The Hebrew legislation on the subject is precisely similar save that the term is six years. Whether three or six, the term is so absolutely arbitrary that no possible explanation can be given to account for it. It equally ignores the amount of debt, the value of the debtor’s work, and the sacredness of contract. Had both legislations hit upon a three years’ term, we might have racked our brains to find a reason why in the world three years should have commended itself to both lawgivers. We should have been tempted to think that these Semites had some sanctity about the term which made it appropriate to select. At any rate we should have wondered what a money-lender in Israel had done to deserve to get twice as much work for his money as the Babylonian. Some might even have been tempted to see early evidence of Jewish aptitude for business. Others would doubtless begin to play with the importance of the value seven to the Jewish mind. Then one would begin to see the influence of P. as in the first chapter of Genesis. Unfortunately the Babylonians of the Hammurabi period had about as much reverence for seven as for three, and perhaps as much for both as the Israelite in the Book of the Covenant. But it is a poor compliment to a lawgiver of any age to suppose that sacred numbers influenced the nature of his laws. Doubtless the Jubilee release was economically an advance on sporadic amnesty, but to make a debtor’s lot twice as hard and a money-lender’s security double, especially as there is no reason to suppose that in Israel the temple was the poor man’s bank, all for sake of seven is not a fair charge against Moses or any lawgiver unless it is absolutely certain. The change from three to six is not easy to account for on scientific sociological grounds.