The Pulpit Commentary — Leviticus — Section 427

EXPOSITION. publio reading of God's Law (Deut. xxxi. CHAPTER XXV. 10-13). During the previous six years tha The BUhject of the sacred seasons is taken husbe.n<lmen had beeu well aware of the up again in this chapter, after the paren• coming sabbatical year, and would have laid thetical insertion of eh. :uiv. There remain by in store nccordingly, so 38 to support the septennial festive season and that of the tbemael ves and their families during that half-centmy-the sabbe.ticel year and the year. The release of debts inculcated jubilee. mercy. The command that the Law should The sabbatical year was instituted not be publicly read showed that the intention for e.ny supposed physical benefit accruing of the institution we.a not that the year from it to the land. but, first, as serving for should be spent in idleneas, but that the e. link between the se.bbe.th e.nd the jubilee time saved from ordinary labour was to be by means of the sacred number seven-the given to devotional pursuits. The law of sabbatical year being the seventh year, and the sabbatical year was so bard of ob- the jubilee being the year following the servance by an agricultural people, that U seven-times-seventh year: and secondly, was seldom or never acted upon uutil the and chiefly, 38 enforcing the lesson of the Captivity (see 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21). But weekly so.bbath in a manner that could not after that time it seems to have been re- be overlooked, e.nd symbolically teaching ligiously kept (see Josephus,' Ant.,' xi. 8, the universe.I application of the sabbatical 6; xiv; 10, 6; xiv. 16, 2; xv. 1, 2; 1 Maco. Ie.w, even where physical needs were not vi. 49; Gal. iv. 10: Taoit., 'Hist.,' v. 2, 4). concerned, and in that way snggesting the The jubilee W38 a joyous year appointed expectation of a rest to be hereafter atto.ined to be observed every fifty years. The oyole by all God'11 creatures. The sabbatical year of the sabbatical year and theJunilee touched beg1m witb the comrn(ncement of the civil without coalescing. The forty-ninth year year, the 1st of Tisri, j 11St before the autumn was nooessarily a Bo.bbatical year, aud the BOwingB, which were intcrmitted for one following year we.a the jubilee. It he.a ap- year. The ground wo.s not tilled during peared to some so difficult to believe thllt this year (ver. 4). There W38 a release of two years in which it W38 not allowable to debt.II (Deut. xv. 1-11), and there W38 to be engage in agricultural work ahould oome en. xxv. 1-55.) THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS.