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This graph depicts this concept of the Shemitah. Reflected and ingrained within our concept of time, the Shemitah accounts for the days of the week, prophetic years (also known as weeks), months and thousands of years, identified as millennia.
This concept of the Shemitah is one of the very characteristics of Elohim and a reflection of His divinity. In other words, the scriptures declare that after six days, the heavens and the earth were created. And, on the seventh day, He rested and set the seventh day apart as a divine holy day…
“Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their array. And in the seventh day Elohim completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And Elohim blessed the seventh day and set it apart, because on it He rested from all His work which Elohim in creating had made.”
Genesis 2:1-3
Again, we see this concept of the Shemitah as being set apart. Not only does it reflect the creation model of seven days, but also a literal week of seven days. We see this concept play out on the 1st day of the week, being Sunday; and ending Friday just after sunset, at the twinkling of an eye moment, when the Saturday Sabbath day of rest initiates.
The Shemitah Pattern Reflected within the Jewish Calendar
This concept is also reflected in the Jewish calendar with the first month of Nisan identified as being the beginning of the spiritual year – highlighting the feasts of Passover, Unleavened Bread, First fruits and Shavuot. The spiritual concept and application is a representative of humbleness, sacrifice and humility. The sixth month of Elul represents Teshuvah or Repentance. Essentially a forty day countdown until Yom Kippur with the Great Day representing the propensity for judgment.
The month of Tishri is the 7th Shemitah month of rest. It is the set apart month that identifies the fall feasts beginning with Yom Teruah (Feast of Trumpets) on Tishri 1, followed by Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) on the 10th day of the 7th month and finally Tabernacles (Sukkot) on the 15th of the month.
This concept of the beginning of Tishri identifies Yom Teruah at the twinkling of an eye moment is a highly important concept especially when applied to Bible prophecy being fulfilled. The fall feasts represent this concept of power, kingship and authority as it begins the civil new year. Notice how the 1st month of Nisan and the 7th month of Tishri seems to be at odds. One representing love, sacrifice and servitude and the Shemitah month as great power. Take notice of this concept with the following “7 Lunar Month Shemitah Cycle” image:
This concept of the 7 Lunar Month Shemitah Cycle identifies the patterns of the spring feasts and fall feasts perfectly and ultimately identifying the true Messiah. The Bible seems to identify two Messiahs: a suffering servant (Mashiach ben Yosef) who would die as a sacrificial lamb for the sins of the world and another as being a great ruler having great power and authority as King, known within Judaism as Mashiach ben David.
We Christians know that it is Yahshua (Jesus) who fulfilled the spring feast by every measure and meaning associated with those feasts, and who will in like manner ultimately fulfill the very definition and meaning of the fall feasts very soon.
Connecting the Shemitah Years, Weeks and “seven weeks” from Daniel 9:25
24“Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and for your set-apart city, to put an end to the transgression, and to seal up sins, and to cover crookedness, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophet, and to anoint the Most Set-apart. 25“Know, then, and understand: from the going forth of the command to restore and build Yerushalayim until Messiah the Prince is seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It shall be built again, with streets and a trench, but in times of affliction. 26“And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off and have naught. And the people of a coming prince shall destroy the city and the set-apart place. And the end of it is with a flood. And wastes are decreed, and fighting until the end. 27“And he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week. And in the middle of the week he shall put an end to slaughtering and meal offering. And on the wing of abominations he shall lay waste, even until the complete end and that which is decreed is poured out on the one who lays waste.”
Daniel 9:24-27 (emphasis on the weeks)
We can see from the above scripture, that there is an absolute connection to the Jewish People, to Jerusalem, and to the weeks contained within Daniel Chapter Nine. In addition, there is a ancient mathematical formula found in Daniel Chapter Twelve that highlights the final two weeks (14 years) of man’s rule, as you will discover. I will now reveal how the Shemitah Years connect to the prophetic weeks and to the Jubilee that connects the 6 Day War to the year 2022 and beyond.
By now, you should have a firm understanding on what a Shemitah year is. But, what about a week or more precisely a prophetic week? We see from Daniel 9:24-27, that this prophetic scripture identifies weeks. The weeks in these verses identify 7 years as a week or more exactly 7 sets of 360 days/ year or 2,520 days. Here is the math…
- One Prophetic Week = 7 years @ 360 days/ year = 2,520 days with the days being lunar days and not solar days. There is very good reason for using the lunar year of 360 days/year vs the solar year of 365 days/year as I will explain later on.
So, Understand that when it says, ” …until Messiah the Prince is seven weeks…” the scripture is identifying a jubilee that is made up of 7 weeks with 7 weeks being 49 years. In this case 2,520 days per week times 7….
- Seven weeks = 2,520 days x 7 weeks = 17,640 days = Jubilee (especially if the final day of the 49th year falls on Yom Kippur)
The concept of the jubilee is not widely taught and thus many prophecy people miss the prophetic significance of a jubilee or even how to identify it.
The 7 weeks as identified in Daniel 9:25 is a jubilee per the scriptural requirements. In order to qualify as a legitimate Jubilee per Leviticus 25: 8-10, the final day of the 17,640 days would need to fall on the 10th day of the 7th month according to scripture, that being Yom Kippur or the Day or Atonement. Here is the scripture…
“And you shall count seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years. And the time of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. 9‘You shall then sound a shophar-sound on the tenth day of the seventh new moon, on Yom haKippurim cause a shophar to sound through all your land. 10‘And you shall set the fiftieth year apart, and proclaim release throughout all the land to all its inhabitants, it is a Yoḇel for you. And each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you return to his clan.
Leviticus 25:8-10 (emphasis added)
Please see the following image, “50 Year Jubilee Cycle”. This image is a reflection of Leviticus 25:8-10. The Sabbath of years is the predestined 7th year or Shemitah. The seven Sabbaths is the 49th year ( 7 x 7) and the tenth day of the 7th month is Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement when the Shofar is to be blown once. This event is known as the “Great Trump” and sets into motion the 50th Year of Jubilee precisely.
Identifying the Correct Jubilee : June 7th, 1967 to Yom Kippur 2015
I have written a prior post in order to help identify where we are on the prophetic clock. Please see The Final Seven Years to the Decree of 446 BC to the 2015 Jubilee post for a detailed explanation. Essentially, I make a logic connection of the prophetic clock being stopped when the Messiah died on Passover of approximately 29 AD after 62 weeks were fulfilled. Within the post, I identify the 7 weeks from Daniel 9:25 as the Messiah’s Jubilee being a double prophetic fulfillment of Bible prophecy that began precisely on the very day when Israel and the Jewish People reclaimed Jerusalem under their control and dominion for the first time in over 2,500 years. This is why there is a separation of the 7 weeks from the 62 weeks. The 7 weeks, being a jubilee, is the Messiah’s Jubilee from 6/7/67 to Yom Kippur 2015. A Jubilee Precisely!
So what does this mean today and how can we make further connections into the future?
