Leviticus is the biblical book quoted on the Liberty Bell, a symbol featured in America250 events.
The bell carries the inscription “Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof.” The wording comes from Leviticus 25:10 in the King James Bible. The verse concerns the Jubilee year in ancient Israel, when liberty and the return of ancestral property were proclaimed.
The Pennsylvania Assembly ordered the bell in 1751 for the State House, now Independence Hall. It was cast in London and recast in Philadelphia after the first casting produced an unsatisfactory tone. The bell later became associated with American independence, although there is no evidence that it rang on July 4, 1776.
The famous crack appeared during the nineteenth century, and the bell is now preserved at the Liberty Bell Center in Philadelphia. Its inscription explains its connection with liberty, not with the Declaration’s exact wording.