YOBEL
(or, to you and me) J U B I L E E ___
TO ALL of us, I think, the word is Jubilee, a word which we know and use quite regularly. This, however, is a little odd since in Hebrew it is Yobel ( ) – which is quite a bit different. But it
is not all that different, surely not enough to worry us. Such differences
are normally the result of real names coming down to us, not straight
from the Hebrew of the Bible, but through that first translation
into Greek of the ‘Old Testament’, the Septuagint. For example
we all know that the name of King David’s father was Jesse – but
it wasn’t! It would surprise many to be told that it was Isaiah.
The Greek, however, transcribed the Hebrew  as  which comes
to us in English as Jesse.1 At first sight it might well seem that
YOBEL/JUBILEE was a similar such example and had no more significance.
It is an example, however, of something quite different and I
am going to suggest that carefully looking into what is happening
will in fact throw considerable light on what the word actually
meant – and should now mean for us.
Just as Jesse is in fact an attempt to transliterate IS(S)AI into Greek – and to our eyes and ears (especially with the consonantal ‘I’ having much later become a ‘J’) not a very successful one – similarly JUBILEE is an attempt at transliterating (and in this case going further than transliterating) YOBEL, not this time into Greek, but into Latin. The Latin word is IUBILEUS and it should be noted that as well as being a transliteration (rather than a translation – it is not after all a proper name) it has been given a termination as well: -eus. In order to see what is happening, what was achieved, beneficially or otherwise, and how we should respond to this, it is necessary to go back – if only sketchily – to the origins of the language and its being written down. If we now embark on a certain amount of philology, linguistics and alphabetology we will nevertheless return to our subject (the meaning of Jubilee) in full circle, the richer, I believe, and more atuned to what it demands from us. Early Near Eastern Languages
Although entirely different in root, in grammar and in structure
the language(s) of the Near East – the semitic precursors of Classical
Hebrew – are highly influential on those of the Eastern Mediterranean
and subsequently the whole of Western Culture, precisely at the
time when languages were starting to be written down. To see this
immediately one only has to look at our word alphabet. It is comprised
of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: Alpha (A),
Beta (B). And if we lay down the Roman (Western European –
pace the Irish!), Greek and Hebrew alphabets side by side we can
see the similarities of all three.2 It is noticeable, however,
that it is the Greek and the Hebrew which are closest.
The preclassical Greek digamma (F ) – representing the w sound – came in between the epsilon and the zeta which makes the comparison, all through, even closer. This comparison is, however, unfortunately obscured by the way in which the Jews, during the Babylonian captivity, lost their original alphabet (which was probably hardly yet in use specifically as an alphabet) and borrowed a local Babylonian one. The comparison between actual Roman, Greek and Hebrew is, as a result, far less recognisable!
The basic alphabet which we are concerned with was (ignoring the subtleties and historical or linguistic niceties) the Phoenecian alphabet – the alphabet of those great sea-faring traders who lived in what is now Syria/Lebanon and who traded throughout the Mediterranean – hence their influence on Greek. The alphabet was originally a pictorial (quasi-hieroglyphical) one. A few examples will suffice to show its early development.
Let’s draw a very (very) simple, symbolic, picture of an ox
– a muzzle complete with halter:
and now a house (there are still simple whitewashed mud houses in many parts
of the Middle East which look much like this to this day):
and now, skipping forward quite a bit, a well (or possibly an
eye):
There is no need to go further. I don’t know about the ancient
Phoenecian (though it must have been similar) but the Hebrew for
an ox is aleph; the Hebrew for a house is beth (cf. e.g. BETH
LECHEM – Bethlehem, the House of Bread, BETH EL – Bethel, the
House of God ... ) and the Hebrew for a well (or an eye) is ‘ain.
The first two are the first letters of the Hebrew alphabet (and
almost of the Greek ). The ‘Ain which, further down the alphabet,
is in the equivalent place of the Greek O (omicron – small “o”)
and the Roman O. At some time (comparatively) later, for reasons
over which the scholars differ and I am not competent to comment
upon, these letters got turned sideways on and became:
A B . . . O . . .
I am not going to weary you with any further examples – they are
to be found in libraries, and the case, I think, manifestly rests.
