What is a "Year of Jubilee"?
For hundreds of years, the Biblical Hebrews observed a Year of Jubilee every 49 or 50 years. It came at the end of a cycle of 7 Sabbath years which themselves came every 7th year. The year of jubilee started at the beginning of the 50th year. During this year, by law, debts were forgiven and slaves were released from bondage. The land was to lay fallow and the people were to eat the food that grew naturally and the food that had been stored from previous years for this purpose.