CHAPTER IX. OF THE SABBATICAL YEAR, OR SEVENTH YEAR'S AMONG the πτωχα στοιχεία, or beggarly elements of the Jewish dispensation, the apostle mentions days, and months, and times, and years, Gal. iv. 9, 10. For besides the weekly sabbath, or days of rest, the law prescribed the observance of the monthly new moons, and annual festival seasons, such as the passover, pentecost, feast of tabernacles, &c., which are the kapo, or times, to which the apostle refers; and likewise whole years, to be observed with peculiar regard after certain returning periods, such as every seventh year, called the sabbatical year: and every seven times seventh, styled the jubilee. שנה השבעית It is sometimes called It is the former which falls under our present consideration;* and in the law of Moses it is distinguished from all others by several names. shanah hashebingnith, the seventh year, Kar' oxη; sometimes nav sabbath haarets, the sabbath, or rest of the land; and sometimes mo shemittah Laihovah, the release of the Lord. The peculiar observances of this year were the four following: 1st. A total cessation from all manner of agriculture. 2dly. Leaving all the spontaneous product of the ground to be used and enjoyed in common; so that no person was to claim any peculiar property. 3dly. The remission of all debts from one Israelite to another. 4thly. The public reading of the law at the feast of tabernacles. * The institution of the sabbatical year is in Exod. xxiii. 10, 11; Lev. xxv. 2-7; Deut. xv. 1-18; and xxxi. 10-13. Before we consider these several particulars, there are two chronological questions to be briefly discussed: 1st. From whence the computation of the sabbatical year commenced; and, 2dly. At what season of the year it began. 1st. It is made a question, from whence the computation of the sabbatical year commenced, or how soon it began to be observed by the Jews. In the general, it was when they came into the land of Canaan. For they received this command, while they were yet in the wilderness, "When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath to the Lord;" Lev. xxv. 2. Nevertheless, it is far from being settled what year after their entrance into Canaan was observed as their first sabbatical year. Archbishop Usher* determines it to be the seventh year after the manna ceased, from which time the Israelites lived upon the fruits of the land of Canaan, Josh. v. 12; and six years being taken up in the conquest and division of the land, the seventh proved in all respects a year of rest, when they peaceably enjoyed the fruits of their victories, and of the country they had subdued. Nevertheless, others observing that the sabbatical year is enjoined to be observed after six years of agriculture,—“ Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; but in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land,” Lev. xxv. 3, 4; I say others for this reason conceive it more probable, that the six years preceding the sabbatical year did not commence till after the conquest and division of the land. For it is not to be supposed, that they could apply themselves to agriculture till they had actually conquered it, or that they would do it till each man's property was assigned him. Now the year in which Joshua divided the land may be thus computed Caleb was forty years old when Moses sent him from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, Josh. xiv. 7; and this was in the autumn of the second year from their exodos, or at the season when the grapes, pomegranates, and figs were ripe, of which the spies brought a sample with them; Numb. xiii. 23. But Caleb was eighty-five years old at the time of the division of the land, Josh. xiv. 10; it was, therefore, forty-five years Usser. Annales, A. M. 2554. since he went as a spy; to which adding one year and a half before elapsed between that time and the exodos, and the division of the land will appear to have been made in the fortyseventh year of their departure from Egypt; from which subtracting forty years, the time of their wandering in the wilderness, Numb. xiv. 33, 34, and there remain six years and an half from their entrance into Canaan to the division of the land, which was completed the latter end of the summer; insomuch that every man's property was assigned him against the ensuing seed time, with which began the six years that preceded the first sabbatical year. Probably, therefore, the first sabbatical year was not kept till the fourteenth year from their entrance into Canaan.* 2dly. The other chronological question is, at what season the sabbatical year began, whether with the month Nisan in the spring, or Tisri in autumn; or, in other words, whether the sabbatical year was reckoned by the ecclesiastic or civil computation. This question, though not expressly determined by the Mosaic law, is, I apprehend, not very difficult to be decided. That the sabbatical year followed the civil computation, beginning with the month Tisri, may be strongly inferred from a passage in the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus, ver. 3, 4, where they are commanded to "sow their fields and prune their vineyards, and gather the fruit thereof, for six years successively, and to let the land rest," or lie fallow, "on the seventh." Doubtless, therefore, the seventh, or sabbatical year, began after