How could Daniel not have known why he was in Babylon?  How could he not know how long the Hebrews were to be captive?  He spent all his adult life in Babylon—a  captive,  a  eunuch—and never knew why.  Until he found a scroll with Jeremiah’s prophecy on it.  Then he knew the time of exile was nearly over.  “Seventy years,” Jeremiah said, they were to be far from home.  

And the reason they were in Babylon was that the land had never been given its Sabbatical rest.  The law asked the people to rest on the seventh day of every week, and they did.  Why wouldn’t they? Everybody likes a day off.    But the jubilee system said that the land should rest every seventh year. The actual dirt  should have a rest. A whole year was to be a Sabbath.  It was holy.  They couldn’t plant their crops or prune their vines or fill their barns with hay.  It was a time to read books and  think long thoughts and spend quality time together.

They heard the plan.  They knew it was the Lord’s voice on Mt. Sinai that told Moses to tell all “the people of Israel” to observe a whole year of Sabbath rest.

But they didn't know what to make of it.  It was so impractical.  It would be a waste of time and money.   

Still the Lord was serious.  It was the way they were expected to live in the land that flowed with milk and honey . The seventh-day Sabbath was  only  “Part A” of the system of sevens.

It wasn't all the Lord had in mind.  After seven seven-year cycles (forty-nine years)  came the  “Year of Jubilee,” the fiftieth year. Slaves would be set free, debts forgiven, land that had been sold returned to its original owners.

God said they should “hallow” the fiftieth year.  “It is a jubilee, it shall be holy to you.”   The crops that grew voluntarily in the seventh year and the fiftieth year would be for the poor people.  The debts of the poor were to be freely forgiven.

The “Trumpet of Jubilee” was to sound on the Day of Atonement (tenth day, seventh  month) in the year of Jubilee.  That was the moment of release and restoration, a celebration of love and tender regard.  A generous spirit would be nurtured.  The nation of Israel could have been a portrayal for all the world of what the loving Creator is like.

It seems like a world-class tragedy that they never did it.  What might have been their state of health if the food they ate came from land that had lain fallow every seventh year?

And what might have been their grace, if once in every lifetime, the trumpet of jubilee had proclaimed liberty to the captives, the canceling of debts large and small?  On the Day of Atonement, the very  day their sins and debts were forgiven, they’d forgive their debtors. Living out the Lord’s Prayer! It would be second nature for them to traffic in grace.

The second advent could be anticipated as part of the Sabbath system-of-sevens: Six working days and then a Sabbath Day.  Six years and then the sabbatical year (seven years).  Seven cycles of seven years (forty-nine years) and the Year of Jubilee (seven weeks of years). Six millennia of chaos here and then the second coming.

“Then commenced the Jubilee,”  Ellen White wrote of the eschaton, “when the land should rest.”   (Early Writings, page 35.).

The seven-year cycle was so important to the whole story of life on earth, that when  the Hebrews ignored it, they had to spend seventy years in exile and captivity in Babylon.  That enforced rest made up for the seventy cycles that had been neglected.  It was that important to the Creator.  He couldn’t just let it go.

The captivity is clearly predicted by the voice of God  on Mt. Sinai.

“Then the land will be  laid waste and your cities will be in ruins.  Then the land will enjoy its  sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest  and enjoy its sabbaths. All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it.” Leviticus 26:34, 35.   And the sad story is told as history in 2 Chronicles 36:21. “ The land enjoyed its Sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah.”

The whole story is complicated by a variety  of calendars and a variety of charts to be studied.  There seems to be no possible way to predict the date of the coming advent.             

That’s not what jubilee is about.  But it does suggest that we’re in the time when the coming of the Lord is near. Good news!  Somebody bring out the ram’s horn and get ready to sound the “Trumpet of Jubilee!”