Commentaria in Leviticum
WHEN YOU SHALL HAVE ENTERED INTO THE LAND—Supply and possessed it, that you may be able to till it; for, as follows: “Six years thou shalt sow thy field, but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath,” that is, a rest, “to the land.”
The counting, therefore, of the sabbatical years, as of the jubilee (for the jubilee year depends on the sabbatical years, and is to be reckoned from them, as I shall presently say), could not begin before the Hebrews received possession of the promised land, and, having obtained peace and quiet, could till it: for how could fields not yet occupied be tilled? or how could a sabbatical year be counted from those not yet cultivated? Whence it is plain that the beginning of the sabbatical years and of the jubilee must be reckoned from the year in which the land was divided among the Hebrews by lot by Josue; for then the people, introduced into possession of it, began to till it; but this happened in the 47th year from the going out of Egypt, as is gathered from Josue 14:10, which was the seventh year of Josue after the death of Moses, and the year of the world 2500; therefore from the 7th month, the 10th day, of the same year, the year of the world 2500, the counting of the sabbatical years and of the jubilees is to begin. So Serarius on Josue chap. 13, Quest. 14, at the end, where he refutes the Rabbis in the Seder Olam, who begin these years from the later division of the land, which was made in the year not 7 but 14 at Silo. Reckoning on from this year of the world 2500, the 105th sabbatical year falls in the 15th year of King Ezechias, as is plain both from chronology and from 4 Kings 19:29, compared with 4 Kings 17:13. And consequently the 121st sabbatical year falls in the 9th year of Joakim son of Josias, so that the first year of Sedecias was the fourth year of the sabbatical week 121, as is plain Jerem. 27:1. So Vatablus there, and Scaliger in Emend. temp. Wrongly, therefore, do some begin the sabbatical years from the first year of Josue, in which the Hebrews entered Chanaan, fighting against Jericho, whereas they are to be begun from the seventh year of Josue, in which, the land being subdued by so many wars, they began to divide and till it: for the following seventh year was a sabbatical year, and consequently every seventh year was sabbatical; and after seven sabbatical years, namely after 49 (for seven times seven are 49) years completed, the following fiftieth year was a jubilee, as is plain ver. 8. The first jubilee, therefore, began to be counted from the year of the world 2500, which year was the fiftieth jubilee of the world; for fifty times 50 make 2500; in this year of the world 2500, therefore, the fiftieth jubilee of the world goes out and the 51st begins. When the fiftieth jubilee of the world goes out, therefore, there succeeds the counting of the jubilee years of Moses, so that the fifty-first jubilee of the world is the beginning and origin of the first Mosaic jubilee; so that from then in the fiftieth year, namely the year of the world 2500, the first Mosaic jubilee was celebrated. Hence it follows that Christ was born at the end of the twenty-ninth Mosaic jubilee. For the first jubilee of Moses began in the year of the world 2500, from which, if you count the jubilees by 50 years, up to the year of the world 3950 in which Christ was born, you will find that exactly 29 jubilees had passed up to Christ.
5. THOU SHALT NOT GATHER THE GRAPES OF THY FIRSTFRUITS.—“The grapes of thy firstfruits,” which, namely, in the seventh year, as the first of the following seven-year period, you leave as firstfruits to the Lord, that they may be gathered by the poor, in honour of God. Whence in Hebrew these grapes are called nezirecha, that is, of the Nazarite, that is, of sanctification, as the Septuagint render, or of separation, as the Chaldee, which, namely, in this seventh year they left untouched, and as it were set apart for God. There were, therefore, four notable privileges of the seventh or sabbatical year. First, that in that year the Jews could not sow, nor reap, nor prune, nor gather the vintage, but rest was given to the fields and vineyards, and the fruits springing from them of themselves were common to all men and animals; see what was said Exod. 23:11. The second, that in this seventh year there was a remission of all debts, if he who owed was a Jew by race, but not if a stranger and Gentile; this is plain from Deut. 15:2 and following. Which indeed was an unusual and wonderful law. Whence Deut. 15:9 it is said: “Beware lest perhaps a wicked thought steal in upon thee, and thou say in thy heart: The seventh year of remission draweth nigh, and thou turn away thy eyes from thy poor brother, and give him nothing; but thou shalt give to him, neither shalt thou do any thing craftily in relieving his necessities”; and he adds the reward, saying: “That the Lord thy God may bless thee at all times, and in all the works to which thou shalt put thy hand.” If you keep this law of the remission of debts, God will abundantly repay you every debt by his blessing. For, as the Wise Man says, Prov. 19:17: “He that hath mercy on the poor lendeth to the Lord, and he will repay him.” The third, that in this year there was remission and release of servitude: for Hebrew servants were set free, as is plain Exod. 21:2. See what was said there. But if the servant was not a Hebrew but a foreigner, he remained a servant for ever, as is here said ver. 46. The fourth, that in this year the law of Deuteronomy was commanded to be read before all the people; Deuter. 31:10.
