(a.) This is the legitimate meaning of the original word translated “release.” There should never be any deviation from the legitimate sense of the original staple word, without cogent reasons――a principle which is doubly strong _in the words of a law_. (b.) This construction is fully in harmony with the genius of the entire code in all its statutes for the relief of the poor. (c.) On this construction the limitations of the statute are precisely in place; _e. g._――to the case of “thy poor brother.” “Thou shalt release _save when there_ shall be no poor among you”: also――“If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren, etc., thou shalt not harden thy heart nor shut thy hand from thy poor brother, but shalt open thy hand wide unto him, and shall surely lend unto him sufficient for his need in that which he wanteth”――[not all your property: you are not required to make over every thing you have]. “Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying――The year of release is at hand” [and I shall never get my money or my grain back again], “and he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee.” This shaping of the statute plainly contemplates a real remission of this sort of debts on each seventh year. (d.) To the same purport is this――that the law excepts debts against a foreigner: “Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it.” Our translators have taken the liberty to add the word “again,” but without the least authority from the Hebrew. The word “again” seems to come from the theory that this statute required a stay of collection for one year in the case of the foreigner: but of this there is no proof in the law as it came from the hand of Moses.――――In the time of Nehemiah (5: 1–12) there was unquestionably an entire remission of debts to the poor, and not the least hint that this was going beyond the Mosaic law. On the contrary it is implied that “the fear of our God” (v. 9)――equivalent to obedience――would require just this. This seventh or sabbatic year had other special features besides the remission of the poor man’s debts as in Deut. 15: 1–11. These additional features appear in Lev. 25, which provides (vs. 2–7) that this year shall be a Sabbath of rest to the soil――rest from its usual cultivation.――――In this chapter we find also a kindred institution――the Jubilee――each fiftieth year――next following each seventh Sabbatic year. Inasmuch as this arrangement would bring two years of land-rest together, the Lord gave a special promise that the fertility of the year immediately preceding should suffice against the necessities of these two years of rest――a fact which testifies that God ruled his people Israel under a system of special providences. If Moses is to be considered as even in a secondary sense the legislator of the people, he must have had unbounded confidence in God’s special direction and counsel in these statutes.