Calum Carmichael, «The Sabbatical/Jubilee Cycle and the Seven-Year Famine in Egypt», Vol. 80 (1999) 224-239

The comparative method is of limited value in locating the Sabbatical/Jubilee cycle of Leviticus 25 within the framework of similar institutions in the ancient Near East. Not only is the character of the biblical institution distinctively Israelite, but so is the manner in which the Levitical lawgiver devised the entire cycle. The lawgiver formulated rules to ensure that the Israelites do not do what the Egyptians did in their land (Lev 18,3). Borrowing details from the Genesis account of the seven-year famine in Egypt, the lawgiver set out Yahweh’s scheme for his people’s welfare. The scheme stands opposed to the pharaoh’s for the Egyptians at the time of the famine.

the time of the monarchy⁸. Another very common response is to explain away the unreal aspect of the laws. For example, a universal fallow year is not intended. Individual Israelites can set up their seven-year cycles in keeping with their own agricultural needs: "the Sabbath-year ‘fallow’ was particular and rotating, not simultaneously universal, at least primitively, and probably also in Lv"⁹. Or, contrary to this view, a universal year is intended but not on all of the land. In line with standard agricultural practice every year some parts of the field would be left fallow, but neighboring areas would still be cultivated. G.C. Chirichigno, who upholds this view, has difficulty in arguing why the seventh year is so special. He postulates a link-up of the Sabbatical year with an "earlier Sabbath institution which had both social-humanitarian and religious-cultic connotations" from the outset¹⁰.

        Again, it is very common to argue that the Jubilee year is not really the fiftieth year but is identical to the previous forty-ninth¹¹. By merging the two years, those critics who adhere to this view lessen the unreality of the Israelites having two years in a row given over to fallow conditions on the land. As for the release of slaves, one common rationalization is to claim that the release law of Deuteronomy, in which a slave can choose to become a permanent part of his master’s household, still applies. The Levitical law is thinking solely of those slaves who choose not to be manumitted in their seventh year of service but opt to be permanent slaves of a master. The permanence of that slave’s status is, in fact, limited, lasting only until the Year of Jubilee¹². A major influence on those scholars who regard the laws in Leviticus 25 as meant for real life