Messianic Education Trust
		Shemini Atzeret

D'varim/Deuteronomy 15:2   And this is the matter of the remission: to let drop every owner the loan of his hand that he is lending to his neighbour;

View whole verse and interlinear translation ...

We have some difficult vocabulary in the text before us, but we must not let that prevent us from understanding the important principles within this command that Moshe shares with the entry generation on the plains of Moab. The root שׁמט - according to David Clines: to drop, let fall, let slip; to stumble or fall; to remit or release; to let rest, leave fallow¹ - appears twice in the text: first as the noun הַשְּׁמִטָּה, remission or release of debt, second as the verb שָׁמוֹת, the Qal infinitive absolute, to drop or release. The root נשׁה has two distinct sets of meetings: to lend something to someone and its synonym, to forgive or forget something.² The first, מַשֵּׁה is a noun meaning either 'loan' or 'pledge'; the second, יַשֶּׁה is the Hifil 3ms prefix, adding the idea that a loan causes someone to be indebted. The lender here is identified as the owner or master of the loan which has has made with his own hand. Finally, the idiom "to drop the loan of one's hand" envisages a release or remission of the loan which one has made. Who Is ...

Rashi: Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (1040-1105 CE), French rabbi who wrote commentaries on the Torah, the Prophets and the Talmud, lived in Troyes where he founded a yeshiva in 1067; focuses on the plain meaning (p'shat) of the text, although sometimes quite cryptic in his brevity
Rashi suggests "to release the authority of every creditor."

Just how encompassing is this release or remission to be? What sort of obligation or debt is covered? On the one hand, the Who Is ...

Bekhor Shor: Joseph ben Isaac Bekhor Shor; a twelfth century French tosafist, commentator and poet; he lived in Orleans and was a pupil of the Rashbam and Rabbenu Tam; wrote a commentary to the Torah and made contributions to the Talmud commentaries; followed the p'shat method of interpretation in the style of Rashi, to the extent of rationalising many miracles
Bekhor Shor, seeing דְּבַר, literally 'word' in our text, suggests that "even if a man has sworn that he will do something for someone else, the seventh year remits his promise." Don Who Is ...

Abravanel: Don Isaac Abravanel (1437-1508 CE), Statesman and biblical commentator; born in Lisbon, died in Venice; wrote commentaries on the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures
Abravanel supports that idea: "This too is an aspect of the remission of work during the sabbatical year." The early Sages, on the other hand, were more cautious, saying, that "this might be thought to include the wages of a hired labourer or store debts, therefore the verse goes on to say, 'which he has lent to his neighbour'" ( What Is ...

Sifrei: An early composite midrash/commentary on B'Midbar and D'varim; probably composed around the time of the Mishna (200CE); known and referenced in the Talmud; the B'Midbar portion from the school of R. Simeon, the D'varim portion from that of R. Akiva
Sifrei 112). Jeffrey Tigay writes that "according to the halachah, it does not cancel unpaid wages, bills owed to shopkeepers for merchandise and certain types of secured loans", which we find codified in the Shulchan Aruch (Choshen Mishpat §67:15). Wages are an obligation in the employer-employee relationship and do not constitute a loan, so they cannot be cancelled. Likewise payment for goods bought on credit in a store are a purchase-payment obligation not a loan, so cannot be cancelled.

Many commentators take our text as an extension or worked example of the agricultural sabbatical year command given by The Name ...

HaShem: literally, Hebrew for 'The Name' - an allusion used to avoid pronouncing the Tetragrammaton, the so-called 'ineffable' name of G–d
HaShem directly after the Ten Words at Sinai in parashat Mishpatim: "Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but in the seventh you shall let it rest and lie fallow. Let the needy among your people eat of it, and what they leave let the wild beasts eat. You shall do the same with your vineyards and your olive groves" (Shemot 23:10-11, NJPS). Although the earlier command does not mention debt explicitly, the Sforno explains that "When G-d, the Blessed One, said, 'but on the seventh year you shall release', the intent was to institute the release of money. Every creditor shall release his hand - because G-d, the Blessed One, proclaimed release.

It is important, in our understanding of this text, to widen the focus a little by including some of the verses that follow in our discussion. Pointing to the immediately following - "There shall be no needy among you -- since the L-RD your G-d will bless you in the land that the L-RD your G-d is giving you as a hereditary portion -- if only you heed the L-RD your G-d and take care to keep all this instruction that I enjoin upon you this day" (D'varim 15:4-5, NJPS) - Patrick Miller points out that "verses 4-6 are a qualification indicating that there should be no poor if only you obey the L-rd. As in D'varim 7:12-16, the abundance of the L-rd's blessing is available if there is obedience. In that case there will be no poverty and thus no need to worry about economic release. Failure to live by the L-rd's way did increase the poverty in the land."³ Peter Craigie observes that "while verse 11 gives the more realistic appraisal - "there will never cease to be needy ones in your land" (15:11, NJPS) - the significance of verses 4-5 is there need not be poor people in the land, for the L-rd will certainly bless you."⁴

But is this practical or just utopian? Walter Brueggemann is firmly for the former: "First, the provision has practical value - it really will work: 'There shall be no poor among you' (v. 4); second the release is to be undertaken in a land where YHVH blesses, that is in a land overflowing with YHVH's abundance (6:10-11, 8:7-10). YHVH's abundance is the ground from which Israel can afford to be generous to the neighbour."⁵ It is HaShem's blessing, faithfulness and generosity that enable Israel to take the risk of forgiving and cancelling debt. This runs counter to the prevailing wisdom of the world - a culture of scarcity - where you dare not relinquish hold of what you have accumulated because you have no certainty of ever getting it back again and you will certainly need it for yourself. To the contrary, the kingdom of G-d is a place of abundance and plenty where HaShem has promised to provide all that is necessary. We give out of His abundance, relying on Him to provide more if it is needed - and He does!

