but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the animal of the field shall eat. In the same way, you shall deal with your vineyard and with your olive grove.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 11. Year. Thus God was pleased to teach them to place entire confidence in him, and to compassionate the distress of the poor. Most people suppose, that the sabbatic year commenced in autumn; as otherwise the land would have remained without any harvest two years. This law began to be observed the 7th year after Josue crossed the Jordan. Jerusalem was thrice besieged during the sabbatic years. Jeremiah 34:8 1 Maccabees 6:51. See Josep. Ant. xii. 14. xiv. 28. God blessed the 6th year, so that it produced as much as three. Leviticus 25:21 Calmet.—On the feast of tabernacles, (in September) at the beginning of the 7th year, Deuteronomy was to be read aloud to all the people, the Hebrew slaves might obtain their liberty, and if a person could not restore what he had borrowed, it was to be remitted for ever. Deuteronomy 15 and 31:10. Tirinus.