Year of Release

Biblical Text

The year of release is an institution found in Deuteronomy 15. It required the Israelites to release, every seventh year, the debts owed to them by their fellow Israelites. Deuteronomy 15:1–2 states, "At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release," and forbids creditors to exact repayment from a neighbor. Repayment could, however, be exacted from a foreigner (Deuteronomy 15:3). The passage goes on to warn against refusing to lend to a poor neighbor because the year of release is near (Deuteronomy 15:9). In the Korean Revised Version (Gaeyeok Gaejeong), the term "year of release" (myeonjenyeon) appears in Deuteronomy 15:9 and 31:10. Deuteronomy 31:10–13 prescribes that the law be read aloud before all the people at the Feast of Tabernacles in the year of release.

Background and Terminology

The Hebrew word shemittah, rendered "release," derives from a verb meaning "to let go" or "to let drop." The same verb is used in Exodus 23:11, which commands that the land be left fallow in the seventh year. For this reason, the release of debts and the sabbatical year of rest for the land (Leviticus 25:1–7) are commonly understood as belonging to the same seven-year cycle. In Nehemiah 10:31, the community that had returned from exile pledges to let the land rest and to forgo the exaction of debts every seventh year.

Deuteronomy 15:12–18 follows with a regulation for freeing a Hebrew servant in the seventh year. This regulation differs from the year of release in that it is reckoned by the number of years each servant has served rather than by a year observed by the whole nation together. Jeremiah 34:8–22 condemns as a breach of covenant the episode in the days of Zedekiah when servants were set free and then taken back.

Significance in the Whole of Scripture

The words of Deuteronomy 15:4, "there shall be no poor among you," resemble the statement in Acts 4:32–35, "Neither was there any among them that lacked" (Acts 4:34). Many interpreters therefore connect the sharing of the early church with the spirit of this law. Deuteronomy 15:11, "For the poor shall never cease out of the land," is cited as background to the words of Jesus in Mark 14:7.

In addition, the Septuagint translated "release" with the Greek word aphesis ("release, letting go"). In the New Testament the same word is used for the forgiveness of sins and for the "liberty" of Luke 4:18. On this basis, some interpreters read the year of release as a shadow of the forgiveness and liberation accomplished in Christ. The New Testament, however, does not refer to the year of release directly.

Interpretations and Issues

• Cancellation or deferral: Rabbinic Jewish tradition held that debts were extinguished in the year of release. Accordingly, a procedure called the prosbul, by which a creditor entrusted the debt to a court and so avoided its release, is said to have originated in the time of Hillel. Some Christian commentators, by contrast, read the law as a deferral of debt collection during that year.
• Present-day application: Chapter 19 of the Westminster Confession of Faith holds that the judicial laws of Israel expired together with that nation, and that only what their general equity requires remains binding. From this standpoint, the year of release is applied not as an institution to be observed but as a principle of generosity toward poor neighbors. Those who emphasize social ethics sometimes use this passage as a basis for debt forgiveness and economic justice.
• Distinction from the Jubilee: The Jubilee is an institution under which land was restored every fifty years, whereas the year of release is an institution under which debts were released every seven years. Although they are distinct institutions, the two are often conflated in sermons and writings.

In the Korean Church

In the Korean church, the term "year of release" (myeonjenyeon) itself is rarely used. The same subject is generally treated under the headings of the Jubilee or the sabbatical year.