Is Shemitah the same thing as a jubilee as 2025 is supposed to be one of them ?
Last question first: Is 2025 a Jubilee year? Answer, Maybe.
The Catholic church declares it is. But surprisingly so does the Essene calendar. It depends on the starting points.
If we consider spring of 1948 as a Jubilee year starting the previous fall of 47 (because the calendar years start in the fall feast at Rosh Hashanah) then it was the fall of 1997, and the next one occurs in 2047. That's from the idea that God brought the nation back that year - reverting to it's original owners. I've heard that one mentioned before.
For the actual calculation you need to go back to Joshua and the entry into the land when this law took effect. And that calculation can vary based on which historical records. Since we have trouble even figuring out the date of the Cross, we need something that pinpoints it from around the time of Christ OR BEFORE
So
The explanation I think is best still works out to 2025 and it's from Dr Ken Johnson's work on the Essene calendar as he explains here:
- YouTube
So it starts in the fall of our 2025.
What's a
Shemitah
It's the 7 year week cycle. So every 7th year is a release from debt, and a time to let the land rest. God's promise was that they would have enough to tide them over that year if they observed it. This link explains how it works in Judaism in the past and today giving the Biblical scriptures.
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/562077/jewish/What-Is-Shemitah.htm
The Jubilee is the 50th year after a set of 7x7 or 49 years of 7 Shemitahs. That next year was out of the cycle of 7 and stands on it's own. It is another year of release but this time the slaves are freed, and land that was sold reverts to it's original owner. Here is the link from the same site explaining it- currently called Jovel in Judaism.
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/513212/jewish/When-Is-the-Next-Jubilee-Year.htm
Note that Rabbinic (Pharisee) Judaism bypasses BOTH of these commands. With the Shemitah, the freedom from debt is bypassed by a Rabbinic law instituted by Hillel the Elder (he died around 10 AD) as seen in this link here:
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/562041/jewish/Loan-Amnesty-Pruzbul.htm
and the Jubilee or Jovel is bypassed because:
"
According to biblical law, the Jubilee is only observed when all twelve tribes of the Jewish nation are living in Israel, as is derived from the verse, “And you shall sanctify the fiftieth year, and proclaim freedom throughout the land for all who live on it,” which implies that the Jubilee is only sanctified when “all who live on it”—meaning, all who are meant to be living there—are in the Land of Israel. Furthermore, the Jubilee is only observed when every tribe is living in the specific part of the land which it was allotted when the Land of Israel was divided. However, some are of the opinion that the Jubilee is observed as long as there is a partial representation of each tribe, even if most of the tribe is not in Israel."
From the time of the 6th Century BC at the point that the 10 northern tribes were carted away by the Assyrians, this meant that not ALL of Israel was in the tribal allotments, in spite of the fact that there were representatives of all 10 tribes living in the southern kingdom. As seen in this next quote.
"
However, according to the first opinion mentioned above, with the exile of the Northern Kingdom the required condition for the Jubilee to be sanctified was lost. Thus, the last time there was a biblical requirement to observe the Jubilee was about 150 years before the destruction of the First Temple.
The question remains, however, whether according to this opinion Jubilee years were designated or observed during this time by rabbinic injunction. This is the subject of debate amongst the sages.
As mentioned above, though, today the Jubilee year is neither designated nor observed."
and in the notes below the article it says this about the Jubilee year
"
Although the laws of shemittah are observed in Israel to this very day, the Jubilee year is not designated or observed. There are many reasons for this. Some of them:
a) The Jubilee only affected the shemittah cycle when the shemittah was established and declared by the Sanhedrin, as opposed to today when it is automatically programmed into the perpetual Jewish calendar.
b) The observance of shemittah today is only a rabbinic decree, and therefore the Jubilee year does not affect its cycle.
c) No commemoration is in order when there is no Sanhedrin, whose participation in the declaration of the Jubilee year was integral. In fact, it was the Sanhedrin’s blast of the shofar (ram's horn) on Yom Kippur which signaled the entry of the Jubilee year."
It's interesting that this site specifies the Jubilee begins not on Rosh Hashanah at the start of the Fall feasts, (Sept 22-24 of 2025) and normally seen as the New Year but at Yom Kippur Oct 1-2 That is a total of 10 days start to finish.
youtu.be