Vowels and Consonants
However similar these alphabets were in their origins, and in
the sounds represented, there is however one very major difference
between the original Phoenecian and Hebrew on the one hand and
the Greek and Roman on the other. Whereas the latter pair (later
and more derived) contain both vowels and consonants, the former
were originally entirely consonantal. Aleph did not, and does
not, represent the vowel A; nor He the vowel E, ‘Ain the vowel
O and so on. There were no vowels, just as there effectively are
no vowels in modern Israeli Hebrew – you just have to know or
to guess the vowel sounds.3 Not being able to write out the vowel
sounds
was not altogether satisfactory, and we can see some very early
(as well as some very late) attempts to do something about this.4
Just as in the West the letters A, E, I, O, U for the most part (in some contexts entirely)
lost their consonantal significance and became vowels, so in Hebrew
the He, the Yod and the Waw also developed – though not quite
in so systematic a manner, nor in the same way. ‘Aleph and ‘Ain
retained their consonantal values5 – though what a Westerner
makes of these is problematical. In modern transliteration an
Aleph is represented by a ‘smooth breathing’ ’, and the Ain by
a ‘rough breathing’ ‘, whereas He, Waw and Yod became used effectively as A, O/U and
E/I (Y). It would seem that at that time the Hebrews did not distinguish
much between the o and u sounds, or the i and e. All these letters,
however, at the same time retained their consonantal alternatives:
He was, equally, much as our modern H, Yod our consonantal Y,
and Waw (vav) our W.
So now we can return to:
Transliteration
St Jerome was living in Jerusalem and translating the OT from
Hebrew into Latin in the latter part of the IV cent.6 He was working
long before the Massoretes7 and would thus not be acquainted with
J U B I L
– to which Jerome added -EUS. But why did he transliterate it
at all, rather than translate it? and why did he add the -eus
to the end of it (from which the English -ee derives)? These are
not trivial questions. Their answers throw light on how he understood
it, how we since have understood it, and perhaps even how we should
go on to re-consider it and re-understand it. At this point we
can leave behind the linguistics/alphabetics and go back to the
text in which it occurs in the OT, in Leviticus – not, however
losing sight of what we have learned.
Jerome and the ‘Law of the Jubilee’
If you look it up in any normal English Concordance you will find that
‘Jubilee’ occurs 20 times in the Bible in as many verses over
two chapters of Leviticus (I am ignoring a brief, single verse,
reference back in Numbers) – and nothing more. Basically it occurs
in one solitary passage.
If in a Hebrew concordance, however, you look up yobel (YWBL)
you will find another batch, this time in Joshua. Here it is never
translated as Jubilee except by Jerome in the Vulgate (and in
those versions, e.g. the Douay, which are dependent on it.)
We will come back to this shortly, for it is rather
horribly significant, but for the moment we will concentrate on
Leviticus. The passage is well known:
Two questions should be asked, but these are not separate questions, they are interrelated and interdependent. What does the word jubilee really mean and what is the whole passage referring to? The latter is the easier to answer even if, without the first, we miss out on some of the more important aspects. Roughly speaking it is about human social justice and ‘natural justice’ (the justice for nature) and their interrelationship. It would seem at first that the meaning of jubilee is given by the text itself, but I suggest it is not. What does yobel (the actual Hebrew word) mean? It is quite simple; it means: a ram’s horn – a ram’s horn used as a musical(?) instrument – the easiest horn to blow (blast!) and make an enormous noise with.
If, however, we were to substitute “ram’s horn” for “jubilee” throughout the above passage the result would be rather peculiar and certainly less clear than ever. As the word occurs for the most part preceded by “the year of” it would look as if it were giving it a name (like the Chinese Year of the Ox, Year of the Tiger) but this is obviously not what is intended. What we should be looking for is something more like its significance rather than its original actual meaning. For Jerome “ram’s horn”, although its original meaning, was not exactly what it meant or signified. He saw that it was being used in a special sense, and so for that reason, rather than translate it he decided to transliterate it. And at the same time he added the Latin suffix which indicated a “thing to do with ...” much in the same way as we add -er or -ee or -ity to words to make further ones indicating specific related aspects/actions (e.g. employee, profundity etc.) So far so good; what Jerome did was not unreasonable, and indeed might well have been helpful. When you feel that a word is being used in a special way it is quite often more effective to transliterate than to translate. One can imagine how helpful it would have been to translate Cherubim (i.e. “those grasped”) rather than transliterating it!
