[315:1] Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. xxxix. p. 455.
CHAPTER V
THE SABBATIC YEAR AND THE JUBILEE
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.
