Exodus 23:11

thou shalt let it drop and abandon it] viz. the land, less probably the increase: RV. (substantially = AV.) is a paraphrase. The word rendered let dropmeans properly to flingor throw down(2 Kings 9:33, of Jezebel). In Deuteronomy 15:2-3 it is differently applied; and is used of lettinga debt dropevery seventh year, in the -year of dropping" or of -release" (Deuteronomy 15:1-2; Deuteronomy 15:9); and the rend. releasein RVm. here brings out this connexion though, it is true, it is not more than a verbal one with the law of Deuteronomy 15:1-6.

abandon] or leave, let go; rendered -forgo" in Nehemiah 10:31.

that the poor, &c. contrast Leviticus 25:6-7.

In Exodus 25:1; Exodus 25:1-7; Leviticus 25:20-22 (H), the fallow year, whatever may be the case in Ex., becomes, as has just been remarked, a fixed year for the whole country; and the motive is no longer exclusively a philanthropic one, but a religiousone, viz. that the land may -keep a sabbath to Jehovah" (whence the term -sabbatical year"): in Deuteronomy 15:1-6 it receives an entirely different application, and becomes a fixed septennial -year of release," applied for the relief of the poor debtor, by the exaction of debts being prohibited in it. Whether however even the present passage gives the original motive of the institution may be doubted. Analogous usages in other countries (see Maine, Village Communities in the East and West, pp. 77 79, 107 113, &c.; Fenton, Early Hebrew Life, 1880, pp. 24 26, 29 32, 64 70) suggest that it may be a relic of communistic agriculture, i.e. of a stage of society in which the fields belonging to a village are the property of the villagers collectively, individuals only acquiring the use of particular portions for a limited period, and the produce, at stated intervals, reverting to the use of the community generally. The fallow year of Ex. and Lev. is similarly an institution limiting the rights of individual ownership in the interests of the community generally: in Ex. the institution is applied so as to minister to the needs of the poorer classes; in Leviticus 25:1-7 the prominent idea is the benefit which the land would derive from remaining periodically uncultivated.