It is a pity however that Jerome was not a little more sensitive
to the earlier Greek translation, the Septuagint. Jerome was a
fanatical Hebraicist and in many ways we have gained from that,9
but a look at the Greek could well
have helped him. The Septuagint translates yobel as
So the people shouted, and the trumpets were blown. As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people raised a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. Here I think it is fairly clear that the loud and strident braying of the rams’ horns is calling out for action ! And this, surely, is the meaning that jubilee should have – not only with reference to the situation at Jerico, but here and now amongst us today. I’m afraid it is at this point that Jerome clearly shows the extent to which he has missed the point. In the passage above where it states that “seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns” the hebrew is literally “seven trumpets, the rams’ horns” which Jerome translates as septem buccinas, quarum usus est in iubileo – “seven trumpets as are used in the jubilee”. This, of course, makes complete nonsense – but not to Jerome. For him Leviticus comes temporally, as well as in presentation order, before Joshua. Leviticus is set in the desert before the crossing of the Jordan, and the fall of Jericho is after that. So, for Jerome, the rite of Jubilee is already established before entry into the promised land and this odd reference here to yobelim (pl) must refer back to the earlier reference which he has already decided should best be transliterated rather than translated.11 It is lucky that the Hebrews did not go on and on using these unrefined and primitive instruments or we would have had Jubilees cropping up all over the place. It is easy for us to see, with our more sophisticated ideas of historicity, and of the composition of the Bible itself, that Jerome has seriously missed the point here. I think one might reasonably suggest that he also missed the point, or at least contributed to our missing the point, by transliterating yobel as iubileus in Leviticus. Anniversaries and Millennia The primary sense which Jubilee has in our society today is that of anniversary. Priests and monarchs celebrate their Jubilees – priests are fêted around the altar and later at the table; the Jubilee Underground line was started to commemorate the silver jubilee (25th anniversary) of Queen Elizabeth’s reign – and it may be finished (in its originally intended form) by the time the Golden Jubilee comes round. With a little bit of luck a token distribution of largesse may be made to hand picked ‘worthies’ and honorific and archaic titles distributed munificently in order to show that we still respect Holy Writ and are living in conformity with it. Anniversaries, if they both commemorate and give thanks for the past and its graces, are of course no bad thing; and an opportunity to celebrate is always welcome – but not if by their style and practice they actually distract us from what we should be doing. Perhaps it’s a little unfair on him, but I think this misunderstanding (or mis-remembering) of the purpose of the Jubilee is partially Jerome’s legacy to us as a result of his having made of it a ‘technical term’ and having turned it into an idea/thing – by adding that -ee termination. Many groups today are trying to bring alive the concept of Jubilee and make it real in the spirit of God’s Laws for, and concern for, his People, but I think it might be better straightforwardly to use rams’ horns. What we need at any rate is a cry, a loud and even raucous cry, for action. In the context of our present world the real substitute for a ram’s horn is, I suggest, the cry of the people – our cry, calling for justice particularly for example with regard to Third World debt. This is the real Jubilee, and what better time for bringing it alive than the beginning of the new millennium. We have voices – if no longer rams’ horns – let us use them!
(For a somewhat un-ram’s horn sounding bugle call, click the horn )
Notes
1.
In German it remains Isai and in the English translation (Secker & Warburg) of Thomas Mann’s
Joseph and His Brothers the translator (at first sight puzzlingly) refers to David’s Father
as Isaiah!
2.
Including Arabic would show further similarities, as well as further departures and developments.
3.
‘Pointing’ – a system designed to represent the vowel sounds (which we will return to) was not invented
until well into the Common Era and has been dropped in modern Hebrew.
4.
The Hebrew alphabet ends with Teth (T) and so, originally, did the Greek (with Tau.) Everything in the
Greek alphabet following tau (i.e. upsilon, phi, chi, psi, omega) were added later. The
phi and psi were needed as sounds, the upsilon came in as the F (diagamma
– the consonantal u, w) went out. The omega (‘great o’) came in to complement, and
distinguish it from, the omicron (‘small o’).
5.
– though what a Westerner makes of these is problematical. In modern transliteration an Aleph is represented
by a 'smooth breathing' ’ and the Ain by a 'rough breathing' ‘. It has been said that the
difference in pronunciation between the two is like the difference between the grunt of a good tempered camel
and that of an bad tempered camel! The fact that no one has ever encountered a good tempered camel probably
accounts for the fact that the Aleph is in effect entirely unpronounced!
6.
Finished AD 404.
7.
The Jewish scholars who, between the VI and X cents CE, introduced the vowel pointing system to indicate how
the original texts had (/should have) been pronounced/chanted. Massoreth means tradition.
8.
Leviticus 25:10-54; 27:18-24.
9.
Though the Protestant tradition of ignoring the 'Apochryphal Books' of the Bible, much to the detriment of their incarnational theology,
was largely due in origin to the influence of Jerome, who (together with the Rabbis at Jamnia, where the Jewish Canon was determined,
c. A.D. 100) rejected them precisely because they were not written in Hebrew.
10.
Joshua 6:4-11.
11.
The Septuagint unfortunately does not give us any help here. In this passage, where the word semasia really
would have been significant, it omits all reference to the “rams’ horns”.
|
from 
from 
from 
or yobel as
it has come down to us from them. Pronunciation would vary in different
places, but surely what could be better for genuine Hebrew than
Jerusalem (Gedanzk? Golders Green? the Bronx?) He would have known
that that first letter was a consonant and thus the second a long
o or u and would probably posit an i or an e between the third
and the fourth – just to keep it going. The first letter was thus
represented by i (much later, being consonantal, replaced by its
variant j, which only in English/French etc. still later acquired
its softening into our modern j ) and the result of the transliteration
had become:
(semasia)
which means a particular sort of sign. A sign, in the ordinary
sense, in Greek is 
, whereas 