WHEN DID THE SABBATIC YEAR BEGIN.
Tishri or Nissan
The calendar placing
of the Sabbatic and Jubilee Years, known also as the Shemittah and Yobel,
differs in the chronology of Van Lennep from that of Adam Rutherford, shown as
VL and AR. A variant of the Tishri view places the Shemittah one year later than
AR. All three concepts hold AD 27 to be a sabbatic year; but did It begin or end
in that year ? Leviticus chapter 25 will tell us.
Since the Yobel is
called a 50th year, some assume it must follow a completed 49th year, as AR has
1ndicated. If so. why does the question of v.20 not treat of the 49th and 50th
years instead of the 7th year? The response In v.21 promises an extra yield of
produce for three years only, i.e. the 6th, 7th and 8th but not the 9th years. A
question also arises from v.3: How could they sow in the 1st year if it
coincided with the Yobel ? [Note that AR provides only eight days for
ploughing and sowing in the eighth year, the 1st. and 10th of Tishri not being
working days !] The Yobel was to
start on "the tenth day of the seventh month": the 7th month of
what, if not of that 49th year? This clearly implies that the
Shemittah began at Nisan, as VL has shown it. In fact the VL concept makes 1t
plain that no extra prohibitions or provisions were needed to cater for the
Yobel. After it was over they could plough and sow that Autumn, as it was
the 1st and 8th year in which they were instructed to sow by vvs.3 &
22.. The normal produce was to follow in the 9th year. With the AR scheme
they would be unable to "sow the eighth year" as instructed, if it was
also the Yobel; nor would they have a need to sow in the six other 8th years. So
AR fails to fit the stated facts of Scripture. The AR scheme has sowing and
reaping in the same year: the VL scheme has sowing the year before the reaping,
which v.22 implies. All these features demonstrate that the Shemittah began at
Nisan; and this tallies with the arrival of the Israelites
in the promised land in Nisan. The future pattern of the Shemittah was
anticipated when "they did eat of the produce of the land".
Josh.5.10-12, just as they later did in the 8th year. AR conforms to Jewish
belief, as per Edersheim and Schonfield. The chronology in the Variorum Bible is
as VL, and so also is Conder's "Handbook to the Bible". C.C.OgiIvy Van
Lennep published his work, "The Measured Times of the Bible", in
1928. The elaborate
chronology of Adam Rutherford appears in his "Anglo-Saxon Israel" of
1939. It is not unduly affected by his main subject. He claims it was
"Checked by the unerring test of the Calendar of Sabbatic and Jubilee
Cycles". But it fails that test ! M.S.Lloyd.
GLASGOW.
December 1994
