The principle of the week with its sabbath of rest was carried partially into the month, and completely into the year. The seventh month of the year was marked out pre-eminently by the threefold character of its services, though every seventh month was not distinguished. But the weekly sabbath was expressed not only in days but in years, and was one both of rest and of release.

The sabbath of years was first enjoined from Mount Sinai, in the third month after the departure from Egypt, certainly within a day or so, if not on the actual day, of the second great feast of the year, variously known to the Hebrews as the Feast of Firstfruits, or the Feast of Weeks, and to us as Pentecost, that is Whitsuntide. It is most shortly given in Exod. xxi. 2, and xxiii. 10, 11:—

“If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.”

“Six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof: but the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard.”

These laws are given at greater length and with fuller explanation in the twenty-fifth chapter of the Book of Leviticus. In addition there is given a promise of blessing for the fulfilment of the laws, and, in the twenty-sixth chapter, a sign to follow on their breach.

“If ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase: then I will command My blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year: until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store.”

“Ye shall keep My sabbaths . . . and if ye walk contrary unto Me . . . I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.”

In the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy this sabbatic year is called a year of release. The specific injunctions here relate to loans made to a Hebrew and to a foreigner, and to the taking of a Hebrew into bondage. The laws as to loans had direct reference to the sabbath of the land, for since only Hebrews might possess the Holy Land, interest on a debt might not be exacted from a Hebrew in the sabbatic year, as the land did not then yield him wherewith he might pay. But loans to foreigners would be necessarily for commercial, not agricultural, purposes, and since commerce was not interdicted in the sabbatic year, interest on loans to foreigners might be exacted. Warning was given that the loans to a poor Hebrew should not be withheld because the sabbatic year was close at hand. The rules with respect to the Hebrew sold for debt into bondage are the same as those given in the Book of the Exodus.

In Deuteronomy it was also enjoined that—

“at the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the Feast of Tabernacles” (that is, in the feast of the seventh month), “when all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which He shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing.”

We find no more mention of the sabbatic year until the reign of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah. He had made a covenant with all the people which were at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty unto them, that every Hebrew bondservant should go free, but the princes and all the people caused their Hebrew bondservants to return and be in subjection to them. Then Jeremiah the prophet was sent to remind them of the covenant made with their fathers when they were brought out from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondmen; and in the Second Book of Chronicles it is said that the sign of the breaking of this covenant, already quoted from the Book of Leviticus, was being accomplished. The Captivity was—

“to fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil three-score and ten years.”

After the exile, we find one reference to the sabbatic year in the covenant sealed by the princes, Levites, and priests and people, in the Book of Nehemiah:—

“That we would leave the seventh year, and the exaction of every debt.”

Just as the Feast of Weeks was bound to the Feast of the Passover by numbering seven sabbaths from the day of the wave-offering—“even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days:"—so the year of Jubilee was bound to the sabbatic year:—

“Thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the Jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a Jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.”

In this year of Jubilee all land, and village houses, and the houses of the Levites were to revert to their original owners. These, in other words, could be leased only, and not bought outright, the price of the lease depending upon the number of years until the next Jubilee. A foreigner might not buy a Hebrew outright as a bondslave; he could but contract with him as a servant hired for a term; this contract might be abolished by the payment of a sum dependent on the number of years until the next year of Jubilee, and in any case the Hebrew servant and his family must go out free at the year of Jubilee. In the last chapter of the Book of Numbers we get a reference again to the year of Jubilee, and indirect allusions to it are made by Isaiah, in “the acceptable year of the Lord” when liberty should be proclaimed, and in “the year of the redeemed.” In his prophecy of the restoration of Israel, Ezekiel definitely refers to “the year of liberty,” when the inheritance that has been granted to a servant shall return again to the prince.

The interpretation of the sabbatic year and the year of Jubilee has greatly exercised commentators. At what season did the sabbatic year begin? was it coterminous with the ecclesiastical year; or did it differ from it by six months? Was the year of Jubilee held once in every forty-nine years or once in every fifty? did it begin at the same season as the sabbatic year? did it interrupt the reckoning of the sabbatic year, so that a new cycle commenced immediately after the year of Jubilee; or was the sabbatic year every seventh, irrespective of the year of Jubilee? did the year of Jubilee always follow immediately on a sabbatic year, or did this only happen occasionally?

The problem will be much simpler if it is borne in mind that the Law, as originally proclaimed, was eminently practical and for practical men. The period of pedantry, of hair-splitting, of slavery to mere technicalities, came very late in Jewish history.

It is clear from what has been already said in the chapter on the year, that the only calendar year in the Old Testament was the sacred one, beginning with the month Abib or Nisan, in the spring. At the same time the Jews, like ourselves, would occasionally refer vaguely to the beginning, or the end, or the course of the year, without meaning to set up any hard and fast connection with the authorized calendar.

Now it is perfectly clear that the sabbatic year cannot have begun with the first day of the month Abib, because the first fruits were offered on the fifteenth of that month. That being so, the ploughing and the sowing must have taken place very considerably earlier. It is not possible to suppose that the Hebrew farmer would plough and sow his land in the last months of the previous year, knowing that he could not reap during the sabbatic year.

Similarly, it seems hardly likely that it was considered as beginning with the first of Tishri, inasmuch as the harvest festival, the Feast of the Ingathering, or Tabernacles, took place in the middle of that month. The plain and practical explanation is that, after the Feast of Tabernacles of the sixth year, the farmer would not again plough, sow, or reap his land until after the Feast of Tabernacles in the sabbatic year. The sabbatic year, in other words, was a simple agricultural year, and it did not correspond exactly with the ecclesiastical or with any calendar year.

