The Lord's Release (, Hebrew: שמיטת כספים, ''shmitat kesafim'' = monetary remission) is the title given by in the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach" . '' debtors from their debts every seventh year within the seven-year agricultural cycle mandated by the
Torah
The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...
:
:"Every creditor shall release that which he hath lent unto his neighbour; he shall not exact it of his neighbour and his brother; because the 's release hath been proclaimed."
The obligation only applied to the
Israelites
Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age.
Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...
living in the
Promised Land
In the Abrahamic religions, the "Promised Land" ( ) refers to a swath of territory in the Levant that was bestowed upon Abraham and his descendants by God in Abrahamic religions, God. In the context of the Bible, these descendants are originally ...
: it did not apply to foreigners. A similar obligation in relation to the release of Hebrew
slaves
Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...
who have served in slavery for seven years is described in .
The term "the LORD's release" is used in the
King James Version
The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English Bible translations, Early Modern English translation of the Christianity, Christian Bible for the Church of England, wh ...
of the Bible and in the
New King James Version
The New King James Version (NKJV) is a translation of the Bible in contemporary English, working as a revision of the King James Version. Published by Thomas Nelson, the complete NKJV was released in 1982. With regard to its textual basis, the ...
and
Revised Standard Version
The Revised Standard Version (RSV) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1952 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. This translation is a revision of the American St ...
; other translations refer to the ''Year of Remission'' ( Wycliffe Bible), the ''LORD's remission'' (
New American Standard Bible
The New American Standard Bible (NASB, also simply NAS for "New American Standard") is a translation of the Bible in contemporary English. Published by the Lockman Foundation, the complete NASB was released in 1971. New revisions were publis ...
) or ''Hashem’s Shemittah'' ( Orthodox Jewish Bible). Albert Barnes' ''Notes on the Bible'' states that although most texts say "it is called the LORD’s release", the meaning is more likely to be that "it is ''proclaimed'' to be the LORD's release".
The Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary considered the release to be temporary: "Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it — not by an absolute discharge of the debt, but by passing over that year without exacting payment. The relief was temporary and peculiar to that year during which there was a total suspension of agricultural labor." Similarly, the seventeenth-century nonconformist Matthew Poole stated that the relief was temporary; you must "not absolutely and finally forgive it, but forbear it for that year". However, to theologian John Gill, the release was to be permanent: "it rather seems to be a full release, so as the payment of them might not be demanded, neither this year nor afterwards".Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible on Deuteronomy 15, accessed 5 December 2015