Deuteronomy

The Year of Release

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: 47-110

Genre: Talk

Track: 047

Dictation Name: RR187Z47

Location/Venue:

Year: 1993

Let us worship God. Oh give thanks unto the Lord, call upon His name, make known His deeds among the people sing unto Him, sing psalms unto Him, talk ye of all His wondrous works. Glory ye in His holy name let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord. Let us pray.

Our Father, give us joy even in these troubled times, joy in the knowledge that Thou art the King, let all things come from Thee and Thy purposes are all together righteous and holy. We wait therefore our Father upon Thine judgment, Thy deliverance and Thy providential care. Teach us the things that are of Thee that we may be strong in the day of trouble. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is from Deuteronomy 15:1-6. Our subject: The Year of Release. Deuteronomy 15:1-6.

“At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release.

2 And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother; because it is called the Lord's release.

3 Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it again: but that which is thine with thy brother thine hand shall release;

4 Save when there shall be no poor among you; for the Lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it:

5 Only if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all these commandments which I command thee this day.

6 For the Lord thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee.”

The laws concerning diet and debt are repeated so often that one would think there would be no misunderstanding about their meaning. Both sets of law are commonly neglected however. Debt in a long term basis can lead to poverty and non-Biblical diet can mean ill health but many seem ready to risk bad health and poverty rather than to obey God. Our text is concerned with another aspect of this habit, one day of rest, one day of rest in seven, one year in seven for both men and the land and the cancelation of debts in the seventh year. Nowaday you would feign [??] one Old Testament scholar well not in agreement with this law still wrote and I quote:

“Here we see at its clearest that Deuteronomy’s law are not just fixed decrees but a design for life. The climax of the passage is not the law about the cancellation of debts but the appeal to the heart in verse eleven. The opposite of law is crime and the opposite of God’s moral laws is sin.”

Well he was right about what they are, sin, and that God’s laws are indeed His design for life and we neglect them at our peril. Peace with God means that we are mindful of our neighbor’s needs. This does not mean statist welfarism but Godly health. The biblical premise is that the earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. Man is therefore under God’s law; he is totally dependent on God’s grace and bounty. Life cannot be on man’s terms but only God’s terms. So this means obedience to His laws and a care for the earth and men. Deuteronomy 14:22-29 requires a second tithe with a care of the needy, another aspect of that care is the cancellation of debts. The permitted debts were short term ones where the time remaining until the next Sabbath year. There were thus debts from one to six years only or for a matter of days, weeks or months only. They terminated with the Sabbath year. The seventh year, the Sabbath year was a year of release and from debt. It began at the beginning of the seventh year as verse twelve makes clear.

If men obeyed these laws, verse four tells us, literally there should be no poor among you. Poverty results from a violation of God’s laws. Verse two calls the release the Lord’s release or as H. Wheeler Robinson rendered it, a release in honor of Yahweh. An important aspect of this text is that it is emphatically stated that obedience is the key to prosperity. According to verse six the results of obedience will be three fold. First it will result in God’s blessing, his protecting and prospering care. Second in the economic sphere it will make God’s people lenders to many nations and not borrowers. This has no reference to modern foreign aid but business loans. Third, thou shalt reign over many nations but they shall not reign over thee. The faithful nation will be blessed spiritually, economically and politically. Without debt free living there can be no true rest because some in society will contract debt. The limitation to short term indebtedness plus a Sabbath year means that all men will in one year in seven experience true rest. No debt nor any other related problem can in that year threaten any covenant member. True rest is not only the absence of labor but the absence of pressures. In a godless society men seem determined to create pressures and burdens where there are none. An important aspect of the year of release means a year of renewed opportunity. God does not allow man if they obey His law to destroy their future indefinitely. In Joseph Parkers telling words and I quote:

