Reference: Sabbatical Year
Hastings
SABBATICAL YEAR (including year of Jubilee)
1. OT references.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
If you buy a Hebrew servant [as the result of debt or theft], he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, paying nothing. If he came [to you] by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he came married, then his wife shall go out with him. read more. If his master has given him a wife and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out [of your service] alone. But if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go free, Then his master shall bring him to God [the judges as His agents]; he shall bring him to the door or doorpost and shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him for life.
Six years you shall sow your land and reap its yield. But the seventh year you shall release it and let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat [what the land voluntarily yields], and what they leave the wild beasts shall eat. In like manner you shall deal with your vineyard and olive grove.
Then shall the land [of Israel have the opportunity to] enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies' land; then shall the land rest, to enjoy and receive payments for its sabbaths [divinely ordained for it].
But the land shall be left behind them and shall enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they shall accept the punishment for their sins and make amends because they despised and rejected My ordinances and their soul scorned and rejected My statutes.
And if a man shall dedicate to the Lord some part of a field of his possession, then your valuation shall be according to the seed [required] for it; [a sowing of] a homer of barley shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver. If he dedicates his field during the Year of Jubilee, it shall stand according to your full valuation. read more. But if he dedicates his field after the Jubilee, then the priest shall count the money value in proportion to the years that remain until the Year of Jubilee, and it shall be deducted from your valuation. If he who dedicates the field wishes to redeem it, then he shall add a fifth of the money of your appraisal to it, and it shall remain his. But if he does not want to redeem the field, or if he has sold it to another man, it shall not be redeemed any more. But the field, when it is released in the Jubilee, shall be holy to the Lord, as a field devoted [to God or destruction]; the priest shall have possession of it. And if a man dedicates to the Lord a field he has bought, which is not of the fields of his [ancestral] possession, The priest shall compute the amount of your valuation for it up to the Year of Jubilee; the man shall give that amount on that day as a holy thing to the Lord. In the Year of Jubilee the field shall return to him of whom it was bought, to him to whom the land belonged [as his ancestral inheritance]. And all your valuations shall be according to the sanctuary shekel; twenty gerahs shall make a shekel.
At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release that which he has lent to his neighbor; he shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, for the Lord's release is proclaimed. read more. Of a foreigner you may exact it, but whatever of yours is with your brother [Israelite] your hand shall release.
And if your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. And when you send him out free from you, you shall not let him go away empty-handed. read more. You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, your threshing floor, and your winepress; of what the Lord your God has blessed you, you shall give to him. And you shall [earnestly] remember that you were a bondman in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I give you this command today. But if the servant says to you, I will not go away from you, because he loves you and your household, since he does well with you, Then take an awl and pierce his ear through to the door, and he shall be your servant always. And also to your bondwoman you shall do likewise. It shall not seem hard to you when you let him go free from you, for at half the cost of a hired servant he has served you six years; and the Lord your God will bless you in all you do.
And Moses commanded them, At the end of every seven years, at the set time of the year of release [of debtors from their debts], at the Feast of Booths, When all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God in the place which He chooses [for His sanctuary], you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. read more. Assemble the people -- "men, women, and children, and the stranger and the sojourner within your towns -- "that they may hear and learn [reverently] to fear the Lord your God and be watchful to do all the words of this law, And that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn [reverently] to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land which you go over the Jordan to possess.
Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid that I should give the inheritance of my fathers to you. And Ahab [already depressed by the Lord's message to him] came into his house [more] resentful and sullen because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him; for he had said, I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers. And he lay down on his bed, turned away his face, and would eat no food.
To fulfill the Lord's word by Jeremiah, till the land had enjoyed its sabbaths; for as long as it lay desolate it kept sabbath to fulfill seventy years.
On the second day, all the heads of fathers' houses, with the priests and Levites, gathered to Ezra the scribe to study and understand the words of divine instruction. And they found written in the law, which the Lord had commanded through Moses, that the Israelites should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month read more. And that they should publish and proclaim in all their towns and in Jerusalem, saying, Go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths, as it is written. So the people went out and brought them and made themselves booths, each on the roof of his house and in their courts and the courts of God's house and in the squares of the Water Gate and the Gate of Ephraim. All the assembly of returned exiles made booths and dwelt in them; for since the days of Jeshua (Joshua) son of Nun up to that day, the Israelites had not done so. And there was very great rejoicing. Also day by day, from the first day to the last, Ezra read from the Book of the Law of God. They kept the feast for seven days; the eighth day was a [closing] solemn assembly, according to the ordinance.
And if the peoples of the land bring wares or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we shall not buy it on the Sabbath or on a holy day; and we shall forego raising crops the seventh year [letting the land lie fallow] and the compulsory payment of every debt.
And if the peoples of the land bring wares or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we shall not buy it on the Sabbath or on a holy day; and we shall forego raising crops the seventh year [letting the land lie fallow] and the compulsory payment of every debt.
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed and qualified me to preach the Gospel of good tidings to the meek, the poor, and afflicted; He has sent me to bind up and heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the [physical and spiritual] captives and the opening of the prison and of the eyes to those who are bound, To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord [the year of His favor] and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, read more. To grant [consolation and joy] to those who mourn in Zion -- "to give them an ornament (a garland or diadem) of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, the garment [expressive] of praise instead of a heavy, burdened, and failing spirit -- "that they may be called oaks of righteousness [lofty, strong, and magnificent, distinguished for uprightness, justice, and right standing with God], the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.
[This is] the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people who were at Jerusalem to proclaim liberty to them: Every man should let his Hebrew slaves, male and female, go free, so that no one should make a slave of a Jew, his brother.
For the seller shall not return to that which is sold, even were they yet alive. For the vision [of punishment] is touching [Israel's] whole multitude; he shall not come back, neither shall any strengthen himself whose life is in his iniquity.
But if he gives a gift out of his inheritance to one of his servants, then it shall be his until the year of liberty [the Year of Jubilee]; after that it shall be returned to the prince; only his sons may keep a gift from his inheritance [permanently].
The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon Me, because He has anointed Me [the Anointed One, the Messiah] to preach the good news (the Gospel) to the poor; He has sent Me to announce release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed [who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed, and broken down by calamity],