Shanah is the Hebrew word for year, occurring about 877 times in the OT. It derives from a root meaning "repeat" or "change" — a year is a complete cycle, a revolution of seasons. The Hebrew calendar is lunar-solar, and the year is measured by festivals, agricultural rhythms, and Sabbath cycles.
Time in the Hebrew Bible is not abstract but covenantal — years are counted in relation to events (year of the Exodus, year of a king's reign). The shanah is a vessel of divine providence.
The Jubilee year (shanah) — every fiftieth year — was the radical reset button of Israelite society (Leviticus 25). Land returned to families, slaves were freed, debts were cancelled. It was a shanah that embodied the kingdom of God's economics: the creation belongs to God, and His people are stewards, not permanent owners.
Psalm 90 — the only Psalm attributed to Moses — meditates on the brevity of human shanim (years) before the eternal God: "A thousand years (shanim) in your sight are like a day that has just gone by." Our years are measured; God's is unmeasured.
Isaiah 61:2 announces "the year of the LORD's favor" — the shanah when Jubilee becomes cosmic: release to captives, recovery of sight to the blind. Jesus reads this text in Nazareth (Luke 4:19) and declares: "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." The Year has come.