Leviticus 25

Today's reading was all about Sabbath years for letting fields lie fallow, and Jubilee years. I've always been fascinated by the practice of giving back land to its ancestral owners, as the Israelites did every fifty years; in a capitalist society it seems so backwards, but as we have come into a period of financial crisis here in the US I can very much appreciate the idea of a periodic "reset" of assets. Returning land and freeing Israeli slaves would allow even the poor among their people to have a chance at getting back on their feet, but it only happened rarely so that people wouldn't become lazy and dependent on it. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at the novelty and effectiveness of such a policy, though - after all, it was God's idea :)