SABBATICAL YEAR AND YEAR OF JUBILEE:
The seventh and fiftieth year respectively, connected with the idea of the Sabbath (q.v.) among the ancient Hebrews and associated with religious usages. The Book of the Covenant directs (Ex. xxi. 2) that a slave of Hebrew descent be set free in the seventh year of his servitude, and Deut. xv. 12 extends this requirement to Hebrew female slaves as well. It is evident that this year was connected with the sabbath, although as yet there was no reference to a year which should possess a sabbatical character throughout the country. The Book of the Covenant (Ex. xxiii. 10-11) requires tillage and harvesting for six years, while in the seventh year the land was to lie fallow and what grew spontaneously was to be left for the poor and wild beasts (see also Lev. xxv. 1-7). Although the context (v. 12) clearly shows that the rest of the land should be analogous to that of the sabbath, there is no implication even here of a sabbatical year for the whole country. Deut. xv. 1 sqq. further required a release from all indebtedness of one Israelite to another every seventh year, the passage in question implying that the "year of release'' was observed in the whole country (cf. also Deut. xxxi. 10). These debts were to be remitted each seventh year, not after the lapse of six years from their contraction (cf . Deut. xv. 9) ; but since a year was required for the release in question, although the actual remission might be made in a single day, it would seem that the "release" was not a remission of the debt but merely a cessation of requests for payment during the year. Since the Deutcronomic law for the manumission of slaves after six years of bondage immediately follows the requirements governing the "year of release," it would appear that this manumission was at least desired in the "year of release." Although it is uncertain when
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Sabbath Saccnoni
and why each seventh year came to be regarded as a sabbatical year, the basis would seem to have been the "year of release." According to Jer. xxxiv. 8 sqq., there was a general manumission of slaves in harmony with Deut. xv. 12 during the reign of Zedekiah, but no certain conclusions can be drawn from this passage. The sabbatical year was reckoned from autumn to autumn, since the land could not be allowed to begin to lie fallow in the spring, and this is borne out by the fact that the year of jubilee, itself in a sense a sabbatical year, was solemnly announced to begin on the tenth day of the seventh month (Lev. xxv. 9). Although in the preexilic period the sabbatical year was only imperfectly observed (Lev. xxvi. 34-35, 43; II Chron. xxx vi. 21), the Jews under Ezra and Nehemiah expressly pledged themselves to keep it (Neh. x. 31), and it was fully observed in the time of Alexander the Great, the Hasmoneans, and the Herodians (I Mace. vi. 49, 53; Josephus, Ant, XI., viii. 6, XIII., viii. 1, XIV., x. 6, xvi. 2, XV., i. 2; War, I., ii. 4; Philo, in Eusebius, Prceparatio evangelica, vii., Eng. transl., i. 389-391, Oxford, 1903; Tacitus, Hist, v. 4). This observance must, however, have been extremely difficult, and the Talmud (Shebhi'ith, VI., ii. 5-6), on the basis of Lev. xxv. 2, restricted the validity of the law to Palestine.
The law of the year of jubilee follows that of the sabbatical year in Lev. xxv. 8 sqq., which enacts that at the expiration of seven sabbatical years, i.e., in each fiftieth year, a trumpet should be sounded throughout the land on the tenth day of the seventh month, i.e., on the Day of Atonement, the first day of the year of jubilee. Like the sabbatical year, the year of jubilee was to have no harvest reaped in it, but in addition it was a year of freedom for all the inhabitants of the country. Each man should return to the property which he had been obliged to sell; all lands and buildings sold outside the walled cities were to be held only until the next year of jubilee; and Israelites who had been forced to sell themselves into bondage were to be released in the year of jubilee (Lev. xxv. 39-55). There is no reason to doubt that the law of the year of jubilee is preexilic, and it is evidently a remodeling of an older enactment of uncertain nature. The precise date of its origin is equally obscure, though it may be a parallel to the Feast of Weeks. There is an obvious allusion to the year of jubilee in Ezek. xlvi. 16 sqq., and probably in Isa Ixi. 1-2. Ezra and Nehemiah, ion the other hand, never mention it, and there is an express Jewish tradition that after the time of Ezra the year of jubilee was no longer observed. (W. Lotz.) Bibliography: B. Zuckermann, Ueber Sabbathjahrcyclus und Jobelperiode, Breslau, 1857; C. P. Caspari, Die geschichtlichen Sabbathjahre, in TSK, 1876, pp. 181-190; H. Ewald, Antiquities of Israel, pp. 338, 369-372, Boston, 1876; J. Fenton, Early Hebrew Life, pp. 66-74, London, 1880; Schtirer, Geschichte, i. 35-37, 214, 258-259, ii. 363, iii. 104-105, Eng. transl., I., i. 41-43, 224, 274, ii. 157, II., i. 362-363, ii. 295; Nowack, Archaologie, ii. 163-165; Benzinger, Archaologie, 398; J. Meinhold, Sabbat und Woche im Alten Testament, pp. 21 sqq., Gottingen, 1905; C. F. Kent, Students' Old Testament, iv., §§ 223-224, pp. 274-276, New York, 1907; DB, iv. 323-326; EB, ii. 2614-16, JE, x. 605-608. Vigouroux, Dictionnaire, iii. 1753 and fasc. xxxv., cols. 1302-1306; the commentaries on the passages cited, and the works on the
theology of the Old Testament (under Biblical Theology).
SABELLIUS, SABELLIANISM. See Monabchi-