Robert North

Children

An example of the textual argument is given by North in his comparison of Leviticus 23:15–16 with Leviticus 25:8–11. The first passage establishes the timing, in days, for the Festival of Weeks (Shavuot), while the second prescribes the timing, in years, for the Jubilee.[38] In the first passage, the start of counting for the Festival of Weeks is said to be "the day after the Sabbath" (mimaharat ha-shabat, Leviticus 23:15), and is to end "the day after the seventh Sabbath" (mimaharat ha-shabat ha-sheviyit, Leviticus 23:16). These seven weeks would constitute 49 days in most modern methods of reckoning. Nevertheless, verse 16 says that they are to be reckoned as 50 days.
The length of the Jubilee cycle continues to be of interest to modern scholarship, as does the question of the practicality of the legislation, and whether it was ever put into effect on a nationwide basis. Regarding the length of the cycle, three significant scholarly studies devoted to the Jubilee and Sabbatical years agree that it was 49 years, while disagreeing somewhat on the interpretation of the other issues involved. These major studies were those of Benedict Zuckermann,[34] Robert North,[35] and Jean-François Lefebvre.[36] The reasons given by these authors to support a 49-year cycle are both textual (examining all relevant Biblical texts) and practical.