Thus far, we have discovered that there is a prophetic connection to 6/7/67 with “thy people and holy city”, being the Jewish people and Jerusalem. In addition, we have learned that there is a legitimate jubilee connection from 6/7/67 to Yom Kippur 2015.
On of my theories state that the Church Age ended precisely on 6/7/67, and at that moment humanity entered the Messianic Age on that very day. As you may recall, the prophetic clock stopped when the Messiah died. Coincidentally, it began on the first day of the “7 weeks” or the Messiah’s Jubilee of 7 weeks. The Church Age would account for zero in terms of the prophetic week. So the math would be….
- 62 WEEKS + THE CHURCH AGE (0) + DAY # 1 OF THE MESSIAH’S JUBILEE = JUNE 7TH, 1967
- THUS, JUNE 7TH, 1967 WOULD BE DAY #1 OF YEAR #1 OF THE 63RD WEEK
Do you see the prophetic connection with the weeks? Do you see the prophetic significance of the Messiah’s Jubilee as being 7 weeks or 49 years? Please see the graph below titled, “The Messianic Age Graph.” You will notice this concept visualized. You will notice the weeks with a large “7”. The 7 signifies the Shemitah year of 7 and there are a total of 7 weeks, so 7 x 7 =49 years. Notice that the 49th year begins a 2,550 day cycle. This cycle began precisely on Yom Teruah 2014 and is what I call the 7th Shemitah. the ending of the 7th Shemitah ended on Yom Kippur 2015 being the final day of the 49th year and the exact start of the 50th year of Jubilee. Thus, Yom Kippur 2015 was the start of the 50th year of Jubilee.
Yom Kippur 2015 was also the exact beginning of Day #1 of Year #1 of the 70th week. Just follow the logic by studying the Messianic Age graph below…
The Messiah’s Jubilee is so profound that even the Blood Moon Tetrads seem to announce this jubilee. See my recent post, The 1967 to 2015 Blood Moon Tetrads Annnounce the Messiah’s Jubilee.
I go into great detail within my book in making some amazing connections to Yom Teruah/ Yom Kippur 2021/2022 and 2029 with the use of an ancient mathematical formula that I call the Daniel Chapter 12 Mathematical Formula. This formula once plugged into the Jewish calendar outputs just five days out of 21 years- The Jewish Fall Feast of 2021 and 2029; Shavuot 2018, Shavuot 2021 and Shavuot 2026.
For more on this ancient mathematical formula and the connections, please read my post titled, The Daniel Chapter 12 Mathematical Formula Highlighting Only Five feast Days out of 21 Years Explained.
Once you read those other posts, then you should have a firm grasp on the in total 9 Shemitah years. In the case of the Jubilee pattern within Messiah’s Jubilee, this pattern is a reflection of a lunar year of 360 days/year, in which case the first 6 Shemitahs do not begin on Yom Teruah; however, the 7th, 8th and 9th Shemitahs do. When researching this topic, I went ahead and made an image titled, “Messiah’s Jubilee +7” in order to more accurately identify these Shemitahs..
As a summary, the Nine Shemitah Years are as follows with the final three being the highly prophetic Shemitahs because they begin on the prescribed Tishri 1 or Yom Teruah:
- The Shemitah (1st) of the 63rd week… May 1973/74
- The Shemitah (2nd) of the 64th week… March 1980/81
- The Shemitah (3rd) of the 65th week… February 1987/88
- The Shemitah (4th) of the 66th week… January 1994/95
- The Shemitah (5th) of the 67th week… December 2000/01
- The Shemitah (6th) of the 68th week… November 2007/08
- The Shemitah (7th) of the 69th week… YOM KIPPUR 2014/15
- The Shemitah (8th) of the 70TH week… YOM KIPPUR 2021/22
- The Shemitah (9th) of the Final week… YOM KIPPUR 2028/29
As you can see, there is much to these Shemitahs and even deeper connections can be made. I would like to point out the 7th in the series of Shemitahs that began on Yom Teruah 2014 and finalized on Yom Kippur 2015. I recently wrote another post titled, Connecting Jonathan Cahn’s Shemitah Cows to the Messiah’s Jubilee. I was able to make an amazing connection of these Shemitah cows that ultimately confirms the Messiah’s Jubilee along with two additional weeks acting as two witnesses. Be sure to read that post when you get a chance.
he sabbath year (shmita; Hebrew: שמיטה, literally “release”), also called the sabbatical year or shǝvi’it (שביעית, literally “seventh”), or “Sabbath of The Land”, is the seventh year of the seven-year agricultural cycle mandated by the Torah in the Land of Israel and is observed in Judaism.[1]
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 or herbs which grow of their own accord and where no watch is kept over them are deemed hefker (ownerless) and may be picked by anyone.[2] 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.[3]
Unfortunately, a lot of man-made rules have been created to allow people to keep the Shemitah without really keeping it…
Even for those inclined to consider the Shemitah binding, Talmudic scholars developed a mechanism known as a pruzbul to effectively negate the loan-forgiveness aspects of Shemitah. This process hinges on the scriptural command to forgive the debts of a “friend or brother” (Deuteronomy 15:2), which Talmudic scholars chose to interpret as implying that only private debts are cancelled. Making a pruzbul transfers the debt to a public religious court, a beit din, so the debt is theoretically no longer between friends, brothers, or neighbors. According to this interpretation, the once-private debt is fully recoverable, and nothing is forgiven (see Mark 7:8–9).
Likewise, those interested in maintaining farms during a Shemitah Sabbath year have turned to a rabbinic interpretation, which effectively nullifies the law. By hiring non-Jewish hands to work the land, the landowner can claim to be following the Shemitah by not (himself) cultivating the land—others are doing it for him, and he is not laboring personally.