There you will see oxen ploughing without ceasing, and the vine laying aside its leafy locks by the skilled pruning-hook.
Of these sabbatical years, that they were kept or neglected by the Jews, mention is made Jerem. chap. 34, and in Josephus, book 13, chap. 15, and book 14, chap. 28.
8, 9 and 10. THOU SHALT ALSO NUMBER TO THEE SEVEN WEEKS OF YEARS, etc., AND THOU SHALT SOUND THE TRUMPET IN THE SEVENTH MONTH, THE TENTH DAY OF THE MONTH, AND THOU SHALT SANCTIFY THE FIFTIETH YEAR.—The year of jubilee is described here: it is commanded here, therefore, that in the year not the 50th, or of jubilee, as Serarius holds, but the 49th, preceding the jubilee, they sound the trumpet, and proclaim that the following fiftieth year will be the jubilee, that each may prepare himself for it; for the 49th year was not the year of jubilee, but was a sabbatical year.
Radulphus, therefore, Hugh the Cardinal, Gerard Mercator in his Chronology, and Joseph Scaliger, book 5, seem to err, who think that the 49th year was the jubilee, yet that it is called, and is, the fiftieth, if in this number you include the fiftieth year, or the preceding jubilee: for this, they say, must be counted, and from it the counting of the 50th year, or following jubilee, must be begun. They err, I say, because thus that 50th year would be counted twice, first when it is the last and 50th, or jubilee; secondly, as it is the beginning of the following jubilee. Whence this opinion is refuted by St. Cyril, Ambrose, Clement, Bede, St. Jerome, Cassiodorus, Isidore, Abulensis, Oleaster, and, from them at length, Serarius on Josue 13, Quest. 14.
Hence the same err secondly, when they think that the jubilee year did not coincide with the sabbatical, lest, they say, two years of rest should run together; hence it would follow that either the jubilee was celebrated in the year not 50 but 49, or the sabbatical year was celebrated not in the seventh but in the eighth year, both of which are repugnant to this ordinance of God. The 49th year, therefore, was sabbatical, and the following 50th was the jubilee: which understand of the first jubilee, for in the next, or second jubilee, one year intervened between the sabbatical year and the jubilee, in the third jubilee two years intervened, in the fourth three, and so on in order, until at the return of the seventh jubilee the sabbatical year and the jubilee coincided. The reason and origin of this was that the following jubilee was always counted from the preceding jubilee, or 50th year, but the sabbatical year was always reckoned from the former sabbatical, or seventh. Hence it comes about that each jubilee is distant by one year from 7 sabbaticals, or 49 years, which you will see plainly if you double these years; for twice 49 make 98: therefore the year 98 was the fourteenth sabbatical, while the second jubilee was the hundredth year. In like manner if you triple 49, you will make 147, so that the year 147 was the twenty-first sabbatical, while the third jubilee was 150; where you clearly see two years interposed between the sabbatical and the jubilee, which was in order the third. On every eighth jubilee, therefore, there followed one another immediately the sabbatical year and the jubilee: and so then the Jews had two consecutive years of rest, in which it was lawful neither to sow nor to reap; but the Lord had promised that he would give the Hebrews in those years double, nay triple, the usual harvest, as is plain here ver. 21. The same would happen to Christians, if they kept the feasts as they ought.