2.2. The System of Sabbatical Years and Its Theocratic-Economic Significance. The Sabbatical Year and Its Agronomic and Social Significance. The Rest of the Land and the Unfoundedness of the Supposed Economic Difficulties. The Jubilee Year. The Socio-Economic Significance of Its Institution

The system of sabbatical years has the greatest theocratic-economic significance in the system of Mosaic legislation. Based on the general significance in the Old Testament worldview of the “sabbath” as a day of rest from activity in remembrance of the completion of Jehovah’s creative activity and as a day of attesting to the “goodness” of creation, the system of sabbatical years had as its highest purpose to serve as a periodically regular point of return of social relations—which in their development had deviated from the norm—to their original state. It was, so to speak, called to serve as a regenerating force, bringing disordered human relations back to the norm in which they had been placed at their initial establishment and from which they had deviated under the influence of natural-historical conditions. This system is without parallel in world history, and its institution was possible only in a theocratic state, where the theocratic principle—the principle of the highest idea of justice—prevailed over the principles of sinful, natural-historical conditions that wholly suppressed the development of the remaining, non-covenantal humanity. The system of sabbatical years consisted of a double gradation which, beginning with the seventh year, concluded with the fiftieth—which completed the week of seventh years (7×7) and served as the dividing point after which a new week of seventh years began. Every seventh year bears the name “sabbatical year,” and every fiftieth the name “jubilee year.”

The chief provision of Mosaic legislation regarding the sabbatical year is the requirement of rest for the land. “The land is to observe a sabbath to the Lord. For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather its fruit, but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard” (Lev. 25:2–4). The theocratic significance of this law was indicated above: it is determined by the general significance of the sabbath, and in relation to the land is expressed in the restoration of that wholeness, that virginal freshness (if one may so express it) which it had at the time of creation (in relation to the Israelites, at the time of the distribution of the land) but of which it had been deprived during the course of cultivation and depletion. But with the theocratic significance of the sabbatical year many other meanings were associated, of a social-economic character. Thus the rest of the land, recurring periodically, had in agronomic terms the significance of a fallow, of soil enrichment. Fertilization of the soil (in the proper sense) was unknown in antiquity. Therefore, leaving the land at rest—given the considerable development of livestock farming, which provided natural material for soil enrichment (since the herds could remain in the fields throughout this entire year)—served as the best means of restoring the depleted vegetative force of the earth. Still more important and characteristic, in relation to the general view of Mosaic legislation on land and property, is the other law concerning the sabbatical year, or more precisely, the supplement to the first law on the rest of the land. Having forbidden the cultivation of the land and the sowing of seed in the seventh year, the law continues: “Whatever the land produces of itself in that year you shall not reap, and the grapes of your undressed vine you shall not gather, for it is a year of solemn rest for the land. The sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired servant and the sojourner who lives with you, and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: all its yield shall be for food” (Lev. 25:5–7). By this law all the produce of the land, grown without artificial care, is made available for common use to all who have need of it—even to those who in ordinary times, restricted by the conditions of property rights, have no right to benefit from it without the permission of the owner or proprietor. The theocratic significance of this law consists in the fact that through it there was as it were restored that period of human life when people—not yet corrupted by sin and not infected by narrow egotistical instincts that isolate a person within the sphere of personal interests, often obscuring even the consciousness of universal human brotherhood, and not yet divided into classes by birth and estate—lived a common life and enjoyed the goods of nature on terms of complete equality. From this theocratic significance of the law its social significance is also clear. In making private property available for common use, the law achieved thereby a twofold benefit in both the social-economic and the social-moral respect. Natural-historical conditions—however much they were suppressed and their effects regulated by the theocratic principle—rapidly led to an uneven distribution of material goods and little by little brought about the separation of rich from poor, producing social-economic inequality with all its calamities. The law under consideration smoothed over to some extent the inequality that had arisen. By abolishing for an entire year the right of exclusive enjoyment of the fruits of the land by the owners, and by granting the use of them to all who had need of them—making them common property—the law thereby deprived wealthy proprietors of the possibility of accumulating wealth upon wealth during the course of an entire year (which was, of course, incomparably more convenient and easy for them, possessing as they did significant numbers of workers and land plots, than for the poor). Meanwhile the poor and all those disinherited in the harsh struggle of life, who had been compelled to sell their land plots to the wealthy, could now freely enjoy the produce of all the fields and vineyards. This thought is clearly expressed in another form of the same law: “But in the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat”—and the law adds—“and what they leave the wild beasts may eat”—who, as is well known, are also frequently deprived, by human greed, of the food appointed for them by nature. “You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard” (Exod. 23:11). In the social-moral respect this law had the beneficial effect that making the fruits available for common use helped to sustain and arouse the consciousness of human brotherhood, so often obscured by the inequality that had developed in position and estate, and prevented the strong development of narrow, self-seeking selfishness, which isolates a person from all noble impulses of benevolence into the sphere of personal interests.