Obviously this is not what God originally intended. According to Leviticus 25, the Shemitah year is supposed to be a year of complete rest for the land…
Shmitas in the First Temple period
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1406 BCE | Entry into land; beginning of counting for Jubilee and Sabbatical years, as calculated from observance of 17th Jubilee in 574/73 BCE and (independently) from 1 Kings 6:1.[50] |
| 868/867 BCE | Public reading of the Law in 3rd year of Jehoshaphat.[51] Also a Jubilee year, the 11th. |
| 700/699 BCE | Sabbatical year after the departure of the Assyrian army in late 701 or early 700 BCE.[52] |
| 623/622 BCE | Public reading of the Law.[53] Also a Jubilee year, the 16th.[54] |
| 588/587 BCE | Release of slaves at beginning of the Sabbatical year 588/587 (Tishri 588).[55] |
| Summer 587 BCE | Fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in the latter part of the Sabbatical year 588/587.[56] |
| Tishri 10, 574 BCE | Ezekiel’s vision of a restored temple at beginning of 17th Jubilee year, which was also a Sabbatical year.[57] |
The Sabbatical year 868/867 BCE
Another public reading of the Law, suggesting a Sabbatical year, took place in the third year of Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 17:7-9). According to the widely accepted biblical chronology of Edwin Thiele, Jehoshaphat began a coregency with his father Asa in 872/871 BCE, and his sole reign began in 870/869.[58] The passage about the reading of the law in Jehoshaphat’s third year does not specify whether this is measured from the beginning of the coregency or the beginning of the sole reign, but since the two synchronisms to Jehoshaphat’s reign for the kings of Israel (1 Kings 22:51, 2 Kings 3:1) are measured from the start of the sole reign, it would be reasonable to determine Jehoshaphat’s third year in the same way. In Thiele’s system, this would be 867/866. However, Thiele’s years for the first few kings of Judah have come under criticism as being one year too late, because of problems that appear in the reign of Ahaziah and Athaliah that Thiele never solved. Therefore, in 2003, an article by Rodger Young showed that the texts that Thiele could not reconcile were in harmony when it was assumed that Solomon died before Tishri 1 in the (Nisan-based) year in which the kingdom divided, rather than in the half-year after Tishri 1 as assumed, without explanation, by Thiele.[59] In 2009 Leslie McFall, who is recognized in Finegan’s Handbook of Biblical Chronology as the foremost living interpreter of Thiele’s work,[60] agreed with Young’s correction that moved dates for Jehoshaphat and the preceding kings of Judah up one year,[61] as have some other recent works by evangelicals and creationists studying this the field.[62][63][64] With this resolution to Thiele’s problem, the year in which Jehoshaphat had the Law read to the people was 868/867. This is 294 years, or 42 Sabbatical cycles, before Ezekiel’s Jubilee. The 42 Sabbatical cycles would make six Jubilee cycles, so it was also a Jubilee year. It is of some passing interest that in 1869, long before the breakthroughs of Valerius Coucke and Thiele that solved the basic problems of how the biblical authors were measuring the years, Ferdinand Hitzig stated that the occasion for Jehoshaphat’s proclamation was because it was a Jubilee year.[65]
The Sabbatical year 700/699 BCE
If 574/573 marked a Jubilee, and if the Sabbatical cycles were in phase with the Jubilees, then 700/699 BCE, the year often mentioned as a possible Sabbatical year because of the land lying fallow during that year (Isaiah 37:30, 2 Kings 19:29), was also a Sabbatical, 126 years or 18 Sabbatical cycles before Ezekiel’s Jubilee. Assuming a 49-year cycle, the nearest Jubilee would have been in 721 BC, inconsistent with attempts to place a Jubilee after the Sabbatical year at this time. If a 50-year Jubilee cycle is assumed, the nearest Jubilee would be 724/723, and then assuming that a Sabbatical cycle began in the year following a Jubilee, neither 701/700 nor 700/699 would be a Sabbatical year.
Could the passages in Isaiah 37 and 2 Kings 19 be referring to two voluntary fallow years? This might be possible if the Jubilee year was a 50th year separate from the seventh Sabbatical/Shmita year. Young presents a linguistic argument against this interpretation, as follows:
Others have imagined that Isa 37:30 and its parallel in 2 Kgs 19:29 refer to a Sabbatical year followed by a Jubilee year, since the prophecy speaks of two years in succession in which there would be no harvest. But the first year could not be a Sabbatical year, because in it the people were allowed to eat “what grows of itself”, for which the Hebrew word is ספיח . In Lev 25:5 the reaping of the ספיח is forbidden during a Sabbatical year. Whatever the exact meaning is for this word, its use in Isaiah’s prophecy and its prohibition in Lev 25:5 means that the first year of the Isaiah and Second Kings passages could not have been a Sabbatical year. This rules out the possibility that the passage is dealing with a Sabbatical year followed by a year of Jubilee. The proper understanding of the passage is that the harvest of the first year had been destroyed by the Assyrians, and the defeat of the Assyrian army came too late in the year to allow sowing that year. The destruction of the Assyrian host came the night after the giving of the prophecy (2 Kgs 19:35), so the reason that sowing and reaping were forbidden for the next year must have been because that year, the second year of the prophecy, was going to be a Sabbatical year.[66]
The Sabbatical year 623/622 BCE
It has already been mentioned that the Babylonian Talmud (Megillah 14b) and the Seder Olam (ch. 24) mentioned a Jubilee in Josiah’s 18th year, 623/622 BCE. With the proper assumption of a 49-year cycle for the Jubilee, the Jubilee would be identical to the seventh Sabbatical year, so that the Jubilee and Sabbatical cycles would never be out of synchronization. 623/622 BCE would therefore also have been a Sabbatical year. In Sabbatical years, the Mosaic code specified that the Law was to be read to all the people (Deuteronomy 31:10-11). Although this commandment, like so many others, was probably neglected throughout most of Israel’s history, it was observed in Josiah’s 18th year (2 Kings 23:1,2).
The Sabbatical year 588/587 BCE
Various scholars have conjectured that Zedekiah‘s release of slaves, described in Jeremiah 34:8-10, would likely have been done at the start of a Sabbatical year.[67][68][69] Although the original Mosaic legislation stated that an indentured servant’s term of service was to end six years after the service started (Deuteronomy 15:12), later practice was to associate the Sabbatical year, called a year of release (shemitah) in Deuteronomy 15:9, with the release of slaves. Based on a chronological study of Ezekiel 30:20-21, Nahum Sarna dated Zedekiah’s emancipation proclamation to the year beginning in Tishri of 588 BCE.[70] Although Zedekiah’s release of slaves could have occurred at any time, the occurrence of a Sabbatical year at just this time provides some insight into the background that probably influenced Zedekiah’s thinking, even though the release was later rescinded.
