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 influence of Joseph’s policy for the Egyptians illumines other puzzles in the Book of Leviticus. According to Genesis 47 the Egyptians finally settle down to a life of serfdom under the pharaoh. He gives them seed to sow the land and at harvest time they take four fifths for themselves and hand over a fifth to the pharaoh. The concluding two chapters of Leviticus, 26 and 27, set out the Israelite equivalent to this arrangement between supreme authority and subject. Leviticus 26 outlines the kind of relationship the Israelites should have with Yahweh. He will guarantee their harvests in return for their allegiance to his governance:

"If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time; and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely" (Lev 26,3-5)²⁸.

        Like the pharaoh providing seed for all the Egyptians (Gen 47,23), Yahweh provides food for the Israelites, even attending to the initial process of the growth of the seed itself.

        Critics assume that the peroration about loyalty in Leviticus 26 is the conclusion to the Book of Leviticus, and that the rules in Leviticus 27 about dedications to Yahweh constitute some kind of addendum²⁹. The matter is otherwise, however, if the lawgiver is laying out the Israelite equivalent to the concluding developments in Genesis 47. The Year of Jubilee comes into reckoning in these rules (Lev 27,17.18.21.23.24), one indication that they do not constitute an appendix but follow on naturally because of the lawgiver’s focus on Genesis 47. Pharaoh acquires both the Egyptians’ possessions and their persons, and he enters into a