Five-minute study · Day 67 · Leviticus 25
Leviticus 25:10
A word worth stopping on: liberty דְּרוֹר deror
You shall consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. The Hebrew word for liberty is deror. It is inscribed on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, taken from this verse. But the word comes from a world far older than colonial America. Akkadian legal texts from Babylon use the cognate andurarum for royal decrees that cancelled debts and freed slaves. Kings issued these edicts to stabilize their economies. God built the practice into the calendar and applied it to an entire nation, every fifty years, tied to a theological claim: the land belongs to me.
Word study: liberty
- Hebrew
- דְּרוֹר
- Pronounced
- deror
- Strong's
- H1865
- Definition
- Liberty, release, a flowing, a running free. Used for the release of slaves and the cancellation of debts.
BDB defines deror as 'a flowing, hence liberty' and connects it to the Akkadian (an)duraru, meaning 'freedom' or 'release.' The root image is of something flowing freely, released from confinement. Deror appears eight times in the Hebrew Bible, most significantly in Leviticus 25:10, Jeremiah 34:8-17, Isaiah 61:1, and Ezekiel 46:17.
Westbrook, in 'Property and Family in Biblical Law,' traces the concept through ancient Near Eastern legal tradition. Babylonian kings periodically issued misharum (equity) edicts and andurarum (release) decrees. The Code of Hammurabi references these practices. When a new king took the throne, he often proclaimed an andurarum as a political act: debts cancelled, debt-slaves freed, foreclosed land returned. The gesture demonstrated royal power and bought social stability.
Israel's Jubilee differs in three critical ways. First, it is not a royal prerogative issued at the king's discretion. It is commanded by God and built into the calendar. The timing is fixed: every fiftieth year. Second, it applies universally to all Israelites. Third, the theological foundation is explicit: 'The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me' (Leviticus 25:23). The deror is grounded in divine land ownership. No Israelite can permanently lose their family's inheritance because the land was never theirs to permanently sell. It belongs to God, and God says it goes back.
Isaiah 61:1 takes deror and makes it messianic: 'The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me... to proclaim liberty (deror) to the captives.' Jesus read this passage aloud in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4:18-21) and said, 'Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.'
Historical context · Second millennium BC to first millennium BC
The Debt That Had to Die
Debt slavery was the engine of misery in the ancient Near East. When a farmer could not repay a loan, the lender could seize his land, his children, and finally the farmer himself as collateral. Babylonian legal archives from Nippur, Sippar, and Larsa document families losing everything to creditors. Entire villages could fall into debt bondage after a bad harvest.
Kings understood the danger. Ammisaduqa of Babylon (circa 1646 BC) issued one of the best-preserved andurarum edicts, cancelling specific categories of debt and freeing debt-slaves. The edict is detailed: barley loans are forgiven, but commercial silver loans are not. The specificity shows these were practical economic interventions. Without periodic debt release, wealth concentrated irreversibly and the tax base collapsed.
Israel's Jubilee (Leviticus 25:8-17) systematized what Mesopotamian kings did sporadically. Every fiftieth year: slaves freed, debts cancelled, ancestral land returned. Whether the Jubilee was ever fully practiced is debated. Jeremiah 34 records a failed attempt under King Zedekiah, when slave owners freed their slaves and then immediately re-enslaved them. God's response through Jeremiah is furious.
The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia was cast in 1752 with Leviticus 25:10 inscribed on it: 'Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.' The founders chose this verse for the Pennsylvania State House bell. The deror of an ancient Near Eastern debt-release law, filtered through Israelite theology, ended up stamped on American bronze. The word has been traveling for three thousand years.
For reflection
Deror flows. The root image is something released from confinement, running free. God built debt cancellation into the calendar because he knew what unchecked debt does to people and communities. Consider what you are holding over someone: a grudge, an unpaid emotional debt, a record of wrongs. The Jubilee principle says there is a date on the calendar when it goes back to zero. You can set that date.
The land is mine, God says. You are strangers and sojourners with me. Nothing you hold belongs to you permanently. Everything reverts to the Owner.
Sources: BDB Lexicon; Westbrook, 'Property and Family in Biblical Law'; Milgrom, 'Leviticus 23-27' (Anchor Bible)