The year 588/587 BCE was also the year that Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians, consistent with the Babylonian records for the reign of Amel-Marduk and the Scriptural data regarding Jehoiachin and Zedekiah. This is in keeping with the statement in Seder Olam chapter 30, properly translated as discussed above, that put the burning of the First Temple, as well as the Second, in the “latter part” of a Sabbatical year. The statement of the Seder Olam in this regard is repeated in the Tosefta (Taanit 3:9), the Jerusalem Talmud (Ta’anit 4:5), and three times in the Babylonian Talmud (Arakin 11b, Arakin 12a, Ta’anit 29a). An example of the caution that must be exercised when consulting English translations is shown by the Soncino translation in Arakin 11b, that the Temple was destroyed “at the end of the seventh [Sabbatical] year”,[71] compared to Jacob Neusner‘s translation of the corresponding passage in the Jerusalem Talmud, that it was “the year after the Sabbatical year”.[72]
The Sabbatical year 574/573 BCE
A convenient starting place for the study of Sabbatical years in the time of the First Temple is the Jubilee that the Babylonian Talmud (tractate Arakin 12a), and also the Seder Olam (chapter 11), say was the 17th and which began at the time that Ezekiel saw the vision the occupies the last nine chapters of his book. Although many of the chronological statements of the two Talmuds, as well as in the Seder Olam that preceded them, have been shown to be unhistorical, this particular statement has considerable evidence to support its historicity. One of these evidences is the consistency of this reference with the other Jubilee mentioned in the Talmud and the Seder Olam (ch. 24), which is placed in the 18th year of Josiah (Megillah 14b). Ezekiel’s vision occurred in the 25th year of the captivity of Jehoiachin (Ezekiel 40:1). Babylonian records state that Amel-Marduk (the biblical Evil-Merodach) began to reign in October 562 BCE,[73] and 2 Kings 25:27 says that it was in the twelfth month of this accession year (Adar, 561 BCE) and in Jehoiachin’s 37th year of captivity that Jehoiachin was released from prison. By Judean reckoning, Jehoiachin’s 37th year would then be 562/561 BCE. His 25th year, the year in which Ezekiel saw his vision, is therefore determined as 574/573 BCE, i.e. the year that began in Tishri of 574. Josiah’s 18th year, at which time the Talmud says there was another Jubilee, began in 623 BCE, as can be determined from Babylonian records dating the Battle of Carchemish, which occurred shortly after Josiah was slain in his 31st year (2 Kings 22:3, 23:29). This is 49 years before Ezekiel’s Jubilee, providing evidence that the Jubilee cycle was 49 years, not 50 years as is accepted by many interpreters, but which has been challenged by recent work such as the study of Jean-François Lefebvre.[74] Zuckermann also held that the Jubilee cycle was 49 years,[75] as did Robert North in his notable study of the Jubilees.[76] A fuller discussion of the reasons that the Jubilee cycle was 49 years can be found in the Jubilee article, where it is pointed out that the known chronological methods of the Talmuds and the Seder Olam were incapable of correctly calculating the time between Josiah’s 18th year and the 25th year of the captivity of Jehoiachin, indicating that these remembrances of Jubilees were historical, not contrived.
That Ezekiel saw his vision at the beginning of a Jubilee year is also shown by his statement that it was “in the twenty-fifth year of our captivity, on Rosh Hashanah, on the tenth day of the month…;” (Ezekiel 40:1). It was only in a Jubilee year that Rosh Hashanah (New Year’s Day) came on the tenth of Tishri (Leviticus 25:9), the Day of Atonement. The Seder Olam, in relating that Ezekiel’s vision was at the beginning of a Jubilee, does not cite the part of Ezekiel 40:1 that says it was Rosh Hashanah and the tenth of the month, indicating that the fact that a Jubilee was commencing was based on historical remembrance, not on just the textual argument regarding Rosh Hashanah being on the tenth of the month. Ezekiel also says it was 14 years after the city fell; 14 years before 574/573 BCE was 588/587 BCE, in agreement with “the 25th year of our captivity”.
Sabbatical years in the Second Temple period
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 150 Seleucid era = 162 BCE–161 BCE | Sabbatical year. Second year of Antiochus Eupator‘s reign. Judas Maccabeus lays siege to the garrison in the citadel at Jerusalem, with the Jewish runagates.[78] |
| 178 Seleucid era = 134 BCE–133 BCE | Sabbatical year. Ptolemy slays the brethren of John Hyrcanus.[79] |
| 271 Seleucid era = 41 BCE–40 BCE | Sabbatical year. Jerusalem captured by Herod and Sosius.[80] |
The first modern treatise devoted to the Sabbatical (and Jubilee) cycles was that of Benedict Zuckermann.[81] Zuckermann insisted that for Sabbatical years after the Babylonian exile “it is necessary to assume the commencement of a new starting-point, since the laws of Sabbatical years and Jubilees fell into disuse during the Babylonian captivity, when a foreign nation held possession of the land of Canaan … We therefore cannot agree with chronologists who assume an unbroken continuity of septennial Sabbaths and Jubilees.”[82] The Seder Olam (ch. 30) is explicit that this was the case, i.e. that the returned exiles had a renewed start of tithes, Sabbatical years, and Jubilee years. The first instance of a Sabbatical year treated by Zuckermann was Herod the Great‘s siege of Jerusalem, as described by Josephus.[83] Zuckermann assigned this to 38/37 BCE, i.e. he considered that a Sabbatical year started in Tishri of 38 BCE. Next, he considered John Hyrcanus‘s siege of Ptolemy in the fortress of Dagon, which is described both in Josephus (Antiquities. 13.8.1/235; The Jewish War 1.2.4/59-60) and 1 Maccabees (16:14-16), and during which a Sabbatical year started; from the chronological information provided in these texts, Zuckermann concluded that 136/135 BCE was a Sabbatical year. The next event to be treated was Antiochus Eupator‘s siege of the fortress Beth-zur (Ant. 12.9.5/378, 1 Maccabees 6:53), dated by Zuckermann to 163/162 BCE. However, he also remarked on the difficulties presented to this figure by the text in 1 Maccabees, which would seem to date the siege one year later, and so he decided to leave it out of consideration.[84] The final text considered by Zuckermann was a passage in the Seder Olam that relates the destruction of the Second Temple to a Sabbatical year, an event that is known from secular history to have happened in the summer of 70 CE. Zuckermann interpreted the Seder Olam text as stating that this happened in a year after a Sabbatical year, thus placing a Sabbatical in 68/69 CE.
All these dates as calculated by Zuckermann are separated by an integral multiple of seven years, except for the date associated with the siege of Beth-zur. Furthermore, his chronology is consistent with that accepted by the geonim (medieval Jewish scholars) and the calendar of Sabbatical years used in present-day Israel. All of this would seem to be strong evidence in favor of Zuckermann’s scheme. Nevertheless, some problems have been recognized, beyond just the question of the siege of Beth-zur, which was one year too late for Zuckermann’s calendar. A consistent problem has been the ambiguity alleged in some of the passages, notably of Josephus, where it has been questioned, for example, when Josephus started the regnal years of Herod the Great. In a study the chronology of all Herod’s reign, Andrew Steinmann presents arguments in favor of dating Herod’s capture of Jerusalem in 10 Tishre of 37 BCE, i.e. just after the Sabbatical year of 38/37, based on references to the activities of Mark Antony and Sosius, Herod’s helpers, in Cassius Dio (49.23.1–2) and also on other considerations.[85] This date is in agreement with Ben Zion Wacholder‘s chronology. Therefore, many modern scholars have adopted a Sabbatical year calendar for the Second Temple period that is one year later, although there are many prominent scholars who still maintain a cycle consistent with Zuckermann’s conclusion of a 38/37 BCE Sabbatical year.
