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Sabbatical year

Hebrew שְׁמִטָּה. Literally "a release". Also called Shemitah, Year of release.

Every seventh year the land rests, and debts are let go.

A Sabbath for the ground: every seventh year no sowing, no pruning, and whatever grows of itself is left for the poor and for wild animals. Debts between Israelites are released in the same year. Chronicles reads the seventy years of exile as the land finally taking the sabbaths it had been denied, which is a striking way to account for a national catastrophe.

Seven sabbatical years, and the Jubilee Forty-nine years laid out as seven rows of seven, with every seventh year marked as a sabbatical year when the land rests (Leviticus 25:4). The fiftieth year, the Jubilee, stands apart, announced with a horn on the Day of Atonement, when land returns to the family that sold it and bonded servants go home (Leviticus 25:9–10). A bar chart shows what a field sold for in each year of the cycle: the number of harvests left before the next Jubilee, falling to nothing by year 49 (Leviticus 25:15–16). 12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546474849seven sabbaths of yearsforty-nine years (Leviticus 25:8)every seventh year the land rests(Leviticus 25:4)50the Jubileeliberty proclaimedthe horn, on the Day of Atonement(Leviticus 25:9–10)land goes back to the familythat sold it; bonded servantsgo homewhat a field sold forthe harvests left until the Jubilee(Leviticus 25:15–16)sold in year 1year 49
Every seventh year the fields lie fallow and debts are released, and after seven of those cycles the fiftieth year returns land to the families that sold it. So land was never really sold, only its harvests until the next Jubilee, and Leviticus says the price should follow the harvests left: it drops by a harvest each year, and holds still across a sabbatical year, which has no harvest to sell. Whether the Jubilee was ever actually kept is not recorded.

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