“We must have the element of hopefulness in life. Without hope we die. Tomorrow will be a day of ransom and liberty, if not tomorrow by the clock yet tomorrow in feeling. Already the dawn is upon our hearts already we hear noises of a distant approach. Presently a great gladness will descend upon the soul, the child will be better in a day or two, when the weather warms the doctor assures us, the life will be stronger. When arrangements now in progress are consummated and they will be consummated presently the whole house will be lighted up with real joy and thankfulness. So the spirit speaks to itself, so the heart sings songs in the nighttime, so we will live by hope and faith. We find in this year of release what we all need, namely the principle of new chances, new opportunities, fresh beginnings. Tomorrow said the debtor, or the slave, is the day of release and the next day I shall begin again, I shall have another chance in life. The burden will be taken away, the darkness will be dispersed and life shall be young again. Every man ought to have more chances than one even in our own life. God is filled the sphere of life with opportunities, the expired week is dead and gone, Christ’s own resurrection day comes with a gospel of hope, the gospel of a new beginning, the gospel of a larger opportunity, and the year dies and buries itself and the year comes with silver trumpets, with proclamations from heaven and life says when it is not utterly lost I will begin again, I will no longer blot the book of Life, I will write with a steady and careful hand.” Unquote.

Parker saw that hope is indispensable to life. As Solomon said, hope differed maketh the heart sick. And the whole purpose of the Sabbath rest and the Sabbath year of release from debt was to reopen opportunity to give man a rest from his past and a vision for his future. Verse three makes clear that this law does not apply to a foreigner, that is, people outside the covenant, because having no faith they are by nature slaves. When a covenant people drifts away from the faith the consequence will be debt living and a contempt for God’s law. The debt slavery they then incur will be the logical consequence of their loss of faith. As Isaiah said: “Let the wicked are like a troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace says my God to the wicked.” It is interesting to note that while all sources dealing with ancient Hebraic life tells us that the seventh year was a year of release as the text says and debts were permanently canceled. More than a few modern commentators start arbitrarily that it simply could not have been so. They insist that debts were merely subject to a postponement of payment for a year. They have no evidence, not even a hint of any evidence, for their opinion. And it goes against the plain statement of the text. If such scholars were logical they would have to say that verses twelve to eighteen dealing with the emancipation of bond servants likewise refers to a year’s release only and that makes nonsense of the text. J.A. Thompson has pointed out that ancient Babylon also had a year of release whose purpose was to establish justice. However the Babylonian law is very different. God’s law makes no class distinction. The Code of Hammurabi made distinctions between members of the aristocracy, priests, land owners, rulers, military leaders, and the underprivileged and slaves.

God’s law sees all men as covenant members of a household of faith. God is concerned with the least as well as the greatest and His law protects all of them. The Code of Hammurabi gave an advantage, a permanent advantage to the rich and powerful whereas God’s law erases the distinction to protect all. G.T. Manly and others rightly call this law the Lord’s release. It is not a humanitarian act but a religious one. Its motivation is not pity nor sympathy but a godly faith. We too often forget what Saint Paul said about the nature and purpose of work. In Ephesians 4:28 we are told: “Let him that stole, steal no more.” Paul assumes that the godless is going to get away with whatever they are going to get away with. They’re all thieves at heart. Let him that stole, steal no more but rather let him labor. Working with his hands the thing that is good that he may have to give to him that needeth. This goes completely contrary to the modern temper. The idea that a key purpose of work is to be able to give to the needy and that this is God’s holy purpose is a [unknown]. But it is God’s requirement. It is a key aspect of the Sabbath doctrine. We rest in the Lord and we enable our fellow covenant members to rest also. God’s law protects everyone from themselves and from others. A great deal was destroyed in this country when after the war not only was long term debt encouraged it used to be five years was routine for mortgages, but banks actually sent in effect salesman out into the farm areas to peddle loans, to encourage people to borrow money to improve their land or buy more land. Loans were given on new farm equipment which vastly upgraded the kind of mechanization that existed. A hundred, two hundred thousand dollar support for a piece of equipment. The result was that people who had the farm in their family for three generations to six wound up in the seventies or eighties losing everything. What had the old application of God’s law, which is what it was and it was among very devout old fashioned people. What had it done? It had protected everyone; it had kept people from foolishness.

