And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, At the end of every seven years - thou shalt read this law - Every seventh year was a year of release, Deuteronomy 15:1, at which time the people's minds, being under a peculiar degree of solemnity, were better disposed to hear and profit by the words of God. I suppose on this ground also that the whole book of Deuteronomy is meant, as it alone contains an epitome of the whole Pentateuch. And in this way some of the chief Jewish rabbins understand this place.
It is strange that this commandment, relative to a public reading of the law every seven years, should have been rarely attended to. It does not appear that from the time mentioned Joshua 8:30, at which time this public reading first took place, till the reign of Jehoshaphat 2 Chronicles 17:7, there was any public seventh year reading - a period of 530 years. The next seventh year reading was not till the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah, 2 Chronicles 34:30, a space of two hundred and eighty-two years. Nor do we find any other publicly mentioned from this time till the return from the Babylonish captivity, Nehemiah 8:2. Nor is there any other on record from that time to the destruction of Jerusalem. See Dodd.