THE YEAR OF.
The third enactment, which is contained in Dent. xv. 1-3, enjoins the remission of debts in the Sab batical year. This law is defined by the ancient Hebrew canons as follows :—The Sabbatical year cancels every debt, whether lent on a bill or not. It does not cancel accounts for goods ; daily wages for labour which may be performed in the Sabbatical year, unless they have been converted into a loan ; or the legal fines imposed upon one who committed a mpe, or was guilty of seduction (Exod. xxii. 15, 16), or slander, or any judicial penalties ; nor does it set aside a debt contracted on a pledge, or on a 'Impl-pz=irpos pou?1/473 (MO— i.e. declaration made before the court of justice at the time of lending not to remit the debt in the Sabbatical year. The formula of this le.g,a1 decla ration was as follows—' I, A B, deliver to you, the judges of the district C, the declaration that I may call in at any time I like all debts due to me,' and it was signed either by the judges or witnesses. If this Prosbul was ante-dated it was legal, but it was invalid if post-dated. If one borrowed money from five different persons a Prosbul was necessary from each individual ; but if, on the contrary, one lent money to five different persons one Prosbzd was sufficient for all. This Prosbld was first in. troduced by Hillel the Great (born about 75 B.c.) LIIILLEL I.], because he found that the warning contained in Deut. xv. 9 was disregarded : the rich would not lend to the poor for fear of the Sabbati cal year, which seriously impeded commercial and social intercourse (lIfishna, Shebiith, x. 1-5 ; Gitlin, iv. 3). This shows beyond the shadow of a doubt that the release of the seventh year did not simply last through the seventh year. as some will have it, but was final. The doctors before and in the time of Christ virtually did away with this law of re mitting debts by regarding it as a meritorious act on the part of the debtor not to avail himself of the Mosaic enactment, and pay his debts irrespec tive of the Sabbatical year. But not glaringly to counteract the law, these doctors enacted that the creditor should say, ' In accordance with the Sal> batical year, I remit thee the debt ;' whereunto the debtor had to reply, I nevertheless wish to pay it,' and the creditor then accepted the payment (11fishna, Shebiith, x. 8). As the Mosaic law excludes the foreigner from the privilege of claiming the re mission of his debts in the Sabbatical year (Dem. xv. 3), the ancient Jewish canons enacted that ever.
if any Israelite borrows money from a proselyte whose children were converted to Judaism with him, he need not legally repay the debt to his chil dren in case the proselyte dies ; because the prose lyte, in consequence of his conversion, is regarded as having severed all his family ties, and this dis solution of the ties of nature sets aside mutual in heritance, even if the children professed Judaism with the father. Still the sages reg,arded it as a meritorious act if the debts were paid to the chil dren (Alishaa, Shebiith, x. 9).
3. Time, observance, and limit of the Sabbatical year.—The Sabbatical year, like the year of Jubilee, began on the first day of the civil new year = the first of the month Tishri (Maimonides, lad Ha Chezaka, Hiichoth Shernita Ve-Yobel,iv. 9); [NEW YEAR, FEAST OF]. But though this was the time fixed for the celebration of the Sabbatical year during the period of the second temple, yet the tillage and cultivation of certain fields and gardens had already to be left off in the sixth year. Thus it was ordained that fields upon which trees were planted were not to be cultivated atter the feast of Pentecost of the sixth year (Afishna, 1-8), whilst the cultivation of com-fields was to cease from the feast of Passover (ibid. ii. t). Since the destruction of the temple, however, the Sabbatical year, or more properly cessation from tillage and cultivation of all kinds, does not begin till the feast of New Year. According to the Mosaic legisla tion, the laws of the Sabbatical year were to come into operation when the children of Israel had pos session of the promised land, and the Talmud, Mai monides, etc.,'tell us that the first Sabbatical year was celebrated in the twenty-first year after they entered Canaan ; as the conquest of it recorded in Josh. xiv. ro occupied seven years, and the division thereof between the different tribes mentioned in Josh. xviii. etc., occupied seven years more, where upon they had to cultivate it six years, and on the seventh year = the twenty-first after entering therein, the first Sabbatical year was celebrated (Babylon Talmud Erachan, 12 b ; Maimonides, lad Ha Chezaka, Hilchotlz Shemita Ve-Yobel, x. 2). On the feast of Tabernacles of the Sabbatical year, certain portions of the Law were read in the temple before the whole congregation (Deut. xxxi. To-13). As the Pentateuchal enactment assigns the prx election of the Law to the priests and college of presbyters (Deut. ibid.)—viz. the spiritual and civil heads of the congregation (hence the singular tripn, thou shalt read this law before all Israel ') —the Hebrew canons ordained that the high-priest, and after the return from Babylon the king, should perform this duty. The manner in which it was read by the monarch is thus described in the Mishua : At the close of the first day, of the feast of Tabernacles in the eighth year—i.e. at the ter mination of the seventh fallow year, a wooden platform was erected in the outer court, whereon he sat, as it is written, at the end of the seventh year on the festival' (Deut. xxxi. io). Whereupon the superintendent of the synagogue took the Book of the Law and gave it to the head of the synagog,ue ; the head of the synagogue then gave it to the head of the priests, the head of the priests again gave it to the high-priest, and the high-priest finally handed it to the king ; the king stood up to receive it but read it sitting. He , read— Dent. i–vi. 3 (ynty -13/ anriri ;t;::); /7.