Such is the theocratic and social significance of the law concerning the sabbatical year that we are examining. But the question arises: could this law—which forbids the cultivation of the land and the sowing of grain in the seventh year (Lev. 25:20)—not give rise to economic difficulties? In other words, could Palestinian soil without cultivation and sowing produce enough products to suffice for feeding the people? This is a serious question, and many investigators have dwelt upon it. For us it has all the greater significance in that the theory of the social significance of the law on the sabbatical year, set out above, acquires its full force only with an affirmative answer to the question—that is, that Palestinian soil could produce sufficient products without cultivation and sowing.

Michaelis, in order to avoid the difficulties presented by the law, constructed an entire theory according to which the law on the sabbatical year supposedly had a people-educating significance aimed at accustoming the people to saving for the case of a famine year. “Contemplation of the difficulties [that might arise from the law on the rest of the land],” says Michaelis, “led me to the idea that this is a very wise law and had the aim of conservation, of stockpiling grain, in order to secure the people against the eventuality of famine. Moses might have learned the great benefit of storing grain from Egypt, where Joseph provided an example of such storage which, in all probability, the Egyptians imitated over the course of many centuries. Hence it is quite probable that he sought to introduce this salutary measure—conservation—among his own people as well.” In confirmation of his thought, Michaelis “cannot free himself from the supposition” that the text in which Jehovah promises to send his blessing upon the people in the sixth year (Lev. 25:21) originally read not “in the sixth year” but “in six years.” Saalschütz in part adheres to this same idea in its general form. “Although the textual emendation proposed by Michaelis cannot be accepted,” he says, “a similar meaning can nonetheless be derived from the text. It cannot be understood as though God’s blessing would be sent down only in the sixth year, but rather that this year, just as fruitful as previous years, would only replenish the earlier store to such an extent that it would last for three years.” Ehler in part holds a similar view. Without entering into a detailed analysis of the aforementioned suppositions about a store from previous years—suppositions not warranted by the direct meaning of the text—and without denying that surpluses from previous years may have remained, we shall turn to a simpler resolution of the question, one that explains the matter on the basis of the direct meaning of the text and the historical-geographical data concerning the peculiarities of Palestine.

Forbidding sowing, the law nevertheless speaks of the enjoyment of the produce and fruits of the land—and in such significant quantities that, after providing for the owners with all their household members, their workers, and their livestock, and after providing for the poor and sojourners who evidently have no fields of their own and would therefore be expected to benefit from the same fields of the propertied owners, the law still presupposes surpluses (Exod. 23:11), which are assigned as food for the wild beasts. Clearly the law presupposes a good harvest without sowing—and the historical-geographical data fully confirm this supposition. It is well known that biblical, classical, and generally ancient writers who wrote about Palestine unanimously—with the exception of Strabo, who knew little of Palestine—speak with admiration of its climatic conditions and extraordinary fertility. This, in Jehovah’s expression, is “a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exod. 3:8), “the glory of all lands” (Ezek. 20:6), “a good land,” according to Moses’s description, “of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing” (Deut. 8:7–9). With equally vivid colors do Tacitus, Ammianus Marcellinus, Josephus, Justin Philosopher, and others depict the fertility of Palestine. Such testimonies of the ancients are confirmed also by more recent investigators and travelers. Thus Graetz observes: “True, the land that once flowed with milk and honey has changed—the eye everywhere sees desolation. But even now, wherever the human hand cultivates the soil, extraordinary fertility appears.” If one takes into account such luxuriance and fertility of the promised land, there is nothing surprising in the fact that even without artificial sowing rich fields grew solely from grain that had accidentally fallen—the quantity of which is greater the more abundant the harvest. And such a phenomenon is not without parallel: according to Strabo’s testimony, in Albania one could gather two or three harvests from a single sowing. In Numidia ordinary harvests grew the following summer from grain that had fallen, and in Hyrcania, where there was properly no regular agriculture at all, grain was produced from seed that had fallen during harvest. The probability of this phenomenon in Palestine is even greater if one takes into account the law forbidding harvesting to the very edge of the field and gathering what remained (Lev. 19:9; 23:22). Under such conditions the harvest could be significant even without sowing, not to mention gardens and vineyards, which can bear fruit without care even in lands less fertile than Palestine. But in explaining the natural possibility of a harvest without sowing, we thereby do not exclude here the special action of “the blessing of God,” which Jehovah himself promised for the sixth year. On the contrary, it seems to us that even the particular fear of difficulties that might arise from the law on the rest of the land—which led the learned investigators mentioned by us to resort to various theories and forced interpretations (Michaelis)—arose from a one-sided, narrowly naturalistic view of the subject that ignores or even entirely excludes the miraculous element in the fate of the chosen people. This is all the more necessary to say with respect to the jubilee year, where, due to the occurrence of two consecutive years of land rest, the naturalistic theory falls into even greater confusion—but where, for that very reason, the miraculous element stands out all the more plainly.

