After exhorting his listeners to treat well their neighbors (4:12-13), their children (4:14-15) and beggars (4:16-27), he winds up the sermon by reminding his people that they should return borrowed items. (Talk about an anti-climax.)
“And I would that ye should remember, that whosoever among you borroweth of his neighbor should return the thing that he borroweth, according as he doth agree, or else thou shalt commit sin; and perhaps thou shalt cause thy neighbor to commit sin.” (Mosiah 4:28)
The inclusion of this injunction has always struck me as jarring. I have thought long and hard about it, trying to see how it could be tied into the rest of the sermon, but with no success.
Until last night.
While researching another paper dealing with the subject of the Jubilee Year in ancient Israel, I stumbled upon the following:
Leviticus chapter 25 “describes two year-long observances; the seventh or sabbatical year (year of release) in vv. 2-7, and the jubilee year in vv 8-55. Comparison has been made with the Mesopotamian misarum and the anduraru which go back to the Old Babylonian and Old Assyrian periods (early second millennium BCE). Among the points to note are the following: Babylonian anduraru is cognate with the Hebrew deror release. A king would declare a misarum which was a general declaration of justice. He might also declare an anduraru ‘release’, which could include a remission of certain taxes, a release of debts, reversion of property to its original owners, or manumission of slaves. It was common for a king to declare such in his first year of reign. The Israelite innovation was to declare a jubilee at regular intervals rather than in the first year of a king as in Mesopotamia.”
Lester L. Grabbe, “Leviticus,” in John Baron and John Muddiman, eds., The Oxford Bible Commentary (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 106-07 (emphasis added).
Is it only a coincidence that Mosiah makes a point of declaring to his people at the outset of his sermon “this day, that my son Mosiah is a king and a ruler over you”? (Mosiah 2:30).
In other words, on the first day of the first year of the reign of his son Mosiah as king, Benjamin appends an otherwise anomalous injunction at the end of his sermon dealing with “the reversion of property to its original owners.”
It should, of course, be kept in mind that it is Benjamin, the outgoing king who declares this, as opposed to Mosiah declaring it himself during the first year of his reign. Additionally, Benjamin speaks of returning borrowed things to one's neighbor "according as he doth agree," as opposed to returning exclusively by virtue of his edict.
The correlation nevertheless seems interesting to me.
Thoughts?
All the Best!
--Consiglieri
