The sabbath year or sabbatical year (), also called the shmita () or "sabbath of the Land", is the seventh year of the seven-year agricultural cycle mandated by the Torah in the Land of Israel and is observed in Judaism.This article incorporates text from Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897), a publication now in the public domain. Sabbatical year—every seventh year, during which the land, according to the law of Moses, had to remain uncultivated (Lev. 25:2–7; comp. Ex. 23:10, 11, 12; Lev. 26:34, 35).
During shmita, the land is left to lie fallow and all agricultural activity, including plowing, planting, pruning and harvesting, is forbidden by halakha (Jewish law). Other cultivation techniques (such as watering, fertilizing, weeding, spraying, trimming and mowing) may be performed as a preventive measure only, not to improve the growth of trees or other plants. Additionally, any fruits or herbs which grow of their own accord and where no watch is kept over them are deemed hefker (ownerless) and may be picked by anyone.Mishnah Shevi'it 9:1 A variety of laws also apply to the sale, consumption and disposal of shmita produce. All debts, except those of foreigners, were to be remitted.
Chapter 25 of the Book of Leviticus promises bountiful harvests to those who observe the shmita, and describes its observance as a test of religious faith.
The most recent shmita year was 2021–2022 or Anno mundi 5782 in the Hebrew calendar. The next shmita cycle will be in 2028–2029, year 5789 in the Hebrew calendar.
Ancient Israel Ancient Near East fallow years
It is still discussed among scholars of the Ancient Near East whether or not there is clear evidence for a seven-year cycle in Ugaritic texts. -"455. 3. Cf. ; , who draws mainly upon Ugaritic ... It is also debated how the biblical seventh fallow year would fit in with, for example Assyrian practice of a four-year cycle and crop rotation, and whether the one year in seven was an extra fallow year. suggests that the land may have been farmed only 3 years in seven. Elie Borowski (1987) takes the fallow year as one year in seven.Baker "In his detailed study of agriculture in Iron Age Israel, Borowski (1987: 143–45) makes no reference to the biennial fallow, and is apparently unaware of the research cited above which has advocated this. He assumes that the sabbatical ..." Niesiołowski-Spanò argues (2025) that originally the sabbatical year legislation was directed only toward the land owned by the Temple, not by the individual farmers.Ł. Niesiołowski-Spanò, 'The Sabbatical Year Legislation and Temple Land Possession: Remarks on Socio-economic Legislation of the Hebrew Bible during the Persian period', Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 68, 5-6 (2025), 514–535
Biblical references
A sabbath year (shmita) is mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible by name or by its pattern of six years of activity and one of rest: Book of Exodus: "You may plant your land for six years and gather its crops. But during the seventh year, you must leave it alone and withdraw from it. The needy among you will then be able to eat just as you do, and whatever is left over can be eaten by wild animals. This also applies to your vineyard and your olive grove." (Exodus 23:10–11Exodus 23 , the World ORT website version.) Book of Leviticus: "God spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai, telling him to speak to the Israelites and say to them: When you come to the land that I am giving you, the land must be given a rest period, a sabbath to God. For six years you may plant your fields, prune your vineyards, and harvest your crops, but the seventh year is a sabbath of sabbaths for the land. It is God's sabbath during which you may not plant your fields, nor prune your vineyards. Do not harvest crops that grow on their own and do not gather the grapes on your unpruned vines, since it is a year of rest for the land. [What grows while] the land is resting may be eaten by you, by your male and female slaves, and by the employees and resident hands who live with you. All the crops shall be eaten by the domestic and wild animals that are in your land." (Leviticus 25:1–7) "And if ye shall say: 'What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we may not sow, nor gather in our increase'; then I will command My blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth produce for the three years. And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat of the produce, the old store; until the ninth year, until her produce come in, ye shall eat the old store." (Leviticus 25:20–22) " I will scatter you among the nations, and keep the sword drawn against you. Your land will remain desolate, and your cities in ruins. Then, as long as the land is desolate and you are in your enemies' land, the land will enjoy its sabbaths. The land will rest and enjoy its sabbatical years. Thus, as long as it is desolate, [the land] will enjoy the sabbatical rest that you would not give it when you lived there." (Leviticus 26:33–35) Book of Deuteronomy: "At the end of every seven years, you shall celebrate the remission year. The idea of the remission year is that every creditor shall remit any debt owed by his neighbor and brother when God's remission year comes around. You may collect from the alien, but if you have any claim against your brother for a debt, you must relinquish it...." (Deuteronomy 15:1–6) "Moses then gave them the following commandment: 'At the end of each seven years, at a fixed time on the festival of Sukkoth, after the year of release, when all Israel comes to present themselves before God your Lord, in the place that He will choose, you must read this Torah before all Israel, so that they will be able to hear it. 