DBRP_066 LEV.26 LEV.27 PSA.24 LUK.17.1-21

Let’s turn to LEVITICUS 26-27.

Yesterday we heard about the Sabbath year and the year of Restoration/Jubilee. Before the Year of Restoration, property could be bought back//redeemed. In the Restoration year property was returned to the original owners and poor people who had become enslaved were set free. I suspect these laws were never done in all of Israel's history. If they were, perhaps only once— seventy years after Israel entered the land of Canaan.

Translation notes:
27:28 None of you may sell or buy back what you have unconditionally [given over//dedicated] to the Lord, whether it is a human being, an animal, or land. It belongs permanently to the Lord.
29 [No human being who has//Not even human beings who have] been unconditionally [sentenced/dedicated] [to capital punishment]* may be bought back; [he or she//they] must be put to death.
[The term ‘given over’ when it refers to persons may refer to capital punishment, as we have seen recently in chapters 20 and 24. The term (often translated ‘dedicated for destruction’) is also used for when the Lord condemns a city to be totally destroyed, such as the city of Jericho.]

PSALM 24:

This Psalm is one of the most majestic psalms! This ends with the song for welcoming the triumphant Messiah into Jerusalem.

We turn for the first time to LUKE 17.

Yesterday in chapter 16 we heard two longer parables— both very insightful: The parable of the shrewd manager, and the one about the rich man and Lazarus. Both of them show this lesson:
Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they (those friends) will welcome you to an eternal home.

Translation notes:
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Make our [belief//faith] greater.”
6The Lord answered, “If you had [belief//faith] as big as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Pull yourself up by the roots and plant yourself in the sea!’ and it would obey you.
19 And Jesus said to him, “Get up and go[. You have been made well because you believe in me.//; your faith has made you well.]”
21 No one will say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’; because the Kingdom of God is [here in your midst.//within you.]”

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