Глава 15

The law of the Sabbath year regarding the forgiveness of debts. - Release of Jewish slaves. Repetition of the law concerning the firstborn of livestock. Deut.15:1. In the seventh year, do forgiveness. Deut.15:2. Forgiveness consists in this: that every creditor who has lent to his neighbor should forgive the debt and not collect it from his neighbor or from his brother, for forgiveness has been proclaimed for the sake of the Lord [your God]; Deut.15:3. Collect it from the foreigner, and forgive what is yours from your brother. Deut.15:4. Unless you have a beggar, for the Lord will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, Deut.15:5. if only you will listen to the voice of the Lord your God and try to fulfill all these commandments that I command you today; Deut.15:6. For the Lord your God will bless you, as He has spoken to you, and you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow; and you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you. Deut.15:7. If there is a beggar among you, one of your brothers, in one of your dwellings, in your land that the Lord your God is giving you, then do not harden your heart and do not close your hand against your poor brother. Deut.15:8. but open your hand to him and lend him, depending on his need, what he needs; Deut.15:9. Beware lest the lawless thought enter your heart: “The seventh year is approaching, the year of forgiveness,” and lest therefore your eye become unkind to your poor brother, and you refuse him; for he will cry out against you to the Lord, and [great] sin will be upon you; Deut.15:10. give to him [and lend to him as much as he asks and as much as he needs], and when you give to him, your heart should not grieve, for for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your deeds and in everything that is done with your hands; Deut.15:11. for the poor will always be in the midst of [thy] land; Therefore I command you: open your hand to your brother, to your poor and to your needy in your land. They complement the regulations regarding the Sabbath year set forth in Ex. 23.11–12 and Lev.25.17. The fourth verse in its content is directly adjacent to the second. Verses 7-11 follow 4. The seventh year, a year of rest for the earth, was also a rest for the poor man, burdened with debts. “In the seventh year do forgiveness,” says the law. “Forgiveness consists in the fact that every creditor who has lent to his neighbor forgives the debt and does not collect it from his neighbor or from his brother, for (in this year) forgiveness was proclaimed for the sake of the Lord.” Michaelis, Salschutz, Ohler, Pastoret, Wiener, Smith and others understand the above words in the sense that “forgiveness” did not consist in the absolute termination of the lender’s right to demand from the debtor the amount loaned to him, but only in the termination of this right during the seventh year, after which the lender again entered into his rights and could again demand from the debtor the amount borrowed by him. The very name of this year, “schemittah,” says Salschutz, does not include the concept of complete forgiveness of debts, but only the reserving for some time of the right to collect them. What is especially remarkable in this regard, he adds, is that the verb schamat—“to leave”—refers not to a debt, but to the hand demanding the debt. In the sense of temporary abandonment, schemittah is also used in relation to the land, when it speaks of leaving it uncultivated in the seventh year. Other scholars, on the contrary, assure that in the seventh year debts were completely forgiven, in support of which they cite the words: “If you have one of your brothers who is poor, do not harden your heart and do not close your hand against your poor brother, but open your hand to him and lend him, depending on his need, what he needs. Beware lest a lawless thought enter your heart: the seventh year, the year of forgiveness, is approaching, and lest as a result your eye becomes unkind to your poor brother and you refuse him; for he will cry to the Lord, and great sin will be upon you.” The insistence of the legislator on wealthy people not to refuse to the poor the loan they ask for, in view of the approach of the seventh year, could not be clearer, they say, indicative of the true meaning of the law on the absolute forgiveness of debts. Taking the point of view of scientists of the second category, it must be assumed that the effect of the year of forgiveness extended to all types of debt obligations in general, but did not extend to such items that were held by the lenders not as collateral (the collateral must be returned with the destruction of the debt), but as a partial payment of the debt. The law of debt repayment extended only to the unpaid amount. The law on debt forgiveness in the seventh year does not extend to foreigners, as those who are outside the sphere of the socio-economic system of the chosen community. Deut.15:12. If your brother, a Jew or a Jewish woman, sells himself to you, then he must be your slave for six years, and in the seventh year let him go free from you; Deut.15:13. when you release him from you to freedom, do not let him go empty-handed, Deut.15:14. But provide him from your flocks, from your threshing floor, and from your winepress: give him what the Lord your God has blessed you with: Deut.15:15. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God delivered you, therefore today I command you this. Selling by a Jew himself into slavery to a fellow tribesman (Ex. 21.2) or selling him into slaves according to the law of Ex. 22.3 had the consequence for him of six years of service to the purchaser, with the right to release from slavery in the seventh year of service. Just as after a six-day work, a week-long Sabbath and after a six-year cultivation of the land, a year-long Sabbath should have (serving for rest and restoration of the strength of the working man and the producing land) turn the eyes of the Jew to the Creator and Provider of the world, so the liberation of a slave after a six-year state of slavery should have served (for both the master and the slave) as a reminder that they (regardless of socio-economic accidents) are still equal members of the kingdom of Jehovah. In the case where a Jew was made a slave less than six years before the year of jubilee, he was not required to serve for six years: in the year of jubilee he was made free (Lev.25.1). The Mosaic legislation takes on a different character in relation to an Israeli who becomes a slave to a non-Israelite living among the Jewish people. In this case, the Jewish slave was deprived of the right to emancipation in the seventh year. He was made free no earlier than the anniversary year. Before the anniversary year, he could only be released by ransom. As a reward for six years of work, to atone for the temporary socio-economic inequality between the Jewish master and the former Jewish slave, and, finally, in memory of his own liberation from slavery to the Egyptians, the Jewish master undertakes, when releasing the Jewish slave, to provide him with all kinds of property (vv. 13-15). Deut.15:16. If he says to you, “I will not leave you, because I love you and your house,” because it is good for him with you, Deut.15:17. then take an awl and pierce his ear through the door; and he will be your servant forever. Do the same with your servant. Wed. Ref. 21.5–6. Receiving legal sanction was probably one of the customs practiced in the ancient world. Deut.15:18. Do not consider it hard for yourself that you must set him free from you, for at the age of six he earned you twice the wages of a mercenary; and the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do. This verse is adjacent in its content directly to Deut. 15:14. Deut.15:19. All the firstborn males that are born from your herds and from your flocks you shall dedicate to the Lord your God: you shall not work on the firstborns of your will and do not shear the firstborns of your flocks; Deut.15:20. before the Lord your God, you and your family shall eat this every year in the place that the Lord [your God] will choose; Deut.15:21. If there is a blemish on it, lameness or blindness [or] any other defect, then do not sacrifice it to the Lord your God, Deut.15:22. but in your gates you shall eat it; the unclean, like the clean, [can eat] like chamois and like deer; Wed. Ref. 13.1–16, Num. 18.15–18. The sacrifice of the firstborn of livestock is likened to a peace offering. After the giving of the priestly part, the rest was eaten by the bringers “before the Lord” (Vlastov, Holy Chronicle). Deut.15:23. Just don’t eat his blood: pour it on the ground like water. See example to Deut. 12.15–16, 20–25. You might be interested in: