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release of slaves in the days of Zedekiah (Jer 34:8; cf. Ex 21:2

). We may add to these

biblical references the statement in the Talmuds

and in Jewish sources older than the

Talmuds

that the First Temple was destroyed in the latter part of a Sabbatical year.

Notice that these references to pre-exilic Sabbatical years contradict the dogma of the

JEDP theory and its offshoots, which teach that the Sabbatical and Jubilee cycles were

introduced in the P or Priestly document that was invented in exilic or post-exilic

times.

For the Jubilees, the Hebrew text of Ezek 40:1 implies that Ezekiel saw his vision at the

beginning of a Jubilee year, since the vision was on Rosh HaShanah, the New Year's

Day, and also on the tenth of the month. Rosh HaShanah was on the tenth of Tishri only

at the beginning of a Jubilee (Lev 25:9). Given this anchor-point of a Jubilee at the time

of Ezekiel's vision in Tishri of 574

, a table of pre-exilic Jubilee and Sabbatical years

can be constructed. This table is consistent with all the references to Sabbatical years in

Scripture that were mentioned just above, a remarkable result. It is also consistent with

the tradition that Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in a Sabbatical year. But even more

can be done if we accept the statement in the Seder Olam and the Babylonian and

Jerusalem Talmuds that the Jubilee associated with Ezekiel's vision was the seventeenth

Jubilee. With this information, it is a matter of simple arithmetic to calculate that

counting for the Jubilee cycles began in Nisan of 1406

. This must mark the entry into

Canaan, according to Lev 25:24, 810. The Exodus, forty years earlier, was in 1446

This is an independent verification of Thiele's date for the beginning of the divided

monarchy and the accuracy of the 480-year figure of 1 Kgs 6:1, since these two pieces of

information also give 1446 as the time of the Exodus. The agreement between the two

Although the original intention of the law for Hebrew servants was that they were to be released after six

years of service, irrespective of when those years started, yet in later years, according to the Targum of
Pseudo-Jonathan, the release was timed to occur in a Sabbatical year. This was in accordance with the
Sabbatical year being called a year of release (shemitah) in Deut 31:10. For this reason, and also because
all the slaves were to be released at the same time in Jer 34, William Whiston in the eighteenth century and
Cyrus Gordon and Nahum Sarna in the twentieth century maintained that the release of slaves proclaimed
by Zedekiah would have occurred at the beginning of a Sabbatical year.

b. Arak. 11b, 12a; b. Taan. 29a; y. Taan. 4:5.

S. Olam 30; t. Taan. 3:9. Jerusalem fell, and the Temple was burnt, in the summer months of Tammuz

and Ab (Jer 52:613), so that when these rabbinic works say that it was in the latter part of (Heb. motsae)
a Sabbatical year, a Tishri-based year is implied. Some editions of these works have an incorrect translation
into English, giving the impression that Jerusalem fell in the year after a Sabbatical year instead of in the
latter part of a Sabbatical year. See the treatment of all these passages in my article Seder Olam and the
Sabbaticals Associated with the Two Destructions of Jerusalem, forthcoming in two parts in the Jewish
Bible Quarterly.