Deuteronomy 15--The Sabbatical Year

Deuteronomy 15
English Standard Version

The Sabbatical Year
15 “At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. 2 And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the LORD's release has been proclaimed. 3 Of a foreigner you may exact it, but whatever of yours is with your brother your hand shall release. 4 But there will be no poor among you; for the LORD will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess-- 5 if only you will strictly obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today. 6 For the LORD your God will bless you, as he promised you, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow, and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you.

7 “If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, 8 but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. 9 Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, ‘The seventh year, the year of release is near,’ and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the LORD against you, and you be guilty of sin. 10 You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. 11 For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’

12 “If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. 13 And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed. 14 You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress. As the LORD your God has blessed you, you shall give to him. 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today. 16 But if he says to you, ‘I will not go out from you,’ because he loves you and your household, since he is well-off with you, 17 then you shall take an awl, and put it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your slave forever. And to your female slave you shall do the same. 18 It shall not seem hard to you when you let him go free from you, for at half the cost of a hired worker he has served you six years. So the LORD your God will bless you in all that you do.

​19 “All the firstborn males that are born of your herd and flock you shall dedicate to the LORD your God. You shall do no work with the firstborn of your herd, nor shear the firstborn of your flock. 20 You shall eat it, you and your household, before the LORD your God year by year at the place that the LORD will choose. 21 But if it has any blemish, if it is lame or blind or has any serious blemish whatever, you shall not sacrifice it to the LORD your God. 22 You shall eat it within your towns. The unclean and the clean alike may eat it, as though it were a gazelle or a deer. 23 Only you shall not eat its blood; you shall pour it out on the ground like water.

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The Sabbath Year was a time when all debts were cancelled against brothers or sisters in the family of God.  You did not hold long-term debt over them.  You knew that you should base how much money you were willing to lend them based off of how long it was until the Sabbath Year.  Yet we'll see that this type of calculation was never to be at the expense of helping a person that was in need--even if you knew they weren't going to pay you back, the Jews were to always help their brothers and sisters who were in need, and were to do it as unto the LORD with generosity, not begrudgingly.  For the LORD loves a cheerful giver.  We are given many of these same principles as the Church, so it would do good for us to pay attention to this passage, even if we don't keep the same calendar where all of our debts to each other are forgiven automatically every seven years.

The LORD says this was so that there would never need to be poor people among them who poor because of life circumstances that happened that piled on debt that they and their families could never get out from under--think of those who would get sick and have to have expensive medical treatments today and how those bills can completely ruin their credit and make them poor for the rest of their lives--even if you have insurance.  The Jews were to help each other out even if there was a risk that they wouldn't be paid back, but everyone was also to make every effort to pay back the debt that they owed and not try to be a swindler who racked up debt they never intended to pay off.  In this way the people of the LORD would be able to lend to many nations because of the rich blessings he would give them, but they would not need to borrow foreign money and be controlled by them for the borrower is a slave to the lender (see the book of Proverbs).

But we know that there were poor and destitute people and Jesus told His disciples, "You will always have the poor among you," so how does that jive with what we see and how we are supposed to act today.  The LORD commands His people that if there is anyone among them who is poor and and in need, that these children of the LORD should not harden their hearts or close their hands--they should be conduits through which the LORD's blessings may flow to others.  There is nothing here about if the person deserves to be helped or if they will squander the help they are being given.  No, we are told to take care of our own (notice there is no command to take care of the whole world--the responsibility to take care of foreigners lies with those they call brothers).  And we are told to be careful that we not have an "unworthy thought" that essential was to think that the person was just trying to take advantage of you so that they didn't have to pay back the debt  We should not do this begrudgingly, and this is the command of the LORD, "You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’  This is one of the ways that others will know that we belong to the LORD--we should be generous with all the the LORD has given to us to take care of any need among our brothers and sisters in the family of God first, and then entrust that the LORD will also give us enough to lend to foreigners among us to take care of their needs, but we expect them to pay us back (possibly even with interest, though we don't charge them "usury" (very high interest rates, for that too is forbidden in the Law)."

The LORD is clear that this also sets the slaves free and returns a family's property to them that was part of their eternal covenant  There are very rare instances where the family's land can be given to the Levites, but for the most part, the covenant that the LORD made with the whole nation was also made individually to each tribe, clan, family and individual.  Even if they would be dispossessed from the Land, they would come back to that exact same plot of land that belonged to their family, clan, and tribe when the LORD would return them to the Land.