Among those who have advocated an adjustment to Zuckermann’s chronology, the most extensive studies in its favor have been those of Ben Zion Wacholder.[86] Wacholder had access to legal documents from the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt that were not available to Zuckermann. The arguments of Wacholder and others to support the calendar one year later than that of Zuckermann are rather technical and will not be presented here, except for two items to which Zuckermann, Wacholder, and other scholars have given great weight: 1) the date of Herod’s capture of Jerusalem from Antigonus, and 2) the testimony of the Seder Olam relating the destruction of the Second Temple to a Sabbatical year. Wacholder gives the dates of post-exilic Sabbatical years in the following table:[87]
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 331/330 BCE | Remission of taxes under Alexander the Great for Sabbatical years. |
| 163/162 BCE | Second battle of Beth-Zur; summer 162 BCE.[88] |
| 135/134 BCE | Murder of Simon the Hasmonean.[89] |
| 37/36 BCE | Herod conquers Jerusalem on 10 Tishri (Day of Atonement) just after end of Sabbatical year 37/36 BCE.[90] |
| 41/42 CE | Recital of Deuteronomy 7:15 by Agrippa I in a post-Sabbatical year, making the Sabbatical year 41/42.[91] |
| 55/56 CE | A note of indebtedness from Wadi Murabba’at in 2nd year of Nero, 55/56 CE, indicating 55/56 as a Sabbatical year. |
| 69/70 CE | Destruction of Jerusalem in the latter part (motsae, “going-out”) of the Sabbatical year 69/70.[92] |
| 132/133 CE | Rental contracts of Simon bar Kosiba indicating 132/133 as a Sabbatical year. |
| 433/434 and 440/441 CE | Three fourth- and fifth-century tombstones near Sodom indicating 433/434 and 440/441 CE were Sabbatical years. |
Subsequent to Wacholder’s study, Yoram Tsafrir and Gideon Foerster published the results of archaeological excavations at Beth Shean in the Levant that verified a record from the Cairo Geniza that gave 749 CE as the year for the “Earthquake of the Sabbatical Year”.[93] According to the Geniza record, the earthquake occurred on 23 Shevat, 679 years after the destruction of the Second Temple; this is January 18, 749 CE in the Julian calendar.
| Jan. 749 CE | “Sabbatical year earthquake”: 23 Shevat=18 Jan., 749 CE. |
Seder Olam and the Sabbaticals associated with the destructions of the Temples
The principal author of the Seder Olam, Rabbi Jose, was a pupil of the famous Rabbi Akiva. Jose was a young man when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and burned the Temple. On such an important issue as the year in which the Temple was destroyed, it would be logical that Jose’s ideas were taken from his mentor and his mentor’s contemporaries.
Chapter 30 of the Seder Olam gives the year that both Temples were destroyed as be-motsae shevi’it (במוצאי שבעית). Heinrich Guggenheimer‘s recent translation[94] renders this phrase as “at the end of a Sabbatical year”, thus unambiguously supporting the Wacholder calendar that starts a Sabbatical year in the fall of 69 CE. The problem, however, is that many translations of the Seder Olam render the phrase as “in the year after a Sabbatical year” or its equivalent. This was the sense adopted by Zuckermann when citing the Seder Olam as supportive of his calendar of Sabbatical years. The same Hebrew phrase is used in the Babylonian Talmud when citing this passage from the Seder Olam, and some modern translations of the Talmud into English translate the phrase in the sense given by Guggenheimer, while others translate it in the sense of “the year after”. The Seder Olam uses the same phrase regarding a Sabbatical year for the destruction of both Temples, so that its testimony in this regard is important for dating the shemitot in both pre-exilic and post-exilic times. Therefore, it would seem necessary to closely examine the phrase in the original Hebrew when making chronological decisions. Unfortunately, this was not done, either by Zuckermann,[95] Wacholder,[96] or Finegan,[97] when citing the Seder Olam’s testimony as decisive for their particular calendars of Sabbatical years. Most interpreters have simply relied on an existing translation, and that translation may have been unduly influenced by an attempt to make the translation consistent with the chronology of the geonim that placed the end of the Second Temple in a post-Sabbatical year.
At least one study has addressed this problem, arguing from both a linguistic standpoint and from a study of related texts in the Seder Olam that the phrase ve-motsae sheviit should be translated as something close to “and in the latter part of a Sabbatical year”, consistent with Guggenheimer’s translation and Wacholder’s calendar.[98] This recent study argues that a comparative study of the word motsae (literally, “goings-out”) does not support any sense of “after” (“after a Sabbatical year”). Further, the reference of the Seder Olam to a Sabbatical year associated with Jehoiachin is in keeping with a Sabbatical year when the First Temple was burned a few years later, but the Seder Olam would be in conflict with itself if the phrase in chapter 30 was interpreted as saying that the burning was in a post-Sabbatical year.
Jubilee and Sabbatical years as a long-term calendar for Israel
The Jubilee and Sabbatical year provided a long-term means for dating events, a fact that must have become obvious soon after the legislation was put into effect. It is of some interest, then, that the Babylonian Talmud (tractate Sanhedrin 40a,b) records that in the time of the judges, legal events such as contracts or criminal cases were dated according to the Jubilee cycle, the Sabbatical cycle within the Jubilee cycle, and the year within the Sabbatical cycle. The Samaritan community apparently used this method of dating as late as the 14th century CE, when an editor of one of the writings of the Samaritans wrote that he finished his work in the sixty-first Jubilee cycle since the entry into Canaan, in the fourth year of the fifth Sabbatical of that cycle.[99] These cases of usage of the Jubilee/Sabbatical cycles make no provision for the possibility of the Sabbatical cycles being out of phase with the Jubilee cycles, which is additional evidence that the Jubilee was contemporaneous with the seventh Sabbatical year.
Endnotes
The endnote number is out of synch with Wikipedia and I am unable to fix it. Therefore, add 49 to each in order to make the correction. For example, endnote “50” below corresponds to “1”.
- Leviticus 25:2-13. Year of entry into the land: 1 Kings 6:1 and Joshua 5:6. According to the Leviticus passage, the first Sabbatical year should have started in Tishri of 1400 if the people faithfully observed the Mosaic legislation, and the first Jubilee was due 42 years after that, in 1358/57 BCE.
- ^ 2 Chronicles 17:7–9; cf. Deuteronomy 31:10.
- ^ 2 Kings 19:29; Isaiah 37:30.
- ^ 2 Chronicles 34:29–32.
- ^ Seder Olam 24; Bab. Talmud Megillah 14b.
- ^ Jeremiah 34:8-10.
- ^ 2 Kings 25:3–11; 2 Chronicles 3:15–19;Seder Olam 30.
- ^ Ezekiel 40:1; Seder Olam 11; Bab. Talmud ‘Arakin 12a. This was 16 * 49 = 784 years after date of first Jubilee that began in the fall of 1358 BCE, showing that the priests, one of whom was Ezekiel, were counting the years throughout the entire period despite the people’s neglect of fulfilling the obligations of the Shmita and Jubilee years.
- ^ Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings (3rd. ed.; Grand Rapids: Zondervan/Kregel, 1983) 85, 217.
- ^ Rodger C. Young, “When Did Solomon Die?” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 46 (2003) 589–603.[2]
- ^ Finegan, Handbook 246.
- ^ Leslie Mcfall, “Do the Sixty-nine Weeks of Daniel Date the Messianic Mission of Nehemiah Or Jesus?” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 52 (2009) 690, n. 43; McFall, “The Chronology of Saul and David”, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 53 (2010) 533 (chart).
