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[280]
And truly Moses gave them all these precepts, being such as were
observed during his own lifetime; but though he lived now in the wilderness,
yet did he make provision how they might observe the same laws when they
should have taken the land of Canaan. He gave them rest to the land from
ploughing and planting every seventh year, as he had prescribed to them
to rest from working every seventh day; and ordered, that then what grew
of its own accord out of the earth should in common belong to all that
pleased to use it, making no distinction in that respect between their
own countrymen and foreigners: and he ordained, that they should do the
same after seven times seven years, which in all are fifty years; and that
fiftieth year is called by the Hebrews The Jubilee, wherein debtors
are freed from their debts, and slaves are set at liberty; which slaves
became such, though they were of the same stock, by transgressing some
of those laws the punishment of which was not capital, but they were punished
by this method of slavery. This year also restores the land to its former
possessors in the manner following: - When the Jubilee is come, which name
denotes liberty, he that sold the land, and he that bought it, meet
together, and make an estimate, on one hand, of the fruits gathered; and,
on the other hand, of the expenses laid out upon it. If the fruits gathered
come to more than the expenses laid out, he that sold it takes the land
again; but if the expenses prove more than the fruits, the present possessor
receives of the former owner the difference that was wanting, and leaves
the land to him; and if the fruits received, and the expenses laid out,
prove equal to one another, the present possessor relinquishes it to the
former owners. Moses would have the same law obtain as to those houses
also which were sold in villages; but he made a different law for such
as were sold in a city; for if he that sold it tendered the purchaser his
money again within a year, he was forced to restore it; but in case a whole
year had intervened, the purchaser was to enjoy what he had bought. This
was the constitution of the laws which Moses learned of God when the camp
lay under Mount Sinai, and this he delivered in writing to the Hebrews.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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(4):
- LSJ, ἀλλοτριό-χωρος
- LSJ, ἑβδομ-άς
- LSJ, ἐξέχω
- LSJ, χρεώσ-της
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