Just as the seventh day was observed as a day of rest, so the OT regarded every seventh year as a sabbath year, to be set aside for rest.
The sabbath year
As a time for leaving fields fallow
Exodus 23:10–11 See also Leviticus 25:4, Leviticus 26:34; Nehemiah 10:31 An important feature was the opportunity for the poor to benefit from unharvested fields.
For six years you are to sow your land and gather its produce, but in the seventh year you must let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor among your people may eat from the field and the wild animals may consume what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and olive grove.
As a time for cancelling debts
Deuteronomy 15:1 See also Deuteronomy 15:9, Deuteronomy 31:10; Nehemiah 10:31
At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts.
As a time for freeing slaves
Deuteronomy 15:12 See also Jeremiah 34:14
If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you must set him free.
The Year of Jubilee as seven Sabbaths
And you shall count off seven Sabbaths of years — seven times seven years — so that the seven Sabbaths of years amount to forty-nine years. Then you are to sound the horn far and wide on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement. You shall sound it throughout your land. So you are to consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be your Jubilee, when each of you is to return to his property and to his clan. The fiftieth year will be a Jubilee for you; you are not to sow the land or reap its aftergrowth or harvest the untended vines. For it is a Jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You may eat only the crops taken directly from the field.
Related themes
Dictionary of Bible Themes © 1999 Martin Manser, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, via Bible Aquifer. Formatted for this site, with Scripture from the Berean Standard Bible.