ABSTRACT
This chapter declares that every seven years there shall be a debt release (shmittah). This is a different point of emphasis to that found in the Covenant Code where the seventh year was reserved for letting the land go fallow (Exod 23:10–11). The sabbatical year has been compared with the practice in the ancient Near East of declaring a year of “release” (Akkadian duraru; cf. Hebrew deror in Lev 25:10, Isa 61:1) when a new king took the throne. In the Bible, this occasional royal edict becomes part of a regular seven-year cycle governed by Israel’s divine king.
