “makes the sad things of this life lighter. Has anyone put thee to shame? Look not rather to that glory laid up in heaven, to be prepared for thee by the merit of patience; hast thou suffered loss of thy goods? fix thine eyes the more on heavenly riches, and the incomparable treasure which thou hast laid up for thyself at the price of good works. Art thou shut out of thy native soil? but thou hast a heavenly country, that Jerusalem.” Rufinus and Palladius relate in the Life of Blessed Apollonius, of his monastery and monks: “There was in them beyond measure joy and gladness, and so great exultation as can be had by any man on earth. No one was found sad among them; but if anyone appeared more sorrowful, Apollonius inquired the cause, and said: We ought not to be sad, we whose salvation is in God, and hope in the kingdom of heaven. Let the Gentiles be sad, let the Jews mourn, let sinners lament without ceasing; but we who have the hope of so great glory, and the exultation of eternity, why should we not rejoice with all exultation?”
Fourthly, it is placed in friendship and union with God. “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice,” says the Apostle. St. Basil asks in the Short Rules, Quest. 193: “What is joy in the Lord?” and answers: “To rejoice in those things that are done according to the commandment of the Lord is to rejoice in the Lord. Wherefore whenever we fulfil the commandments of God, or suffer anything for the name of the Lord, we ought to rejoice and be glad.” St. Augustine, On the Health-giving Documents, chap. 10: “If,” he says, “we delight to possess anything in this world, it is expedient that we possess with the mind God, who possesses all things, who created all things, and have in him whatever we happily and holily desire. But since no one possesses God unless he is possessed by him, let us ourselves be the possession of God, and God will become our possession. And what can be happier in the world than he to whom his Emperor and Redeemer becomes his portion, and the divinity itself deigns to be his inheritance? What does he seek beyond, to whom his Redeemer is all joy, and all things?” And in a certain letter: “Great is my joy that I have found thee wishing to tend to true and perfect joy: which is not of the earth, but of heaven, that is, not of this vale of weeping, but of that city of God which the rush of the river makes glad. And in truth that is the true and only joy which is conceived not of the creature but of the Creator, and which when thou hast possessed, no one shall take from thee: compared with which all joy from elsewhere is sorrow; all sweetness, pain; all that is sweet, bitter; all that is comely, foul; all, finally, that else can delight, irksome.”