For practical purposes the sabbatic year therefore ended with the close of the Feast of Tabernacles, when the Law was read before the whole people according to the command of Moses; and it practically began a year earlier.

The year of Jubilee appears in the directions of Lev. xxv. to have been most distinctly linked to the sabbatic year.

“The space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years, . . . and ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a Jubile unto you.”

It would seem, therefore, that just as the week of days ran on continuously, uninterrupted by any feasts or fasts, so the week of years ran on continuously. And as the Feast of Pentecost was the 49th day from the offering of the first-fruits on the morrow of the Passover, so the Jubilee was the 49th year from the “morrow” of a sabbatic year; it followed immediately after a sabbatic year. The Jubilee was thus the 49th year from the previous Jubilee; it was the 50th from the particular sabbatic year from which the original reckoning was made.

Actually the year of Jubilee began before the sabbatic year was completed, because the trumpet of the Jubilee was to be blown upon the Day of Atonement, the 10th day of the seventh month—that is to say, whilst the sabbatic year was yet in progress. Indeed, literally speaking, this trumpet, “loud of sound,” blown on the 10th day of the seventh month, was the Jubilee, that is to say, the sound of rejoicing, the joyful sound. A difficulty comes in here. The Israelites were commanded—

“Ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. For it is the Jubile; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field.”

This would appear to mean that the Jubilee extended over a whole year following a sabbatic year, so that the land lay fallow for two consecutive years. But this seems negatived by two considerations. It is expressly laid down in the same chapter (Lev. xxv. 22) that the Israelites were to sow in the eighth year—that is to say, in the year after a sabbatic year, and the year of Jubilee would be always a year of this character. Further, if the next sabbatic year was the seventh after the one preceding the Jubilee, then the land would be tilled for only five consecutive years, not for six, though this is expressly commanded in Lev. xxv. 3. If, on the contrary, it was tilled for six years, then the run of the sabbatic years would be interrupted.

The explanation of this difficulty may possibly be found in the fact that that which distinguished the year of Jubilee was something which did not run through the whole circuit of the seasons. The land in that year was to return to its original owners. The freehold of the land was never sold; the land was inalienable, and in the year of Jubilee it reverted. “In the year of this Jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession.”

It is quite clear that it could not have been left to the caprice of the owners of property as to when this transfer took place, or as to when such Hebrews as had fallen through poverty into slavery should be liberated. If the time were made optional, grasping men would put it off till the end of the year, and sooner or later that would be the general rule. There can be no doubt that the blowing of the trumpet on the 10th day of the seventh month was the proclamation of liberty throughout all the land and to all the inhabitants thereof; and that the transfer of the land must have taken place at the same time. The slave would return to the possession of his ancestors in time to keep, as a freeman, the Feast of Tabernacles on his own land. The four days between the great day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles were sufficient for this change to be carried out.

The term “Year of Jubilee” is therefore not to be taken as signifying that the events of the Jubilee were spread over twelve months, but simply, that it was the year in which the restoration of the Jubilee was accomplished. We speak of the king’s “coronation year,” though his coronation took place on but a single day, and the meaning that we should attach to the phrase would depend upon the particular sense in which we were using the word “year.” Whilst, therefore, the Jubilee itself was strictly defined by the blowing of trumpets on the 10th day of the seventh month, it would be perfectly correct to give the title, “year of Jubilee,” to any year, no matter in what season it commenced, that contained the day of that proclamation of liberty. It is also correct to say that it was the fiftieth year because it was placed at the very end of the forty-ninth year.

The difficulty still remains as to the meaning of the prohibition to sow or reap in the year of Jubilee. The command certainly reads as if the land was to lie fallow for two consecutive years; but it would seem an impracticable arrangement that the poor man returning to his inheritance should be forbidden to plough or sow until more than a twelvemonth had elapsed, and hence that he should be forbidden to reap until nearly two full years had run their course. It also, as already stated, seems directly contrary to the command to sow in the eighth year, which would also be the fiftieth. It may therefore be meant simply to emphasize the prohibition to sow and reap in the sabbatic year immediately preceding the Jubilee. The temptation would be great to a grasping man to get the most he could out of the land before parting with it for ever.

In spite of the strong array of commentators who claim that the Jubilees were to be held every fifty years as we moderns should compute it, there can be no doubt but that they followed each other at the same interval as every seventh sabbatic year; in other words, that they were held every 49 years. This is confirmed by an astronomical consideration. Forty-nine years make a convenient luni-solar cycle, reconciling the lunar month and the tropical solar year. Though not so good as the Metonic cycle of 19 years, it is quite a practical one, as the following table will show:—

3 years = 1095·73 days : 37 months = 1092·63 days 8 " = 2921·94 " : 99 " = 2923·53 " 11 " = 4017·66 " : 136 " = 4016·16 " 19 " = 6939·60 " : 235 " = 6939·69 " 49 " = 17896·87 " : 606 " = 17895·54 " 60 " = 21914·53 " : 742 " = 21911·70 " The cycle of 49 years would therefore be amply good enough to guide the priestly authorities in drawing up their calendar in cases where there was some ambiguity due to the interruption of observations of the moon, and this was all that could be needed so long as the nation of Israel remained in its own land.

The cycle of 8 years is added above, since it has been stated that the Jews of Alexandria adopted this at one time from the Greeks. This was not so good as the cycle of 11 years would have been, and not to be compared with the combination of the two cycles in that of 19 years ascribed to Meton. The latter cycle was adopted by the Babylonian Jews, and forms the basis of the Jewish calendar in use to-day.