Deuteronomy 15:1
INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 15
This chapter treats of a release of debts every seventh year, to which a blessing is promised if attended to, De 15:1, which seventh year of release should not hinder lending to a poor man in distress, even though it was nigh at hand, De 15:7 and of letting servants go free, whether manservant or maidservant, at the end of six years' servitude, De 15:12 but if unwilling to go, and desirous of staying, must have his ear bored through with an awl, and serve to the year of jubilee, De 15:16 and of sanctifying and eating the firstlings of the herd and flock where the Lord directs, De 15:19.
Ver. 1. At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. Not of servants, for they were not to be dismissed from their service until they had served six years, as is directed to in a following law; for if they were to be set free whenever a sabbatical year came, they might be discharged when they had not served more than a year, or than half a year, or than a month or two. Indeed when the year of jubilee intervened, they were released be it at what time it would; but not in a sabbatical year, which was a year of release of debts, as the following verses show, as well as there was, then a rest of the land from tillage, Le 25:2. Now this was done at the end or extremity of every seventh year; not at the latter end or extremity of it, for if the debt of a poor man might be exacted of him in the year, and until the end of it, it would not in this respect have been a sabbatical year, or a year of rest and quiet; but this was done at the first extremity of it, at the beginning of it, as Aben Ezra and Ben Melech observe; though Maimonides {b} asserts it to be after the seven years were ended; for he says,
"the seventh year releaseth not monies but at the end of it,''
according to De 15:1 that as in De 31:10 after seven years is meant, so the release of monies is after seven years.
{b} Hilchot Shemittah & Yobel, c. 9. sect. 4.