the arrangement is for
the sake of the land,--that it may rest, if not on the seventh day,
at least on the seventh year, and for the sake of the Sabbath--
that it may extend its supremacy over nature also. Of course this
presupposes the extreme degree of Sabbath observance by absolute
rest, and becomes comprehensible only when viewed as an outgrowth
from that. For the rest, a universal fallow season is possible
only under circumstances in which a people are to a considerable
extent independent of the products of their own agriculture; prior
to the exile even the idea of such a thing could hardly have
occurred.
In the Priestly Code the year of jubilee is further added to
supplement in turn the sabbatical year (Leviticus xxv. 8 seq.).
As the latter is framed to correspond with the seventh day,
so the former corresponds with the fiftieth, i.e., with Pentecost,
as is easily perceived from the parallelism of Leviticus xxv. 8
with Leviticus xxiii. 15. Asthe fiftieth day after the seven
Sabbath days is celebrated as a closing festival of the forty-nine
days' period, so is the fiftieth year after the seven sabbatic years
as rounding off the larger interval; the seven Sabbaths falling on
harvest time, which are usually reckoned specially (Luke vi.
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