Sabbatical Year

SABBATICAL YEAR. - The last of a week of years, among the Hebrews. In Ex. 23:10 ff. it is prescribed that in such a period the land was to be left to an absolute rest. Whatever had been produced spontaneously by the soil was to be left for the poor and for the livestock.

The law is repeated in Lev. 25:7-7 with a small variant: the spontaneous fruits could be consumed by anyone, even by the owner and the stranger, not only by the poor and the beasts. In Deut. 15:1-11, on the other hand, the seventh year is spoken of as a period of remission and general cancellation of debts. Only the foreign debtor was excluded from this generous privilege. The legislator insists on pointing out the social importance of the provision and warns that any malicious evasion would have drawn down divine malediction.

Such a law appears more idealistic than practical. It was intended to affirm God's dominion over the soil, which was to rest in His honor, and a complete equality among men, who at least for one year would have had the same right of access to the means necessary for life. But its observance, perhaps because it appeared impossible, was completely neglected, at least before the exile (cf. Lev. 26:34, 35, 43; Neh. 10:31). For a more recent era there are some documentary attestations concerning its observance, but always with emphasis on the practical difficulties that resulted from it (cf. 1 Macc. 6:49, 53; Flavius Josephus, Antiq. Jud., XI, 343; XV, 7).

Angelo Penna