JUBILEE — the fiftieth year, proclaimed after seven cycles of seven sabbatical years (25:8-10). The word may originally have named the ram's horn blown to announce it rather than the year itself — 'yovel' meaning 'ram' in some cognate usage — so 'jubilee' may literally mean nothing more than 'the trumpet-year.' Every sold field returns to its original family, every Israelite sold into service goes free (25:10, 13, 40-41). No other ancient Near Eastern law code known to archaeology legislates a periodic, universal reset of this kind at fixed, calendared intervals; individual kings occasionally proclaimed one-time debt amnesties (the Old Babylonian mīšarum edicts), but Leviticus 25 builds the reset into the calendar itself, due every fifty years whether or not any king wills it. → first discussed at Lev 25:10