The Pulpit Commentary — Leviticus — Section 429

1'iM, the ·vine with its unpnmed tendrils, labour of their hands, if they strove to keep being likened t.o the N azarite with his un- his covenant and satisfy themselves with llhom locks. As to sowing and reaping, his grace." an exception was made with respect to Vere. 8, 9.-The word jubile (as it is the barley sown and reaped for the Passover always spelt in lhe Authorized Version) is eheaf, and the wheat sown and reaped for taken from the Hebrew word yo~ei, and it the Pentecost loaves. The spontaneous came to mean e. year of liberty (JJ.zek. xlvi. fruits of the earth, and they were very large 17; Josephus, 'Ant.,' iii. 12, 3), because in the rich fields of the valleys and plains, it freed men and lands from the obligations were to be the property of all alike, whether to which they would otherwise have been the owners of the land or not, "that the liable; but originally it signified no more poor of thy people might eat" (Exod. than o cornet-blast, and thence the year of x:xiii. 11). And what was left by man was the comet-blast. The way to find the to be food for the cattle and beasts of the jubilee year was to number seven sabbe.tha field. The cessation of agricultural labonrs of yeare, that is, seven weeks of years (eh. mnst have served, and may have been in- :uii. 15), seven times seven years; and the tended to serve, as an encoumgernent to mer- spe.oe of the seven sabbatha of years shall be cantile pursuits, as well as to the study of unto thee forty and nine years : then by a the Divine Law (Deut. :xxxi. 10-13). The blast of the comet (the word is inexactly Feast of Tabernacles of the seventh year rendered trumpet) on the tenth day of the was specially appointed by JIIoses as a day seventh month, in the day of atonement, the for reading the Law to the assembled people approach of the jubilee in the following year (Deut. n:xi. 10-13). And the l\lishna wns announced. appoints the following pnssages of Deute- Ver. 10.-This verse contains a short ronomy to be read on that day :-Dent. i. statement of the two purposes of the jubilee: 1-6; vi. 4-8; :xi 13-22; xiv. 22; xv. 23; (1) to proolaim liberty throughout all the xvii H ; :a:vi. 12-19; :uvii, :uviii. land unto all the inhabitants thereof; (2) ye (' Mish. Sotah.,' vii. 8). The other ordi- shall return every man unto his possession. nance connected with the sabbatical year, Vere. 11, 12.-So far as the tillage of the the release of debts t.o the poor (Deut. xv. land went, the jubilee year was to have the 1-6), was, like the fifth commandment, same effect as a sabbatical year. made of none effect by rabbinical traditions Vere.. 13-17.-The Israelites were only -notably by one which required a debtor, tenants of God. They might regard them- when his creditor so.id, "I remit," to insist selves as owneni for fifty years, but at the that nevertheless he should accept pay- end of every fifty years the land wus to ment. The more.I purpose of the sabbath of come back to him to whom the Lord had the eeventh year is well drawn ont by Keil:- assigned it, or to his representative. It " In the sabbatical year the land which the might be bought and sold on that nnder- Lord ha<l given his people was t.o observe standing, the nlue of the purchnse being a period of holy rest and refreshment to its found by reckoning tbe price of the har- Lord and God, just as the congregation did vests up to the next jubilee day; but in on the sabbath day ; and the hand of man this period only " the years of the fruits" was to be withheld from the fields and fruit were to be counted, that is, the sabbatiral gardens from working them that they might years, in whioh there would be no harvests, yield their produce for his use. The earth was were to be deducted. Ye shall not therefore to be sacred from the hand of man, exhaust- oppress(oroverreach) one another bydemund- ing its power for earthly purposes as his own ing more for the land lho.n would be its just property, nnd to enjoy the holy rest with value under the limitation of the jubilee which God had blessed the earth and all its law. productions after the Creation. From this, Vers.18-22.-"Notonly the yearofjubilcl', Israel, as the nation of God, was to learn, on but the sabbatical yP.ar olso, commenced the one hand, that although the earth was in the autumn, when the farmers first began created for man, ii was not merely created to sow for the coming year; so that the for him to dmw ont its power for his own sowing was suspended from the autumn of use, but alBo t.o be holy to the Lord and par- the sixth year till the autumn of the seventh, ticipate in the blessed rest; and on the and even till the autumn of the eighth when- other hand, that the great purpose for which ever the jubilee year came round, in which the congregation of the Lord existed did not case both sowing and reaping were omitted <lOnsist in the uninterrupted tilling of the for two years in succession, and oonseqnently earth, connected with bitter labour in the the produce of the sixth year, which was sweat of the brow (Gen. iii. 17, 19), but in harvested in the seventh month of that year, the penceful enjoyment of the fruits of the must have sufficed for three years, not earth, which the Lord their God had given merely till the sowing in the autumn of the them ,cd would give them slill, without the eighth or fiftieth year, but till tho harvest CB, XXV, 1-56.] THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. 395