When a Hebrew slave was emancipated from a Hebrew slave owner, the slave owner was to give them generously from his own harvest of wheat, wine, and animals so that they would not be without food or source of income when they returned home--they would have some seed to plant crops and some animals and to start to breed and have some means of gaining an income again.  The LORD will bless the slave owners that are doing this to take care of their brothers and sisters who are destitute (slaves were not treated the same under the Law as we think of now because of the issues of human-trafficking, which is a capital offense under God's Law).

If at the end of the seven years the slave decides that he cannot take care of his own family and loves his master and decides to be permanently bound to the master and to in so doing essentially incorporate his family into his master's family so that the master becomes permanently responsible to take care of the man and his heirs as if they were his own family, then this is one of the situations where a man and a family may give up the rights to their land, because they have become members of another family with different covenant land.  The LORD allows such a slave to be permanently marked as a sign of the covenant that he has made with his master and in so doing, this man and his family should no longer be poor and destitute because they now have permanent access to their master and all that belongs to Him (is this not the same as what our Lord and Master has done for us? We remain slaves to Christ, but we are now bondservants because we love Him because He first loved us.)

Whoever desires to be let go should be let go willingly.  For the LORD reminds the people to remember how they were once slaves in Egypt and the LORD set them all free, and in doing so their slave owners generously gave them things on their way out so that there was no one among them who could be called poor.  All of them were wealthy because the LORD had given them everything they needed for their journey and then some.

All the firstborn of the flock every year was to be offered as a sacrifice to the LORD at the Tabernacle or Temple (the place the LORD would designate).  The firstborn of the flock was not to be used for work nor was it to be sheered in order to keep or sell its wool/fleece.  It was to be kept only for the purpose of sacrifice to the LORD and the man and his family were to eat of that sacrifice each year as they remembered the faithfulness and blessings of the LORD.  If however the animal had any blemish that made it unfit for sacrifice, they were not to sacrifice it to the LORD, but could instead kill it and eat it in their towns at home and it can be eaten by Jew or Gentile, but no one may eat the blood of the animal--it must be poured out on the ground, for no one, neither Jew nor Gentile, was to eat or drink blood.  For life is in the blood, and the blood was for making atonement and these sacrifices were always to point forward to Jesus.  So that on the day when He would say that His flesh was true food and His blood was true drink and that anyone who desired to be His disciple must eat His flesh and drink His blood that many would turn away because of this "hard teaching" and even His disciples were challenged when He asked, "Are you too going to turn away?" and they replied, "To whom shall we go?  You have the words of life." (See John 6).

Note:  There is something else called The Year of Jubilee that was a national feast every 50 years where all of these same things (debts forgiven, slaves set free, land restored, etc.) take place on a national scale as the people let the land rest every seventh year (or they were supposed to) and on the 50th year entrusting that the LORD would provide a large enough harvest on year 48 to provide for them through years 49 (a regular Sabbath Year) and 50 (The Year of Jubilee).  We've studied the Year of Jubilee in Leviticus 25 and 27 and it is also mentioned in Numbers 36.  It does not appear that it will be mentioned specifically in the book of Deuteronomy, so you may want to go back and look at those passages to see what's the same and what's different.  Compare the commands about the Sabbath Year in Leviticus 25 to those of the Year of Jubilee and see if it doesn't appear that the LORD is telling them when they are going into the Land to apply the principles that happened every 50 years to the celebration that happens every 7 years--to be more gracious and more forgiving as the LORD is going to be giving them even more blessing.  To whom much is given, much will be expected/required.  We too should forgive with the same measure with which we need to be forgiven, so we should be quick to forgive and not need to wait for a special feast or holiday to do so.  We should always be generous with what we have been entrusted with because we own none of it--it all belongs to the LORD.  If we would do these things, there would be little need for there to be welfare like we see it on a national or state level because each man's neighbors would help take care of him (perhaps our definition of "neighbors" would expand a bit in times of severe tragedy like natural disasters and all of us who are Christians would help each other near and far and that charity would then also extend to all those who are members of our country or state who are in need, and hopefully the LORD will continue to bless us with enough to where we can continue to be charitable to those from the rest of the world who come seeking aid, but do so understanding that the LORD wants them to give Him their hearts and wants them to become part of His family.  We must be about helping people with their greatest debt--their sin debt--and their greatest need--that of salvation and reconciliation to God--not simply taking care of their physical and monetary needs and sending them off full, warm, and rich on their way to Hell.