📖 Biblical Definition
The shemittah (שְׁמִטָּה, "release") was the seventh-year Sabbath commanded for the land and for debt. The land was to lie fallow for one full year in every seven (Leviticus 25:1-7): no sowing, no pruning, no reaping — what grew of itself was for the poor and the wild. The same year, debts between Israelites were released: "At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release" (Deuteronomy 15:1-11). Together with the Year of Jubilee (every fiftieth year), the shemittah encoded mercy into Israel’s economic and agricultural life. Failure to keep the shemittah is given as a reason for the seventy-year Babylonian exile (2 Chronicles 36:21). The land would have its sabbaths, one way or another.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
The seventh-year sabbath: land rest + debt release.
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The seventh-year sabbath commanded in Leviticus 25 and Deuteronomy 15. The land rests fallow (Lev 25:4); Israelite debts are released (Deut 15:1-2); Hebrew slaves go free (Exod 21:2). Together with the Jubilee (the 50th year), the shemittah cycle was Israel's economic-spiritual reset, encoding mercy and trust-in-providence into the calendar.
📖 Key Scripture
Leviticus 25:4 — "But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard."
Deuteronomy 15:1-2 — "At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it."
Exodus 21:2 — "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Largely ignored; modern economies have no rest-cycle for land or debt-release built in. The principles of fallow-land and debt-release are mostly lost.
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The shemittah was structural mercy — land rested, debts released, slaves freed. Modern economies have no equivalent. The result is land exhaustion, perpetual debt cycles, and economic structures that crush the poor across generations.
Recover the principle: rest is required, debt-mercy is required, freedom is required. The exact form may not transfer, but the principle stands — built-in mercy is biblical economics.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Hebrew shemittah, shamat.
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['Hebrew', 'H8059', 'shemittah', 'release, remission']
['Hebrew', 'H8058', 'shamat', 'to release, drop']
Usage
"Shemittah encodes mercy into the calendar."
"Land rest + debt release + slave freedom."
"The principle survives even where the form does not."