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.

then their livestock to pay for the food they receive that year. The transaction with the money will not have been different from the ones to obtain food in the preceding years. The bartering away of the animals, however, heralds a major change in prospect. The next year indeed proves momentous and alters the lives of the Egyptians forever. With their money and their livestock all gone, they have to give over this time their "bodies and their lands" to the pharaoh in order to buy food (Gen 47,18.19). The result is that all the Egyptians lose their private landholdings, which become the property of their king, and they also become permanent slaves to him. From this point on — once the famine is over — the Egyptians receive seed from the pharaoh to sow the land and in return, at harvest time, they are to keep four fifths for themselves and give him the remaining fifth.

        In Leviticus 25 the lawgiver introduces the Jubilee year by counting seven Sabbatical years, that is, a period of forty-nine years: "And thou shalt number seven Sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years ¼" (Lev 25,8). One of the lawgiver’s aims in specifically highlighting the seventh of the Sabbatical years is to introduce the next year, the fiftieth, as a climactic occasion, the Year of Jubilee. That year, like the Sabbatical year the year before it, is also to be a fallow year for the land. Just as the narrator of Genesis 47 focuses on a two-year climactic period of time, so does the lawgiver.

        In the law, during the first year of this two-year period, the forty-ninth year, the people experience famine-like conditions on the land but nonetheless have plenty to eat. After the forty-ninth year, which is the seventh of the Sabbatical years, the Israelites have now experienced, at intervals, seven years of famine-like conditions. The seven Sabbatical years constitute a parallel to the seven years of famine in Joseph’s Egypt²². Not only are there seven but food is divinely made available for each of the years to provide for the population.