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Read the Bible

Christian Standard Bible ®

Deuteronomy 15:1

“At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Lending;   Sabbatic Year;   Thompson Chain Reference - Land;   Sabbatic Year;   Year;   The Topic Concordance - Blessings;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Feast of Sabbatical Year, the;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Loans;   Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Freedom;   Lending;   Sabbatical year;   Seven;   Wealth;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Freedom;   Poor and Poverty, Theology of;   Easton Bible Dictionary - Agriculture;   Debt;   Debtor;   Sabbatical Year;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Year;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Alms;   Festivals;   Loan;   Nuzi;   Sabbatical Year;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Alms, Almsgiving;   Crimes and Punishments;   Debt;   Deuteronomy;   Sabbatical Year;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Poverty (2);   Slave, Slavery (2);   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Year sabbatical;   Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary - Debts;   Year;   Zedekiah;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Borrowing;   Feasts, and Fasts;   Lend;   Poor;   Release;   Sabbatical Year;   Talmud;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Hillel;   Mishnah;   Prosbul;   Sabbatical Year and Jubilee;   Shebi'it;   Symbol;  

Parallel Translations

Hebrew Names Version
At the end of every seven years you shall make a release.
King James Version
At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release.
Lexham English Bible
"At the end of seven years you shall grant a remission of debt.
English Standard Version
"At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release.
New Century Version
At the end of every seven years, you must tell those who owe you anything that they do not have to pay you back.
New English Translation
At the end of every seven years you must declare a cancellation of debts.
Amplified Bible
"At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release (remission, pardon) from debt.
New American Standard Bible
"At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release of debts.
Geneva Bible (1587)
At the terme of seuen yeeres thou shalt make a freedome.
Legacy Standard Bible
"At the end of every seven years you shall grant a remission of debts.
Contemporary English Version
Moses said: Every seven years you must announce, "The Lord says loans do not need to be paid back." Then if you have loaned money to another Israelite, you can no longer ask for payment.
Complete Jewish Bible
(vi) "At the end of every seven years you are to have a sh'mittah.
Darby Translation
At the end of seven years thou shalt make a release,
Easy-to-Read Version
"At the end of every seven years, you must cancel debts.
George Lamsa Translation
AT the end of every seven years you shall make a release.
Good News Translation
"At the end of every seventh year you are to cancel the debts of those who owe you money.
Literal Translation
At the end of every seven years you shall make a release.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
In the seueth yeare shalt thou make a Fre yeare. This is ye maner of the Fre yeare.
American Standard Version
At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release.
Bible in Basic English
At the end of every seven years there is to be a general forgiveness of debt.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
At the terme of seuen yeres, thou shalt make a freedome.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release.
King James Version (1611)
At the end of euery seuen yeeres thou shalt make a release.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Every seven years thou shalt make a release.
English Revised Version
At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release.
Berean Standard Bible
At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
In the seuenthe yeer thou schalt make remyssioun,
Young's Literal Translation
`At the end of seven years thou dost make a release,
Update Bible Version
At the end of every seven year period you shall make a release.
Webster's Bible Translation
At the end of [every] seven years thou shalt make a release.
World English Bible
At the end of every seven years you shall make a release.
New King James Version
Exodus 21:1-11; Leviticus 25:1-7">[xr] "At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release of debts.
New Living Translation
"At the end of every seventh year you must cancel the debts of everyone who owes you money.
New Life Bible
"At the end of every seven years you must do away with debts that are owed.
New Revised Standard
Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
At the end of seven years, shalt thou make a release.
Douay-Rheims Bible
In the seventh year thou shalt make a remission,
Revised Standard Version
"At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release.
THE MESSAGE
At the end of every seventh year, cancel all debts. This is the procedure: Everyone who has lent money to a neighbor writes it off. You must not press your neighbor or his brother for payment: All-Debts-Are-Canceled— God says so. You may collect payment from foreigners, but whatever you have lent to your fellow Israelite you must write off.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
"At the end of every seven years you shall grant a remission of debts.