the harvest and fruits were gathered in, and against the usual season of ploughing and sowing. It must then have begun in autumn;† for had it begun with the month Nisan, they must have lost a crop of the last year's sowing, as well as have neglected the seed time for the next year; which is inconsistent with the law in the twenty-third of Exodus, ver. 10, "Six years shalt thou sow thy land, and gather in the fruits thereof." We proceed to consider the particular observances of the sabbatical year. The First is, The total cessation from all manner of agriculture: Maimon. de Anno Sabbatico et Jubilæo, cap. x. sect. ii. + Mishn. Rosh Hashanah, cap. i. sect. i. p. 300, tom. ii. "Thon that neither wow thy iei, acr prime thy vineyard;" Lev. n. If the asked, what they were to live upon durmg this year, the answer is. Lat. They were allowed to eat whatever the hand and fruittrees produced spontaneously, without ploughing and pruning; only the proprietors of the ground and trees were not to look apon the product of that year as peculiarly their own, but all was to be in common; as will be showed under another head. Now some crop would rise this year from the corn shed in the last harvest, and from what was scattered in winnowing, which they performed abroad in the fields. But, 21.y. The question is best answered by God himself: “I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years," ver. 21: that is, for part of the sixth, the whole seventh, and part of the eighth, till harvest come, reckoning the years to begin with Nisan. Thus one whole year and part of two others were called three years; as one whole day and part of two others, during which our Saviour laid in the sepulchre, are termed three days and three nights, Matt. xii. 40), τρεις ημερας και τρεις νυκτας, which is a Hebraism of the same import with the Greek word vunupa, or three natural days.* This divine promise of an extraordinary blessing on the sixth year is doubtless to be understood conditionally, on supposition of their obedience to the law of God. When therefore they became neglectful on this head, and frequently revolted to idolatry, it is reasonable to suppose God, in a great measure at least, withheld that extraordinary blessing. Whereupon, as one sin frequently leads to another, they also frequently neglected the observance of the sabbatical year. And on that account, as Mr. Mede observes, the Lord, agreeably to what he had foretold and threatened (Lev. xxvi. 34, compared with 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21), caused them to be carried captive, and the land to be waste for seventy years, without inhabitant, till it had fulfilled the years of sabbath which they observed not. For their idolatry he gave them into the hand of their enemies, the Gentiles; and moreover, for their sab See Reland. Antiq. part iv. cap. i. sect. xx. xxi. p. 442-444, 3d edit.; Kidder's Demonstration of the Messias, part i. chap. viii. p. 104; part ii. chap. iii. p. 61-64, 2d edit. fol. London, 1726. batical sacrilege, he caused them not only to be made captives, but carried away into a strange country, and their land lay desolate for seventy years.* This making profit of their land on the sabbatical year, as well as not remitting debts upon that year, as the law enjoined them, was "the iniquity of their covetousness, for which the Lord was wroth with them, and smote them;" Isa. lvii. 17. Indeed, after they had been thus chastised for their disobedience, they grew superstitiously scrupulous, rather than religiously obedient, in observing the sabbatical year. Nevertheless, it does not appear God ever renewed the extraordinary blessing on the sixth year, which he first promised them, and they had shamefully forfeited. So that in after-ages the sabbatical year was always a year of scarcity. Hence, when Alexander the Great, by a wonderful providence, was diverted from his purpose of destroying Jerusalem, and, on the contrary, became most kindly disposed toward the Jews, bidding them ask what they had to desire of him; they petitioned for an exemption every seventh year from paying tribute, because, according to their law, they then neither sowed nor reaped. Hence also our Saviour, forewarning his disciples of the approaching calamities of Jerusalem and Judea, whereby they would be obliged to quit their habitations and their country, advises them to pray that their flight might not be in the winter, nor ev σaßßarw, Matt. xxiv. 20, which is most naturally to be understood of the sabbatical year; when provisions being scarce, would make it doubly inconvenient to be forced to travel and sojourn among strangers. Secondly, Another observance, belonging to the sabbatical year, was leaving the spontaneous product of the fields and fruit-trees to be used and enjoyed in common; so that no persons were to claim any peculiar property in them. For, although the product of this year was to be for the poor and the beast of the field, Exod. xxiii. 11, yet the proprietors of the fields and vineyards were not excluded from sharing it in common with others; as appears from the following passage: The sabbath of the land shall be meat for you, for thee and * Mede's Diatrib. discourse xxvii. p. 123, of his Works. ↑ Joseph. Antiq. lib. xi. cap. viii.; or Prideaux's Connect. part i. book vii. sub A, ante Christ. 332. |