(3) Restitution of Lands. The recurring pe riods of seven years are in keeping with the insti tution of the seventh day as a Sabbath for man and beast. The aim in both is similar—needful repose. The leading idea involved in the Jubilee —namely, restitution—also harmonizes with the fundamental principles of the Mosaic system. The land was God's, and was entrusted for use to the chosen people in such a way that every individual had his portion. A power of perpetual alienation would have been a virtual denial of God's sovereign rights, while the law of Jubilee was one of continued recognition of them. The conception is purely theocratical in its whole char acter and tendencies. The theocracy was of such a nature as to disallow all subordinate 'thrones, principalities and powers ;' and consequently, to demand entire equality on the part of the people. But the power of perpetual alienation in regard to land would have soon given rise to the great est inequalities of social condition, presenting what modern states have, alas! exhibited but too much of—splendid affluence on one side and sor did pauperism on the other.
(4) Benevolent Legislation. A passage in Deuteronomy (xv :4), when rightly understood, as in the marginal translation—`to the end that there be no poor among you'—seems expressly to declare that the aim in view. at least of the Sab batical. release, was to prevent the rise of any great inequality of social condition, and thus to preserve unimpaired the essential character of the theocracy.
Equally benevolent in its aim and tendency does this institution thus appear, showing how thoroughly the great Hebrew legislator cared and provided for individuals, instead of favoring class es. Beginning with a-narrow cycle of seven days, he w.ent on to a wider one of as many years, em bracing at least seven times seven annual revo lutions, seeking in all his arrangements rest for man and beast, and, by a happy personification, rest even for the brute earth ; and in the rest which he required for human beings, providing for that more needful rest of mind which the sharp competitions and eager rivalries of mod ern society deny to ten thousand times ten thou sand. The benign character and tendency of the law of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years is in ac cordance with the general spirit of the Mosaic legislation, and appears not unworthy of its divine origin.
Warburton adduced this law (Divine Legation of Moses) in order to show that Moses was in truth sent and sustained by God, since nothing but a divine power could have given the neces sary supplies of food in the sixth year, and no unprejudiced person can well deny the force of his argument.
(5) Moses the Lawgiver. But these laws either emanated from Moses, or they did not. If they did not, they arose after the settlement in Canaan, and are of such a nature as to convict their fabricator of imposture, if, indeed, any one could have been found so daring as to bring forth laws implying institutions which did not exist, and which under ordinary circumstances could not find permanence, even if they could ever be carried into operation at all. But if these laws emanated from Moses, is it credible that he would have given utterance to commands which convict themselves of impossibility? or caused the rise of institutions, which, if unsupported of heaven, must come to a speedy termination, and in so do ing act to his own discredit as a professed divine messenger? (6) Productiveness of Land. On the possi
bility of the land's affording sufficient food, we find the following important passage in Palfrey's Lectures on the Jewish Scriptures, Boston, 1841, vol. i, p. 3o3: find no difficulty arising from any inadequacy of the produce of six years to afford sustenance to the people for seven. To say that this was in tended would merely be to say that the design was that the consumption of each year should only amount on an average to six-sevenths of its produce. In such an arrangement it cannot be thought that there was anything impracticable.
'There are states of the union which export yearly more than half their produce, and subsist substantially on the remainder, their imports con sisting mostly of luxuries. Again, in England nearly three-quarters of the families are engaged in commerce, manufactures, professions, and un productive pursuits; but in Judea every man was a producer of food, with the advantage of a fine climate and a rich soil.
It may be of some importance to remark that those who believe that these laws were good, and were also executed, are not therefore required to maintain that the regular and intended series of things was never interrupted.
(7) Conditional Promises. The promises of God are in all cases conditioned on human obedi ence. This condition is expressly laid down in the case before us (Lev. xxv :18, 36, 38). At the same time, the silence of the sacred history before the captivity looks as if the law in question was so uninterruptedly, regularly, and as a matter of course, observed from Jubilee to Jubilee, that no occasion transpired for remark. In history, as in every day life, more is said of the exceptional than the periodical and the ordinary.
(8) Execution of Laws. The tenor of these observations will probably lead the reader to con sider it a somewhat surprising assertion, that these laws were not executed before the Babylo nish exile; yet such is the statement of Winer (Real-warterb. under Vubeljahr' and De Wette (Lehrb. der Archtiol., p. 158). Some passages of Scripture are referred to, which are thought to imply the truth of this position, as Kings xxi: 3; fs. v:8; 2 Chron. XXXVi :21 ; Lev. xxvi :34).
For the opposite view, there is, in agreement with the general tenor of this article. some posi tive evidence which must be briefly indicated (see Roman historian Tacitus' Hist. v. 4; Josephus Antig. xiv, to, 6; Macc. vi:49; Ezek. xlvi:17; Is. lxi 2) ; and since the essential element of this system of law, namely the Sabbatical year, was, as we have seen, an established institu tion in the days of Tacitus, Josephus, the Macca bees, Ezekiel, and Isaiah, we think the fair and legitiinate inference is in favor of those laws hav ing been long previously observed, probably from the early periods of the Hebrew republic. Their existence in a declining state of the common wealth cannot be explained without seeking their origin nearer the fountain-head of those pure, living waters, which, with the force of all primi tive enthusiasm, easily effected great social won ders, especially when divinely guided and divinely sustained. J. R. B.