The jubilee year constitutes the highest degree in the unfolding of the idea of the sabbath and the further gradation in the sabbatical system under Moses’s laws on land and property. “You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you” (Lev. 25:8–11). If one follows the literal meaning of the text of this law, there can be no question as to when this year was observed. The direct, literal meaning of the law is that the jubilee was appointed for the fiftieth year, after a consecutive series of seven weeks of years, and was distinguished from the seventh sabbatical year. But with such an understanding the possibility arises of even greater economic difficulty than that which presents itself in the law on the sabbatical year, since one would then have to admit that the land remained uncultivated for two consecutive years. Finding it difficult to reconcile such an understanding with legislative wisdom, some learned investigators argue that the jubilee could only have been in the forty-ninth year—that is, it was nothing other than the seventh sabbatical year, as the concluding point of the entire sabbatical cycle. To reconcile this view with the text, it is usually supposed that the sabbatical year began in spring and the jubilee year in autumn, with its other half overlapping the first half of the first year (the fiftieth) of the new sabbatical period, which is why it is called in the text the fiftieth in distinction from the seventh sabbatical year. But, leaving aside the fact that such a supposition and explanation rests on an artificial interpretation of the text not justified by its direct meaning, it introduces confusion into chronology by presupposing a dual system in relation to two years of one sabbatical system. Moreover, antiquity—apart from some later scholars—does not favor this opinion. Philo and Josephus clearly speak of the jubilee year as the fiftieth. The chief motive for this forced explanation lies, as stated above, in the fear of economic difficulties arising from leaving the fields uncultivated and unsown for two consecutive years. The naturalistic tendency of this theory was indicated above, and its untenable character was shown there as well. Here we shall only supplement the argument by indicating the reasons for the untenable character of such a theory in its particular application to the jubilee year. The fear of the possible occurrence of economic difficulties, under the full rule of ordinary economic conditions, is itself anticipated by the lawgiver (Lev. 25:20), but is by him also removed: “And if you say, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years” (Lev. 25:20–21). Therefore, here, beyond the natural resources of Palestine we examined above for removing economic difficulties, the theocratic principle receives its full significance—a principle whose essence includes, among other things, the subordination of natural conditions to a higher guiding authority. The preponderance of such an authority, understandable even in the institution of the sabbatical year, becomes even necessary in the institution of the jubilee year, which in the grandeur of its aims is an entirely unparalleled phenomenon in history.

The essence of Mosaic legislation regarding the jubilee year consists in the requirement of restoring the order of things that was established at the distribution of the land for possession by the Israelites, and from which it had deviated in its development under the influence of natural-historical conditions.

And since this order consisted in the proportional distribution of land for possession and in the personal freedom of every member of the theocratic state, its restoration was to consist in the return of landed property and personal freedom to those who had been deprived of them in the harsh struggle of life over the course of the fifty-year period. “In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property” and “until the year of jubilee he shall serve [your brother] with you, and then he shall leave you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his ancestors” (Lev. 25:13; 40–41). In these few words the essence of the laws concerning the jubilee year is expressed, and from them the great significance of these laws in the theocratic and social respect is also evident. According to the meaning of this law, the jubilee year was to serve as the appointed time at which the once-established order of social-economic relations—an order whose foundational principle was equality—was again restored to its former state. The sabbatical year had as its purpose the restoration of the land alone to its former state, while the jubilee year embraced both land and people. “The specific significance of the jubilee year, in distinction from the sabbatical year, lies in the idea of salvific restoration and the return of the theocracy to the primordial divine order, in which all are free and the earthly well-being of each is secured. God, who once delivered his people from Egyptian slavery and took them as his own possession, now appears again as Savior, to restore the personal freedom of those who have fallen into slavery and to return to the impoverished their due share of participation in the goods of the earth, of which they had been deprived.” In the social respect, the institution of the jubilee year had as its task to counteract and abolish those abnormalities that are inevitable in the life of human society in the course of its ordinary social-economic development left to itself. In this respect the institution of the jubilee year presents, as Saalschütz expresses it, a felicitous solution to the problem over which the legislators of various peoples have labored. It was already stated in what this universal problem consists: it consists in achieving such a regulation of human relations under which the emergence or at least the strong development of the social evil of an extremely uneven distribution of material goods—excessive wealth on the one side and extreme poverty on the other—would be impossible. The institution of the jubilee year achieved this aim as far as possible. The fifty-year period, while granting the owner considerable freedom in the management of his property, at the same time limited this freedom by laying upon it the necessary bounds beyond which it would serve to the detriment of the owner himself, exposing him to all the contingencies and dangers of permanently losing his holding. Only this institution served as a reliable means of counteracting such an evil and was specifically designed to prevent the division of the people into different classes by estate—into a wealthy nobility and poor laborers—and to constantly maintain equality among them as free landowners.