Important Dates in the Lives of Jesus and Mary 

49 years, not 50. The reason for the lack of agreement about the Jubilee years is that the ancient Israelites did 

not keep the Jubilee years consistently. The observance of the Jubilee years fell in and out of practice.

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    The practice among Jews has long been to count both Sabbatical and Jubilee years from the month of 

Tishri, the first month of the civil calendar, not from the month of Nisan, the first month of the sacred 

calendar. However, I believe that the  Sabbatical years were originally counted using the Jewish sacred 

calendar, beginning with the month of Nisan in the spring, not with the month of Tishri in the autumn.

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 My 

reasons for this conclusion are as follows. 

1.  Jubilee years are to be counted from the month of Tishri, as Sacred Scripture clearly states:   `Then you 

shall send abroad the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of atonement .'   (Lev 

25:9). But Sacred Scripture does not specify the seventh month as the start of a Sabbatical year, nor as the start 

of the count of the years leading up to the Sabbatical year. 

2.  One verse describes the count of the seven weeks of years, a total of 49 years (Lev 25:8). The very next 

verse calls the month of Tishri (when the Day of Atonement occurs) the seventh month (Lev 25:9). Tishri is 

only the seventh month when counting the months according to the sacred calendar, beginning in the spring 

with the month of Nisan. This indicates that the word  year  in the previous verse (Lev 25:8) is also to be 

counted according to the sacred calendar, with the year beginning in Nisan. Thus the Sabbatical years should 

be, and originally were, counted from the month of Nisan. 

3.   The L

ORD

 said to Moses on Mount Sinai, `Say to the people of Israel, When you come into the land 

which I give you, the land shall keep a sabbath to the L

ORD

.  (Lev 25:1 2). 

    Sacred Scripture tells the Israelites when to begin the counting of Sabbatical years, beginning from the time 

that they would come into the Promised Land. Joshua led the Israelites across the Jordan river and into the 

Promised Land in the spring, in the month of Nisan.  The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day 

of the first month .  (Joshua 4:19). The first month here is certainly the month of Nisan, since, a few days 

later, the Israelites celebrated the Feast of Passover.  While the people of Israel were encamped at Gilgal they 

kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the month at evening in the plains of Jericho.  (Joshua 5:10). Thus 

the Sabbatical years were to be counted from the month of Nisan, when the Israelites came into the land which 

God gave to them. 

4.    `And if you say,  What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?  I will 

command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, so that it will bring forth fruit for three years. When you 

sow in the eighth year, you will be eating old produce; until the ninth year, when its produce comes in, you 

shall eat the old.'   (Lev 25:20 22). 

    Notice here that the crop planted in the 8th year produces its harvest in the 9th year. This timing, where the 

planting of one year is harvested in the next year, only occurs when the years are counted according to the 

sacred calendar, with the year beginning in Nisan. Grain is planted in Nov./Dec. in Israel.

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 The harvest of 

grain in the spring is a part of the religious ceremonies during the Passover. The harvest of grain begins during 

the Passover, when the first fruits are cut from the field and offered to God (Lev 23:9 10). Thus, planting 

occurs in one sacred calendar year, but harvesting cannot occur until the Passover at the start of the next 

sacred calendar year. And this is exactly the timing of planting and harvesting described in the passage from 

Leviticus 25 sowing in late autumn of the 8th year (the year after the Sabbatical year) and harvesting in the 

spring of the 9th year. Here again, the sacred calendar is used in referring to the counting of the Sabbatical 

years. 

    The planting in the 8th year and harvest in the 9th year clearly does not refer to a crop harvested in the 8th 

year and kept in storage for use in the 9th year. This passage from Leviticus refers to the 9th year as the year 

 when its produce comes in,  meaning when the grain sown in the 8th year is ready to be harvested. 

    Also, the grain could not be planted near the end of the year in the civil calendar (which begins with the 

month of Tishri in the autumn) and harvested in the next civil calendar year. This would require the grain to 

be planted in the summer, when there is no rain, and harvested in the fall. Such a crop would not grow due to 

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