- ^ Andrew E. Steinmann, From Abraham to Paul: A Biblical Chronology (St. Louis: Concordia, 2011) 138, 141 (Table 31).
- ^ Bryant G. Wood, “The Rise and Fall of the 13th-Century Exodus-Conquest Theory”, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 48 (2005): 477, 488.[3]
- ^ Douglas Petrovich, “The Ophel Pithos Inscription: Its Dating, Language, Translation, and Script”, Palestine Exploration Quarterly 147 (2015) 142. Young’s revised table of Judean kings is available here (Table 2, p. 246).
- ^ Ferdinand Hitzig, Geschichte des Volkes Israel (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1869) 1.9 and 198–99.
- ^ Rodger C. Young, “The Talmud’s Two Jubilees and Their Relevance to the Date of the Exodus”, Westminster Theological Journal 68 (2006) p. 76, n. 11.[4]
- ^ William Whiston, “Dissertation V, Upon the Chronology of Josephus”, Josephus: Complete Works (trans. Wm. Whiston; Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1964), 703. Originally published in 1737.
- ^ Cyrus Gordon, “Sabbatical Cycle or Seasonal Pattern?” Orientalia 22 (1953): 81.
- ^ Nahum Sarna, “Zedekiah’s Emancipation of Slaves and the Sabbatical Year”, Orient and Occident: Essays presented to Cyrus H. Gordon on the Occasion of his Sixty-fifth Birthday (ed. Harry Hoffner, Jr.; Neukirchen: Butzon & Bercker Kevelaer, 1973), 143-149.
- ^ Sarna, “Zedekiah’s Emancipation”, 144-145.
- ^ The Babylonian Talmud (London: Soncino Press, 1938).
- ^ Taanit 4:5 in The Talmud of the Land of Israel, tr. Jacob Neusner (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).
- ^ Richard A. Parker and Waldo H. Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C. – A.D. 75 (Providence: Brown University, 1956) 12.
- ^ Jean-François Lefebvre, Le Jubilé Biblique: Lv 25 — Exégèse et Théologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003) 154-166.
- ^ Zuckermann, Treatise 20.
- ^ Robert North, Sociology of the Biblical Jubilee (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1954) 2, 109–134.
- ^ The method described in the following table is based on Maimonides‘ method of counting the Seven-year cycle. According to Maimonides (Mishne Torah, Hil. Shmita ve-Yovel 10:7), during the Second Temple period, the seven-year cycle which repeated itself every seven years was actually dependent upon the fixation of the Jubilee, or the fiftieth year, which year temporarily broke off the counting of the seven-year cycle. The counting was renewed in the 51st year, which became the 1st-year in a new Seven-year cycle.
- ^ Josephus, Antiquities 12.9.3 (12.362); I Maccabees VI. 49, 53
- ^ Josephus, Antiquities 13.8.1–2; The Jewish War 1.2.4.; First Book of Maccabees 16:14-16
- ^ Josephus, Antiquities 14.16.2.
- ^ Benedict Zuckermann, Treatise on the Sabbatical Cycle and the Jubilee, trans. A Löwy; (New York: Hermon, 1974); originally published as “Ueber Sabbatjahrcyclus und Jobelperiode”, in Jahresbericht des jüdisch-theologischen Seminars “Fraenckelscher Stiftung” (Breslau, 1857).
- ^ Zuckermann, Treatise., 31.
- ^ Ant.14.16.2/470-76, 15.1.2/7.
- ^ Zuckermann, Treatise 47-48.
- ^ Andrew E. Steinmann, “When Did Herod the Great Reign?” Novum Testamentum 51 (2009) 8–11.[5].
- ^ Ben Zion Wacholder, “The Calendar of Sabbatical Cycles During the Second Temple and the Early Rabbinic Period”, HUCA 44 (1973) 53-196; “Chronomessianism: The Timing of Messianic Movements and the Calendar of Sabbatical Cycles”, HUCA 46 (1975) 201-218; “The Calendar of Sabbath Years during the Second Temple Era: A Response”, HUCA 54 (1983) 123-133.
- ^ Ben Zion Wacholder, Essays on Jewish Chronology and Chronography (New York: Ktav, 1976) 6–32.
- ^ 1 Maccabees 6:20,49; Josephus, Antiquities 12.9.5/378.
- ^ 1 Macc 16:14–21; Antiquities 13.8.1/234; Josephus, Wars 1.2.4/60.
- ^ Antiquities 14.16.2/475, 15.1.2/7; Wars 1.17.9–18.1/345–47
- ^ Mishnah Sotah 7:8; Antiquities 18.8.3/271–72; Wars 2.10.5/199–200.
- ^ Seder Olam 30; Tosefta Ta’anit 3:9; Jerusalem Talmud 4.5.6; Babylonian Talmud Ta’anit 29a; Arakin 11b.
- ^ Yoram Tsafrir and Gideon Foerster, “The Dating of the ‘Earthquake of the Sabbatical Year’ of 749 C.E. in Palestine”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 55:2 (1992), 231-5 JSTOR link.
- ^ Heinrich Guggenheimer, Seder Olam – The Rabbinic View of Biblical Chronology (Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005) 264.
- ^ Zuckermann, Treatise, 48.
- ^ Ben Zion Wacholder, Essays in Jewish Chronology and Chronography (New York: Ktav, 1976) 19-22.
- ^ Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology (rev. ed.; Peabody MA: Hendrickson, 1998) 122.
- ^ Rodger C. Young, “Seder Olam and the Sabbaticals Associated With the Two Destructions of Jerusalem: Part I”, Jewish Bible Quarterly 34 (2006) 173-179; [6] Part II, JBQ 34 252-259.[7]
- ^ Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter, 1972), 14, col. 751.
‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the Lord. 3 For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. 4 But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards.” Leviticus 25:1-4
Aside from rest on the 7th day of every week as the Sabbath,
ancient Hebrews also celebrated the 7th year of each 7 year cycle
as a 'rest year' from farming and working their fields.
Candles for Shabbat Image by Olaf.herfurth
for Wiki Commons CC BY-SA 3.0
Leviticus 25:19-21
Over time, the last day of the Sabbath year and the year itself came to be known as the “Shemitah” (pronounced sh’mi’-tah) among the Jewish nation, the desecendants of the Israeli Hebrews.
MORE evidence in scripture show that God ALWAYS performed His works and actions according to the Jewish moon calendar and still does. From resting on the seventh day after creating the world in the first six days: Before a law was made that the Sabbath be kept holy. (Note that it is mentioned in the Bible that a day in the Lord's time is one thousand years on earth and many seem to overlook or misunderstand this, especially fundamentalist creationists)
Consider that the Lord also established the church age on a feast day, namely Pentecost: the church age is the period where the whole world or the Gentiles got a shot at salvation through Jesus, while the Jewish people were set back by their own blindness to the Lord. The Lord also mentions the END of the church age—speculated by observers of the current blood moon tetrad cycle to occur also on a feast day, namely: Trumpets, or the last day of the perfect tetrad lunar eclipse phenomenon of 2014-2015. This will be a turn where the Lord calls back his nation, Israel, to his fold.
