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.

sojourner. Contrastingly, the Egyptians became enslaved to their human ruler and hence one Egyptian could not become a slave to another Egyptian. Again, the lawgiver claims that the land belongs to Yahweh. That is why at the human level land can be bought and sold but none of it can be sold in perpetuity (Lev 25,23). The contrast is with how in Egypt the pharaoh, a human ruler, because of the famine, becomes the owner of the land, with the implication that no Egyptian can ever again buy or sell any of it.

        There are exceptions when it comes to the sale of land in both the Egyptian and Israelite situations, but these exceptions prove revealing. The priests in both places are treated differently from the general population. The Egyptian priests retain their lands because they have a special relationship with the pharaoh (Gen 47,22.26). Likewise the Israelite priests, the Levites, are to have a perpetual possession in the land of Canaan because of their special relationship to Yahweh. For example, the fields of common land belonging to the Levitical cities cannot be sold (Lev 25,34).

        The occasion of the Jubilee year is, I submit, to celebrate the difference between the Israelites and the Egyptians in line with the lawgiver’s declared aim to set out a policy for the Israelites that contrasts with Egyptian policy. Thus the lawgiver’s programmatic statement is, negatively: "After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do" (Lev 18,3), and, positively, "Wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them" (Lev 25,18). Unlike the Egyptians, the Israelites are to retain their landed possessions. Unlike the Egyptians, they are not permanently to become slaves to any human master, because in some sense they are slaves to Yahweh. Unlike the Egyptians, whose entire population became enslaved within one year, every fiftieth year the entire Israelite population is to be free from enslavement. The background to each of the laws in Leviticus 25 is the history of the developments in Egypt as laid out in Genesis 47²⁴. For example,