'You must gather together the people, the men, women, children and proselytes from your settlements, and let them hear it. They will thus learn to be in awe of God your Lord, carefully keeping all the words of this Torah. Their children, who do not know, will listen and learn to be in awe of God your Lord, as long as you live in the land which you are crossing the Jordan to occupy'." (Deuteronomy 31:10–13) Book of Jeremiah: Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel: I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, saying: "At the end of seven years ye shall let go every man his brother that is a Hebrew, that hath been sold unto thee, and hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee"; but your fathers hearkened not unto Me, neither inclined their ear." (Jeremiah 34:13–14) Book of Nehemiah: "and if the peoples of the land bring ware or any victuals on the sabbath day to sell, that we would not buy of them on the sabbath, or on a holy day; and that we would forego the seventh year, and the exaction of every debt." (Nehemiah 10:31) Books of Chronicles: "... And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia; to fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had been paid her sabbaths; for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years. (2 Chronicles 36:20–21) Books of Kings: (Isaiah speaking) "... And this is the sign for you: This year you shall eat what grows of itself, and the next year what springs from that, and in the third year, sow and reap and plant vineyards and eat their fruit. And the survivors of the House of Judah that have escaped shall regenerate its stock below and produce boughs above." (2 Kings 19:29).
The 2 Kings passage (and its parallel in Isaiah 37:30) refers to a sabbath (shmita) year followed by a jubilee (yovel) year. The text says that in the first year the people were to eat "what grows of itself", which is expressed by one word in the Hebrew, saphiah (ספיח). In Leviticus 25:5, the reaping of the saphiah is forbidden for a Sabbath year, explained by rabbinic commentary to mean the prohibition of reaping in the ordinary way (with, for example, a sickle), but permitted to be plucked in a limited way by one's own hands for one's immediate needs during the Sabbath year.Yosef Qafih (ed.), Rabbi Nathan Ben Abraham's Mishnah Commentary, in: Perush Shishah Sidrei Mishnah (A Commentary on the Six Orders of the Mishnah), appended at the end of the book: The Six Orders of the Mishnah: with the Commentaries of the Rishonim, El ha-Meqorot: Jerusalem 1955, s.v. Shevi'it chapter 9.
There is an alternative explanation used to rectify what appears to be a discrepancy in the two biblical sources, taken from Adam Clarke's 1837 Bible commentary. The Assyrian siege had lasted until after planting time in the fall of 701 BCE, and although the Assyrians left immediately after the prophecy was given (2 Kings 19:35), they had consumed the harvest of that year before they left, leaving only the saphiah to be gleaned from the fields. In the next year, the people were to eat "what springs from that", Hebrew sahish (סחיש). Since this word occurs only here and in the parallel passage in Isaiah 37:30, where it is spelled שחיס, there is some uncertainty about its exact meaning. If it is the same as the shabbat ha-arets (שבת הארץ) that was permitted to be eaten in a Sabbath year in Leviticus 25:6, then there is a ready explanation why there was no harvest: the second year, i.e. the year starting in the fall of 700 BCE, was a Sabbath year, after which normal sowing and reaping resumed in the third year, as stated in the text.
Another interpretation obviates all of the speculation about the Sabbath year entirely, translating the verse as: "And this shall be the sign for you, this year you shall eat what grows by itself, and the next year, what grows from the tree stumps, and in the third year, sow and reap, and plant vineyards and eat their fruit." According to the Judaica Press commentary, it was Sennacherib's invasion that prevented the people of Judah from sowing in the first year and Isaiah was promising that enough plants would grow to feed the population for the rest of the first year and the second year. Therefore, Isaiah was truly providing a sign to Hezekiah that God would save the city of Jerusalem, as explicitly stated, and not an injunction concerning the Sabbath (shmita) or jubilee (yovel) years, which are not mentioned at all in the passage.
Historical shmita years Various attempts have been made to reconstruct when Sabbatical years actually fell using clues in the biblical text and events clearly dated in fixed historically understood calendars. This is important because the system of shmita and Jubilee years provides a useful check in deciding between competing reconstructions of the histories of the First Temple period and earlier and the history of the Second Temple period and later. There are explicit mentions of a Sabbatical year found in Josephus, 1 Maccabees, and in various legal contracts from the time of Simon bar Kokhba. In contrast, no direct statements that a certain year was a Sabbatical year have survived from First Temple times and earlier.