Nothing in scripture indicates that the LORD ever stopped His manner of working or acting His will based on the Jewish moon calendar. Neither were the laws of Moses ever discarded after the Lord's teachings were and still are fulfilled in Christ's coming and resurrection. Even Christ teaches us to follow the laws of the Lord and provided insights on how they actually work and not how Pharisees interpret them.
The reason the Shemitah is now being understood as a prophetic sign, that MAY apply to any nation (note that Rabbi Cahn uses the word “may” here) is because we can see and study the WORKS of God in the Bible. God used the Hebrew moon calendar to bring salvation to ALL people groups when Christ died on a Passover, was raised on First Fruits, and when the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost to anoint the Disciples.
While most will dismiss the current interest in the workings of the Shemitah, we should always be careful when others are quick to dismiss and waylay, especially those who choose to overlook the signs of the times.
All of the Lord's teachings about the end of days include signs.
Rabbi Cahn may be sharing something significant and reminding us about the Lord's ways. If disasters strike during this Shemitah cycle, those events might be symbolic that we must remain vigilant more than ever. World powers rose or fell according to seven year cycles which coincided with the Shemitah calendar. Same as the ancient nations of Babylon and Egypt in the Bible. Cycles of lunar and solar eclipses as Signs of the Heavens may just be God's reminder that He IS around and watching over us, more than we even know.
The Bible is not a closed book historical oddity, but is largely opened to us through the work of the Holy Spirit. The Living Word of the Lord reveals His nature, His character, and His plan throughout all eternity. Including in the present time and space in history.
Remember that the original Greek translation of the Word of God uses a pervading present tense for ALL of the Bible—indicating that Scripture is not something that happened long ago, but is an ever present and constant being of the Lord's glory.
Some Bible code aficionados have even marked passages in the Bible that actually mark time in a very precise manner such that most of the future events may be plotted in a schedule coinciding with the Hebrew lunar and harvest cycle.
cles of time are central to Jewish life. Just as punctuates the week, so too the holidays punctuate the year.
Less known, but no less central in the Jewish cycle of time, is Shmita, the “year of release,” which is more widely known as the sabbatical year. The next Shmita falls in the Jewish year 5789, which begins on Sept. 20, 2028.
Just as the calls for Jews to work six days and rest on the seventh, it calls for them to work the land six days and let it rest in the seventh. After 49 years, seven cycles of seven, the 50th is Yovel – the Jubilee year. However, the Jubilee year has not been marked for centuries.
In the Shmita year, debts are to be forgiven, agricultural lands to lie fallow, private land holdings to become open to the commons, and staples such as food storage and perennial harvests to be freely redistributed and accessible to all.
The first reference to Shmita is in the Book of Exodus (Exodus 23:10-11):
For six years you are to sow your land and to gather in its produce, but in the seventh, you are to let it go [tishm’tenah] and to let it be [u’nitashta], that the needy of your people may eat, and what remains, the wildlife of the field shall eat. Do thus with your vineyard, with your olive grove.
Shmita is further discussed in the Mishnah and Talmud, particularly in Seder Zeraim, the section pertaining to agricultural laws of Israel. In the 11th century, Maimonides (Rambam) further elaborated on the laws in his master work, the Mishneh Torah, which includes a section addressing Shmita both from an agrarian and economic perspective.
Because the laws were interpreted to pertain exclusively to the Land of Israel, they were not a major Jewish focus for the almost 2,000 years in which few Jews lived in Israel. As Jews began returning to Israel in large numbers, in the late 19th and early 20th century, Shmita created some significant hurdles and questions for those early communities in Israel, trying on the one hand, to keep true to the ancient law of the land, and, on the other hand, to meet the conditions necessary for comforts they had grown accustomed to in modern European agricultural and economic systems.
Shmita continues to be a very real part of the religious, agricultural, and economic reality in Israel today, and one that is simultaneously both very exciting and very challenging.
READ: Understanding Shmita, Israel’s Agricultural Shabbat
Today, Shmita challenges all who learn about it to think about what our obligations are to land and people in general, and to land and people within the Jewish world and in Israel, in particular.
The Hebrew word for sabbath is sab-bat, and its meaning is ‘intermission.’ The first time the word sabbath is mentioned in the Bible is in Exodus 16:23. After the children of Israel left Egypt and came into the wilderness of Sin, they complained about lack of bread; so God rained down heavenly manna upon them (for 40 years). The people could gather and cook the manna for six days, but not on the seventh. They were told to take enough manna on the sixth day so they could have ‘leftovers’ for the seventh day. The 7th day was to be a day of rest, a sabbath to the Lord.
The first time God elucidated the importance of the sabbath is in Exodus 31:13-17 when Moses physically received the Ten Commandments (two tablets of testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God) on Mt. Sinai. Look at the importance of this fourth commandment:
“Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever does any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed” (Exodus 31:15-17).
The weekly sabbath is a day of rest. If the ancient children of Israel worked on this day, they would be put to death. God was very serious about this commandment, as He is about all of them. The seventh day of the week, the sabbath, is considered a Feast of the Lord, albeit a weekly one and not an annual event. The seventh day of rest, after the six days of creation, is the main reason why the number 7 represents completion and perfection in the Bible.
Throughout the book of Exodus, most of the Feasts of the Lord are introduced, but it is in Leviticus 23 where all of them are given and explained in detail. It is interesting to note that the first Feast mentioned is the weekly sabbath of rest. The remainder of Leviticus 23 is in regard to the 7 annual Feasts of the Lord. The Lord required certain days of these Feasts to be work prohibitive (no servile work therein), but only the three fall Feasts specify they are a sabbath. These fall Feasts are Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah), Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) – on the first and eighth day. An informative site for these particular Feasts of the Lord is located at: Ancient Calendars, Feast Days, & Daniel 12:11: Part 3 :: By Randy Nettles (raptureready.com)
In addition to a weekly day of rest for the people and work animals, God also required a year of rest for the land of Israel every 7 years. This is called the Sabbath year or Shemitah (Shmita) year and is described in Leviticus 25:2-7:
“Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to the Lord. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather its fruit; but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the Lord. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. What grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine, for it is a year of rest for the land. And the sabbath produce of the land shall be food for you: for you, your male and female servants, your hired man, and the stranger who dwells with you, for your livestock and the beasts that are in your land—all its produce shall be for food.”
Every 7th year, the people of Israel were instructed to grant a release for the debtor (forgive debts owned by fellow Israelites) according to Deuteronomy 15:1-3. Also, Hebrew slaves were to be set free for nothing (Exodus 21:2). The reason for this release of debt and servitude is given in Deuteronomy 15:4, “there may be no poor among you; for the Lord will greatly bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance.” However, this remedy was conditional, “only if you carefully obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe with care all these commandments which I command you today” (Deuteronomy 15:5). The reward for this obedience would be a blessing from God, as described in verse 6.
