Sabbatical year (Bible)

The sabbath year (shmita Hebrew: שמיטה‎‎, literally "release") also called the sabbatical year or shvi'it (Hebrew: שביעית‎‎, literally "seventh") is the seventh year of the seven-year agricultural cycle mandated by the Torah for the Land of Israel, and still observed in contemporary Judaism.

During shmita, the land is left to lie fallow and all agricultural activity, including plowing, planting, pruning and harvesting, is forbidden by halakha (Jewish law). Other cultivation techniques (such as watering, fertilizing, weeding, spraying, trimming and mowing) may be performed as a preventive measure only, not to improve the growth of trees or other plants. Additionally, any fruits which grow of their own accord are deemed hefker (ownerless) and may be picked by anyone. A variety of laws also apply to the sale, consumption and disposal of shmita produce. All debts, except those of foreigners, were to be remitted.

Chapter 25 of the Book of Leviticus promises bountiful harvests to those who observe the shmita, and describes its observance as a test of religious faith. There is little notice of the observance of this year in Biblical history and it appears to have been much neglected.

It is still discussed among scholars of the Ancient Near East whether or not there is clear evidence for a seven-year cycle in Ugaritic texts. It is also debated how the biblical seventh fallow year would fit in with, for example Assyrian practice of a four-year cycle and crop rotation, and whether the one year in seven was an extra fallow year. Jehuda Felix suggests that the land may have been farmed only 3 years in seven. Borowski (1987) takes the fallow year as one year in seven.

A sabbath (shmita) year is mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible by name or by its pattern of six years of activity and one of rest:

Isaiah is apparently informing King Hezekiah that if he will agree to observe the Sabbath year that coming fall (701 BCE) and the Jubilee year in the year after (700 BCE)—although he calls neither year by either name in the original language—and then wait to resume planting and harvesting until the year after that (699 BCE), then God will act against Sennacherib's siege of Jerusalem (see 2 Kings 19:32–37). There is no other occasion in the Hebrew calendar when two years of scheduled non-planting occur back-to-back. Hezekiah apparently agrees, as the siege is diverted. Since the date of Sennacherib's invasion of Judah and siege against Jerusalem is known to archaeologists as the spring and summer of 701 BCE, this is evidence that the dates the Rabbinate considers to be the Sabbath years and Jubilee years are incorrect: the last Jubilee would have been 2001 (because there was no year "0" between 1 BCE and 1 CE, and the most recent Sabbath year therefore began on Rosh Hashanah in September 2014.

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