ct between their own countrymen and foreigners: and he ordained,
that they should do the same after seven times seven years, which in
all are fifty years; and that fiftieth year is called by the Hebrews 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 as to the Levites, they
were holy, and free from all such burdens. Now when the people had been
numbered, there were found six hundred thousand that were able to go
to war, from twenty to fifty years of age, besides three thousand six
hundred and fifty. Instead of Levi, Moses took Manasseh, the son of
Joseph, among the heads of tribes; and Ephraim instead of Joseph. It was
indeed the desire of Jacob himself to Joseph, that he would give him hi