Now we have a less stable country because of that. We have destroyed a vast segment of the farm population. It will take a couple generations fully to appreciate the damage that was done, it reached even to Mennonite circles where Mennonites naively were persuaded to borrow vast sums to expand for their children’s sakes supposedly and wound up having nothing for their children. We either live by God’s law or we perish by it. We are commanded to rest in the Lord and to enable our fellow covenant members to rest also. Let us pray.

Almighty God our Heavenly Father we thank Thee for Thy word. Indeed oh Lord rest has been greatly diminished in our world because of our faithlessness. And the restlessness of the wicked has entered into Thy house. Cleanse us oh Lord of our faithlessness and enable us to build again a godly society wherein justice dwells. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson?

[Question] I wonder if anyone knows the percentage of American people that are in debt.

[Rushdoony] I don’t know if anyone does but it’s exceedingly high and I have read that it is the highest ever. And some estimate that the private indebtedness exceeds the public indebtedness or in the very least equals it. So it’s a very critical situation. And it’s not being helped because right now there’s a great deal of energetic peddling of debts trying to sell people in debt by the banks. They’re telling people the interest rates are lower and there was never a better time to go into debt. Yes?

[Question] If debts were cancelled at the beginning of the Sabbath what happens if somebody reaches a situation where they needed to incur debt during the Sabbath year?

[Rushdoony] Well they could not; they could be a subject of charity. But because of the limitation on the length of debt people lived more providentially. As a result the situation was never as critical as it is now. Never in the history of this country has the fact of debt been as critical as it is today. Its potential destructiveness is staggering and this is why both because of national debt and personal debt it is likely that the solution will be found in inflation which will wipe out most people and destroy the country. Yes?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes. The non-Christian is by nature a slave, he’s a slave to sin. It does not mean anything to him to be in debt and slavery has never been regarded as anything morally wrong by the non-Christian world. So while they were commanded to be merciful and just in dealing with the unbelievers they could loan money to the unbelievers on their terms. What this tells us of course that most people in this country today, even people who call themselves Christians, are acting like pagans. They’re living in terms of a pagan premise. Yes?

[Question] Is there any other law that concerns God more than the Sabbath? As you read His word you see continually that the Sabbath well if it is be the Jubilee or weekly Sabbath, you see that so often time and time again in every book…(becomes unintelligible)

[Rushdoony] The Sabbath establishes the premise of rest. Rest. More than worship, rest is primary to the doctrine of the Sabbath. It means rest from our labors, rest from debt and rest from care. If you abide by the Sabbath law then the element of care is to a considerable extent reduced in your life. There will be other personal things that can cause care and anxiety but a very central aspect of the care, the anxiety, the dread that people feel is created by the overhang of debt and the inability to rest. So our society has more free time than people in America had a few generations ago but it is not as relaxed.

[Question] So many people find the very idea of rest [becomes unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] It definitely is an aspect of it. The Sabbath year used to be observed where it was and it still is among the Amish and others in what we could call a change of pace. In other words, they will, if they’re farmers because most of them are, they do no farming in that year. They will paint the house, the barn, improve things, do things that they enjoy doing and so on. And a few business men who are self-employed have been taking a sabbatical year and again they use it as a time to do the kind of thing they wanted to do. So that working in their shop or working in their garden or anything similar becomes their rest for a year. Any other questions or comments?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] No there’s no rules to say this is what you have to do, rest, what is rest for you? Any other questions or comments? Well if not let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father give us grace to rest in Thee. To take hands of our lives, to set aside our burdens, our cares, our griefs, and to rest in Thee. Make us ever mindful that Thou art our refuge and underneath all the experiences of life are Thine everlasting arms. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.