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 next year, the Year of Jubilee, produces its own parallel to the second year of the climactic two-year period in Joseph’s Egypt. Like the developments that take place in Egypt, the events of the Jubilee year entail major social and economic changes. During this fiftieth year, all Israelites are to return to their ancestral landholdings and all Israelite slaves are to be freed from any service to a human master. The outcome is in striking contrast to the Egyptian situation when all the Egyptians lose their landholdings and become enslaved to the one human master, the pharaoh.

        Evidence that the lawgiver is looking at the Israelites’ history in Egypt when formulating his laws comes from noting that he explicitly draws attention to that history. To explain why Israelites should not experience permanent enslavement the lawgiver states that the Israelites became slaves to Yahweh when he brought them out of Egypt (Lev 25,42.55). The period of time that the lawgiver has in mind at this point is in the years succeeding the famine. Then a new pharaoh appeared — "Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph" (Exod 1,8) — who enslaved the descendants of Jacob’s family. It comes about, then, that the Israelites themselves, like the Egyptians in Joseph’s generation, become enslaved to the pharaoh. Yahweh, however, ensures that in no way are the Israelites to share the fate of the Egyptians. He causes the Israelites to be released from their service to the pharaoh. The Israelites, instead of being slaves to Pharaoh, become enslaved to their divine master, Yahweh.

        We can, I think, only comprehend the laws in Leviticus 25 by setting them against the background of Israel’s time in Egypt²³. The Israelites become slaves to their god but there is no bar at the human level to prevent one Israelite from becoming enslaved to another Israelite. The one effect of the notion that Yahweh is Israel’s master is that if an Israelite does become a slave his Israelite master is to regard him less as a slave and more as a hired servant or a