To show how important the Shemitah year and the number 7 were, God went even further by multiplying the Sabbath year (and potential blessings) and creating the Jubilee.
“‘And you shall count seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years; and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family” (Leviticus 25:8-10).
The word ‘jubilee’ (yo-w-bel), interestingly enough, means a ram’s horn, as a shofar, in the Bible. The year of the Jubilee involved a release from indebtedness and bondage. All slaves were set free, and prisoners and captives were released. All property was returned to its original owner. Like the Sabbath year, all labor was to cease for one year. The land would provide for the people’s needs because letting the land rest would result in bountiful crops during the years immediately before the 7th and 49/50th years. Also, the residue of crops and the wild grapes that weren’t cultivated would provide food for the people and animals.
Throughout the years, I have been asked repeatedly what I thought about the Shemitah years (cycles) and the Jubilee and how they relate to the end times; in particular, how they relate to the prophecy of Daniel’s 70th Week/Sevens (Daniel 9:24-27). My usual reply is that since there have never been any biblical or secular sources that confirm that Israel ever obeyed any of these commandments, there is no real prophetic significance regarding them or trying to date them. To have a final future Shemitah year or Jubilee, there has to be a first one.
For the blessings to come true, the children of Israel would have had to keep all of the Day/s of Atonement. If they didn’t keep this holy annual event for six straight years, there would be no Shemitah year in the 7th year. If they didn’t keep all of the Shemitah years of rest for the land and people, there would be no Jubilee; so it is meaningless to try and figure out when these cycles begin and when they end. More on this later. Of course, God would make certain that the land had its 7th (and 50th) year of rest, one way or the other.
The Jubilee and the Shemitah year were to be a time of rest for the people, work animals, and the land. They were meant to be Sabbaths unto the Lord. The promise of God’s blessing for obeying His Sabbaths, as well as His retribution for disobeying, are given in chapter 26 of Leviticus. The curse of not obeying God and neglecting His Sabbaths are discussed in verses 33-35:
“I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you; your land shall be desolate and your cities waste. Then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest and enjoy its sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate it shall rest – for the time it did not rest on your sabbaths when you dwelt in it.”
God also warned the children of Israel that if they did not obey Him, and did not observe all His commandments, and if they despised His statutes; or if their soul abhorred His Judgments so that they did not perform all His commandment but instead broke His covenant, He would punish them 7 times more for their sins (vs.18). God doesn’t stop there but promises 7 times more plagues in vs. 21, and 7 more times of punishment in vs. 24, and 7 more times of chastisement in vs. 28. The cost of disobeying God’s commandments, including the Shemitah years and Jubilee, add up (or should I say multiply) in an exponential manner. In this case, 7 is the number for complete punishment.
History has shown us that the children of Israel, through the divided kingdoms of Judah and Israel, chose to disobey God by transgressing against His commandments; especially the 1st commandment (you shall have no other God besides me) and the 4th commandment (keep the Sabbath day holy), which includes the Shemitah years and Jubilees. The devastating result was exactly what God told them through his prophet Moses, which he recorded in his books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus.
The northern Kingdom, Israel, was overtaken by Assyria in 722 BC. They were scattered throughout the kingdom of Assyria and would never return as a nation. The southern kingdom of Judah was destroyed in 586 BC by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and its citizens were mostly killed or taken captive back to Babylon.
Jeremiah was a priest in Jerusalem when God called him to be a prophet in the 13th year of King Josiah’s reign. He prophesied mostly about the coming destruction of Judah and Jerusalem for their sinful rebellion against the Lord. He prophesied during the reigns of Judah’s last five kings, from 626 BC to 580 BC.
In 605 BC, Jeremiah prophesied about a 70-year desolation and captivity that God would bring about through His vessel, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. These 70 years of captivity in Babylon were to be a judgment and punishment from God because of the Jews’ apostasy against His word and will. The main reason for this judgment is given in Jeremiah 25:6-7, which talks about their worshipping other gods.
It is thought by most Bible teachers that the 70-year judgment started in 586 BC and ended when the second temple was rebuilt and completed in 516 BC. Others suggest the starting point was 605 BC when the first group of Jews (including Daniel and his three friends, Hanniah, Mishiel, and Azariah) was deported to Babylon, and the end was 535 BC when reconstruction of the temple began in Jerusalem.
The 70-year captivity was not to be the Jews’ only judgment, however. There was still the matter of neglecting the 4th commandment and not obeying the Sabbath and keeping it holy. We are not talking about the weekly Sabbath, for the Jews didn’t have a problem with that; but they did have a problem with the Shemitah/Sabbath year and Jubilee.
In approximately 539 BC, Daniel the prophet was still in Babylon and was reading the prophecy of Jeremiah regarding the 70-year captivity. Realizing the 70 years were nearing its completion, Daniel began to pray, asking God’s forgiveness for the sins of his people and pleading for the restoration of Jerusalem and Israel’s imminent return to their land. It was a truly righteous prayer and is found in Daniel 9:1-19. Before Daniel could finish his prayer, the Angel Gabriel appeared and gave him the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks (Sevens) as outlined in Daniel 9:24-27.
By praying fervently to God and asking for forgiveness of Israel’s corporate sins, Daniel was attempting to bring about the promise of restoration found in Leviticus 26:40-42: “But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, and that they also have walked contrary to Me, and that I also have walked contrary to them and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they accept their guilt— then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham I will remember; I will remember the land.”
However, I believe Daniel forgot the remainder of this chapter. “The land also shall be left empty by them, and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; they will accept their guilt, because they despised My judgments and because their soul abhorred My statutes. Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God. But for their sake I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord” (Leviticus 26:43-45).
The angel Gabriel told Daniel that there was to be an additional 490 years (70 weeks of years) of judgment for the children of Israel because of their disobedience and neglect of the Sabbath years. Evidently, the children of Israel had neglected 70 of them. God was fulfilling his word that was given in Leviticus 21:18, whereas God promised his people that if they did not obey Him, He would punish them 7 more times for their sins. Mercifully, He did not punish them further, as He described in verses 21, 24, and 28. God would punish them by way of subjugation and separation from the promised land of Israel and Jerusalem so the land would get the sabbath rest that it didn’t get while they were in the land.
Here are Gabriel’s words: “Seventy weeks (of years) are determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy” (Daniel 9:24).
Gabriel then explained the timing and breakdown of the 490-year judgment. “Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times” (Daniel 9:25).
It would begin when a command or decree was issued for the Jews to return to the land of Israel/Jerusalem and restore and build Jerusalem (streets and wall to be rebuilt). After 69 weeks or 483 years, the long-awaited Messiah would come, only to be killed, and then the city and the sanctuary would be destroyed again. Can you imagine Daniel’s shock and dismay when hearing of this heavenly verdict?
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