Sabbatical years and the Jubilees, and the customs related thereto, were part of the Old Covenant and not binding on Christians. The Mosaic Law included a series of provisions whose purpose was to ameliorate poverty, to modulate the persistent underlying conditions that create and sustain human poverty, and promote an economy that reinforced doing business in food faith, fair dealing, and godly conduct. These promoted the common good, generally by protecting and assisting the weaker members of society through statutes such as, but not limited to, forbidding usury, dealing with gleaning, releasing slaves, forgiving debt, banning confiscating a saddle quern stone, and the like. Observance of both the Sabbatical year (Hebrew Shemitah meaning “release”) and the Jubilee (Hebrew Yovel meaning “ram”) were to serve these purposes.

Sabbatic Years

An important factor in promoting the common good and ensuring the fertility of farmland was the seven-year Sabbatical year cycle. The reckoning of Sabbatical years was by the civil calendar with the first Sabbatic year beginning on Tishri 1, 2356 AM (Mon., Sept. 13, 1406 BCE Julian (the 7^th month of the sacred year). The nation was to observe the seventh year as a land Sabbath replete with fallow fields (Leviticus 25:1-2).

A biblical Sabbatical cycle consisted of seven consecutive civil calendar years (Tishri/Tishri or fall-to-fall reckoning) followed by a new seven-year cycle. Old Cycle Sabbatical years (beginning with 1406/1405 BCE and ending 574/573 BCE) ran consecutively for 833 years (119 seven year cycles).

While the anchoring of the Sabbatical cycle is the Feast of Trumpets on Tishri 1 (the first day of the civil year), the Jubilees began on the Day of Atonement (Tishri 10). Our reference to Jubilees 1-17 and Sabbatical years as Old Cycle is because there was a 40-year break due to the forced captivity of the Jewish people by the Neo-Babylonians. The forty years began Tishri 1, 3189 AM (Sept. 12, 573 BCE) and ended with Elul 29, 3228 AM (Sun., September 19, 533 BCE).

A New Cycle began for counting Sabbatical years at the reinstatement of the sacrifices during the time of Nehemiah. On the Feast of Trumpets, Tishri 1, 3229 AM (Mon., Sept. 20, 533 BCE), upon the Altar of Burnt Offering in Jerusalem then being entirely rebuilt, the priests once again offered burnt offerings to the Lord (Ezra 3:1-6). The count for Sabbatical years at that point began anew in 533_Ti/532_Ti BCE beginning with Tishri 1, 3229 AM. In the new cycle, 3235 AM (527_Ti /526_Ti BCE) was accordingly the first Sabbatical year. Sabbatic years have continued in seriatim to the present day.

Jubilees

Ancient Israel was an agrarian society. God informed the Israelites that even though they occupied the Land, that He would remain the owner but would give them a right of possession or occupancy by tribes and family units. There were special rules concerning walled and unwalled settlements. This right of possession of agricultural land was not ownership “in fee simple absolute” (in legal terms, an estate in land being a form of freehold ownership).

The limited right granted to the tribes and families did not give them legal capacity or the authority to divest themselves wholly of their right of possession of agricultural land. God vested the right of possession of agricultural land in families which by the Mosaic Law passed to rightful heirs through the laws of inheritance. Heirs could not permanently dispose of their agricultural real property rights. Rightful possessors had a limited right to occupy and possess agricultural land only which they could convey to others by a lease. A tenant could lease a field for a year, five years, or other term but only up to a Jubilee.

All such leaseholds expired by law at the beginning of a Jubilee. The start of a Jubilee, by the blowing of trumpets on the Day of Atonement signaling the beginning of a new month (Psalm 81:3), the original possessors, or their rightful heirs, were to reclaim all agricultural land they had the right to possess. They then had the legal capacity to convey it again by lease. The social policy underlying this law was that agricultural land was not to be accumulated to the detriment of the common people (e.g., Isaiah 5:8).

In the priest administered system of the Old Covenant, a Jubilee was a 50th year only in the sense that it ran from Tishri 10 through Tishri 9 of a civil year (or Atonement to Atonement) beginning Tishri 10 in the 49th year. This required year 1 of a new 49-year cycle to immediately follow year 49 of the previous cycle.

There is no specific evidence suggesting the observance of Jubilees since the institution of the New Cycle. While there is some variation in opinion, the rabbinic understanding has been that there was no national religious observation of the Jubilee during this time, since the ordinance applies only when all the tribes of Israel reside in the land. Thus, observance of the Jubilee awaits until all the tribes resettle in their original territory in the land of Israel. Josephus refers frequently to the Sabbatical (Sabbatic) year but does not mention any observance of the Jubilee in the post-exilic period.

There is a hint in the New Testament that the Jewish people in Herodian times where aware of the Jubilee years although on a national scale the Jews did not celebrate these nationally. Some religious Jews, however, expected Messiah to come just before a Jubilee. They believed the Messiah would appear to deliver Israel in a Jubilee year as do some Jews and Christians in today’s world. King Herod was aware that among some Judeans there were growing expectations of the imminent appearance of the Messiah in anticipation of the 11th Jubilee and tolerated no threat to his rule. The coming 11th Jubilee of the New Cycle, beginning with Atonement, September 22, 6 CE, had fueled Judean messianic expectation.

In the twelfth year of Augustus’ proconsulship (4 BCE), he required all his subjects, including those in client kingdoms, to register and take a loyalty oath. The purpose of the registration was not taxation. It was a political action in preparation for the Roman Senate later declaring him Pater Patriae, a Latin honorific meaning “Father of the Fatherland.” The Senate ultimately voted the title to Caesar Augustus in 2 BCE.

Accordingly, in 4 BCE, Herod the Great ordered the registration and loyalty oath of his subjects but made it serve his purposes. Joseph and Mary as Royals, descendants of King David as recorded in the genealogical registers in the Temple archives, journeyed to Bethlehem to take the oath of allegiance and confirm their registration, as they both belonged to the house of David. While everyone else went “into his own city” (Luke 2:3) no doubt in their own localities, those of royal Judaic lineage because of political implications had to register in Bethlehem a small village of about 400 people.

There is no extant evidence that the Romans required everyone in the Roman world to go to their own town to register in 4/3 BCE or that other than the descendants of King David, both husbands and wives, any other Jews had to go to their place of birth. While Caesar Augustus sought the loyalty oaths throughout the Roman world on or about 4 BCE, the focus of Luke 2:1 was Galilee and Judea.

In context it seems the paranoid Herod the Great used the occasion to ferret out and deal with his real and imagined enemies including identifying all those of royal Judaic lineage so he would know who were all the potential claimants to the royal throne of David residing in his kingdom. While the Jews went “into his own city” (Luke 2:3) no doubt Herod and the Romans sought the loyalty oath of adult men, those of royal Judaic lineage, apparently both men and women, because of the political implications had to register and take the loyalty oath at Bethlehem. Of the 600 Pharisees put to death because they refused to take the oath there is no indication that their wives were put to death as well. Men were a threat; women were considered human chattel. Herod was anxious to know who all these people were (to keep them subjected to non-political functions) so that his own dynasty would survive. This was especially important at this point in history because of messianic expectation.