Isaiah 37:30

30. The turn of discourse is now to Hezekiah. The main point in it is of a sign.

Ye Hezekiah and the remnant of the people that shall be left.

Ye shall eat… such as groweth The Assyrian depredations have prevented agriculture the last year. All that can be hoped for in the next year is from the spontaneous but scanty harvest derived from grain casually dropped in the previous season. The year following, or third year, the land will be altogether delivered from fear to cultivate to the fullest extent. The invaders will be clean gone, and the ever-to-be-preserved remnant will be here. Another view, possessing considerable weight, is, that this was the year previous to a jubilee, and consequently a sabbatic year. By law the land was to rest, no ploughing or sowing being allowed, consequently no reaping. The same law regulated also the next, or jubilee year. It may not, therefore, have been because of the ravages of the Assyrians, past or present, that the people were to eat, these two years, of such as should grow “of itself.” A somewhat curious calculation, confirmatory of the above suggestion, is given by the Speaker’s Commentary, as follows:

“That the year 710 was sabbatical may be seen, 1) By reckoning backward from data supplied by Josephus, who makes the years B.C. 164, 136, 38, to be sabbatical. Now if we add 78+7 (or 546) to 164, we get 710. 2) By reckoning onward from the date of the first occupation of the land, B.C. 1444. For fifteen periods of 7+7 years amount to 735; and B.C. 710 is the 735th year from B.C. 1444. It follows, therefore, that the next year, B.C. 709, was a jubilee year.