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.

be taken. Yet, according to the rule, everyone in the land is fed in the Sabbatical year. The reason is that in the preceding year the deity causes the harvest to be so bountiful that supplies for three years are available from it (Lev 25,2-7. 20-22). The bumper crop is like those from the seven years of plenty in Egypt. Neither the Israelite harvest in the sixth year, nor each of the seven Egyptian harvests is a normal harvest. In each case enough food is grown during fertile times to feed the whole population during the famine or fallow years. In Genesis God directs Joseph to store the harvests (Gen 41,37-40). In Leviticus the explicit statement that old food will be eaten contains the implicit idea that the crops provided by God during the sixth year will be stored and eaten for three years (Lev 25,21.22)¹⁹.

        In formulating a law about some matter, the biblical lawgiver typically turns to a first-time occurrence of a problem in the nation’s history to see how it was resolved²⁰. The first example in the history of the nation of a famine overcome is in Egypt at the time of Joseph²¹. The famine that afflicts the land threatens starvation but in the event that does not happen. There are in fact seven successive years of famine in Egypt but there is no problem in feeding the Egyptians during these seven years. Joseph’s divinely directed policy of storing grain from the bumper harvests that precede the years of famine ensures that all in the land are fed (Gen 41,28).

        There are, however, economic and social upheavals brought about by the famine. Genesis 47 singles out a two-year climactic period, presumably at the end of the famine. During the first year of this two-year period the Egyptians give up all their money and