What is Shemitta?
Shemitta is the Hebrew name for the Year of Release, also the year of the Sabbath for the Land. The word comes from the Hebrew root, shin-mem-tet (שמט) which is the root of the first major command word in the first specification for the Sabbath for the Land found in Ex. 23:11, tishm'tena (תשמטנה) currently translated as "let rest" (which is plainly wrong). Most of the uses of the root are in the context of the release of debts found in Deuteronomy 15:1-9.