The Who Is ...

Ba'al HaTurim: Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher (1269-1343 CE), born in Cologne, Germany; lived for 40 years in and around Toledo, Spain; died en route to Israel; his commentary to the Chumash is based upon an abridgement of the Ramban, including Rashi, Rashbam and Ibn Ezra; it includes many references to gematria and textual novelties
Baal HaTurim makes a significant connection to take us on another step in our journey. Thanks to a margin note in the What Is ...

The Masoretic Text: The traditional Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible, defining not just the text but also the books and order of the Jewish canon; generated in the 8^th-9^th centuries by a group of Jewish scholars known as the Masoretes, by adding vowel and cantilation markings to the extant consonantal text stable since 2^nd Temple times; also known as the Ben Asher text after Aaron ben Moshe ben Asher who devised in the early 900s CE the marking scheme that is still used today
Masoretic Text, he notices that the last but one word in our text, the verb יַשֶּׁה - the Hifil 3ms prefix form of the root נשׁה - is used only twice in Tanakh: here and "know that G-dיַשֶּׁה has overlooked for you some of your iniquity" (Job 11:6, NJPS). The narrator uses the second synonym of נשׁה, "to forget, overlook, forgive" (Davidson), in the mouth of Zophar the Naamathite, to point out the mutual dependency that is at work. He suggests that it can be read as saying that "if you will release [debts as commanded], then, for your sake, G-d will 'forget' your iniquities." Hear is a clear antecedent to Yeshua's words as He teaches His disciples to pray and ask the Father to "forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Matthew 6:12, ESV). This sounds conditional; this isn't what we want to hear, that G-d's blessings are contingent upon our obedience. Nevertheless, in the next breath Yeshua repeats the contingency as a statement rather that part of a prayer: "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses" (vv. 14-15, ESV).

Luke makes the reciprocal nature of our relationship with HaShem and the people around us clear: "Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven" (Luke 6:37, ESV). How we treat our neighbours is the way that we will be treated by HaShem. If we extend mercy and grace to others, then mercy and grace will be extended to us; if we are critical of others and judge them for not coming up to our standards, then we in turn will be judged by HaShem for not coming up to His standards. If, knowing the debt that Yeshua cancelled on our behalf, we forgive the debts of those around us, giving them the benefit of the doubt and refusing to harbour grudge and bitterness in our hearts against them, our forgiveness will be confirmed and extended.

Rav Sha'ul amplifies that in two of his letters as he writes to the mainly Gentile congregations where they did not have the Torah background to help them understand. First to the congregations in Ephesus - "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as G-d in Messiah forgave you" (Ephesians 4:32, ESV) - and then to the congregations in Colossi: "Put on then, as G-d's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive" (Colossians 3:12-13, ESV). Just as with the ancient Israelites, forgiving and cancelling debts within the community out of the abundance that HaShem had given them, the communities of Yeshua's disciples must work in the same way. Out of the abundance of forgiveness and grace that the Father has poured out upon us in Messiah Yeshua, we are to overflow with forgiveness and grace to our fellow disciples and those around us. We have been given everything and, as Yeshua said, "Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more" (Luke 12:48, ESV).

Without that, just as the ancient Israelites allowed debt to mount up until it spiralled out of control, filling the land with the poor and oppressed, so our communities will splinter and fracture as people take offense and hold grudges, judging each other for the very things that they themselves do. We have only to look around us to see, historically, how that has happened - fragmenting the Body of Messiah and discrediting our witness to the nations. The modern Jewish world has its own problems; there is little love lost between Reform and Orthodox Judaism! But as the followers of Messiah - those responsible for demonstrating the qualities of the kingdom, "faith, hope and love" (1 Corinthians 13:13) - we should be breaking the cycle of discord and setting the example "so as to make Israel jealous" (Romans 11:11, ESV) and to bring in "the fullness of the Gentiles" (v. 25). On this eighth day after the noisy joy and celebration of Sukkot, take a moment to pause and consider how we can offer the forgiveness we have been given to a needy world.

1. - David J. A. Clines (ed.) The Concise Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009), page 467. However, Clines' task is made more difficult due to the infrequent use of the root: 9 times as a verb; 5 more as a noun.

2. - Clines, page 286. Again, infrequent use - 13 times for the first synonym, 7 for the second - makes this difficult.

3. - Patrick D. Miller, Deuteronomy Interpretation (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), pages 135-136.

4. - P. C. Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy, NICOT, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1976), page 237.

5. - Walter Brueggemann, Deuteronomy Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries, (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2001), page 165.

Further Study: Luke 6:32-36; Romans 14:10-13; James 5:6-11

Application: In the comparative peace of Sh'mini Atzeret, spend a while asking Yeshua if there is anyone He is prompting you to forgive or of whom you need to seek forgiveness. Make haste to act promptly so that the moment doesn't pass leaving it undone. Then, as we go forward into the next reading cycle, be ready to rejoice in hope.

Comment - 02:56 27Sep26 Ewing Brown: Looking forward to this learning experience to a more nuanced Jewish understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures shaped by a messianic worldview.

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© Jonathan Allen, 2023

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