Contextual Overview

1“At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. 2This is how to cancel debt: Every creditor is to cancel what he has lent his neighbor. He is not to collect anything from his neighbor or brother, because the Lord’s release of debts has been proclaimed. 3You may collect something from a foreigner, but you must forgive whatever your brother owes you. 4“There will be no poor among you, however, because the Lord is certain to bless you in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance— 5if only you obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow every one of these commands I am giving you today. 6When the Lord your God blesses you as he has promised you, you will lend to many nations but not borrow; you will rule many nations, but they will not rule you. 7“If there is a poor person among you, one of your brothers within any of your city gates in the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. 8Instead, you are to open your hand to him and freely loan him enough for whatever need he has. 9Be careful that there isn’t this wicked thought in your heart, ‘The seventh year, the year of canceling debts, is near,’ and you are stingy toward your poor brother and give him nothing. He will cry out to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty. 10Give to him, and don’t have a stingy heart when you give, and because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you do.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Deuteronomy 31:10, Exodus 21:2, Exodus 23:10, Exodus 23:11, Leviticus 25:2-4, Isaiah 61:1-3, Jeremiah 36:8-18, Luke 4:18, Luke 4:19

Reciprocal: Deuteronomy 15:12 - General Nehemiah 10:31 - the exaction

Cross-References

Genesis 15:1
After these events, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision:
Genesis 15:2
But Abram said, “Lord God, what can you give me, since I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”
Genesis 15:3
Abram continued, “Look, you have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house will be my heir.”
Genesis 15:4
Now the word of the Lord came to him: “This one will not be your heir; instead, one who comes from your own body will be your heir.”
Genesis 15:5
He took him outside and said, “Look at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “Your offspring will be that numerous.”
Genesis 15:6
Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
Genesis 15:10
So he brought all these to him, cut them in half, and laid the pieces opposite each other, but he did not cut the birds in half.
Genesis 15:14
However, I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will go out with many possessions.
Genesis 15:16
In the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
Genesis 15:17
When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. Not of servants, for they were not to be dismissed from their service until they had served six years, as is directed to in a following law; for if they were to be set free whenever a sabbatical year came, they might be discharged when they had not served more than a year, or than half a year, or than a month or two. Indeed when the year of jubilee intervened, they were released be it at what time it would; but not in a sabbatical year, which was a year of release of debts, as the following verses show, as well as there was, then a rest of the land from tillage, Leviticus 25:2. Now this was done at the end or extremity of every seventh year; not at the latter end or extremity of it, for if the debt of a poor man might be exacted of him in the year, and until the end of it, it would not in this respect have been a sabbatical year, or a year of rest and quiet; but this was done at the first extremity of it, at the beginning of it, as Aben Ezra and Ben Melech observe; though Maimonides b asserts it to be after the seven years were ended; for he says,

"the seventh year releaseth not monies but at the end of it,''

according to Deuteronomy 15:1 that as in Deuteronomy 31:10 after seven years is meant, so the release of monies is after seven years.

b Hilchot Shemittah & Yobel, c. 9. sect. 4.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The year of release is no doubt identical with the sabbatical year of the earlier legislation (Exodus 23:10 ff, and Leviticus 25:2 ff), the command of the older legislation being here amplified. The release was probably for the year, not total and final, and had reference only to loans lent because of poverty (compare Deuteronomy 15:4, Deuteronomy 15:7). Yet even so the law was found to be too stringent for the avarice of the people, because it was one of those which the rabbis “made of none effect by their traditions.”

Deuteronomy 15:2

Because it is called the Lord’s release - Render, because proclamation has been made of the Lord’s release. The verb is impersonal, and implies (compare Deuteronomy 31:10) that “the solemnity of the year of release” has been publicly announced.

Deuteronomy 15:3

The foreigner would not be bound by the restriction of the sabbatical year, and therefore would have no claim to its special remissions and privileges. He could earn his usual income in the seventh as in other years, and therefore is not exonerated from liability to discharge a debt anymore in the one than the others.

Deuteronomy 15:4

There is no inconsistency between this and Deuteronomy 15:11. The meaning seems simply to be, “Thou must release the debt for the year, except when there be no poor person concerned, a contingency which may happen, for the Lord shall greatly bless thee.” The general object of these precepts, as also of the year of Jubilee and the laws respecting inheritance, is to prevent the total ruin of a needy person, and his disappearance from the families of Israel by the sale of his patrimony.

Deuteronomy 15:9

literally: “Beware that there be not in thy heart a word which is worthlessness” (compare Deuteronomy 13:13 note).

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

CHAPTER XV

The Sabbatical year of release, 1.

The manner in which this release shall take place, 2-5.

Of lending to the poor, and the disposition in which it should

be done, 6-11.

Of the Hebrew servant who has served six years, and who shall be

dismissed well furnished, 12-15.

The ceremony of boring the ear, when the servant wishes to

continue with his master, 16-18.

Of the firstlings of the flock and herd, 19, 20.

Nothing shall be offered that has any blemish, 21.

The sacrifice to be eaten both by the clean and unclean, except

the blood, which is never to be eaten, but poured out upon the

ground, 22, 23.

NOTES ON CHAP. XV

Verse Deuteronomy 15:1. At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release — For an explanation of many things in this chapter, see the notes on Exodus 21:0 and Exodus 23:0, and Leviticus 25:0


 
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