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.

4. Now when this settlement of laws seemed to be well over, Moses
thought fit at length to take a review of the host, as thinking
it proper to settle the affairs of war. So he charged the heads
of the tribes, excepting the tribe of Levi, to take an exact
account of the number of those that were able to go to war; for