Special Times to Give The Land a Rest
May 11, 2022
Commentary
The focus in chapters 25 and 26 is on Israel in their land. The word “land’ is used thirty-nine times in these two chapters. The Israelites were to possess and enjoy the land but in order to do so they must recognize and respect some basic facts. The first thing is that God owns the land and has every right to dispose of it as He sees fit (vv. 1-2). Another important fact is that God controls the calendar. He not only gave His people their land and their food but He also gave them “special times’ to give the land a rest so it would not be ravaged.
Just as people were to work six days and rest on the “Sabbath” so was the land on which they lived to be worked for six years (v. 3) and then allowed to rest on the seventh or sabbatical year (v. 4). This meant that there was to be no organized harvest and no selling of produce to others (vv. 5-7). As a result one-seventh of the time landowners and those who owned no land were on an equal footing as to their living off the land. They were to take from the fields the food they needed as it grew of itself. All people, including the poor and the aliens, could gather from the fields and be God’s guests (Ex. 23:10-12).
Every seventh sabbatical year (every 49th year) was to be followed by a year of Jubilee (v. 8). The characteristics for the year of Jubilee were: Repentance (v. 9) as the people were not to enter this year of Jubilee without the Lord first cleansing and forgiving them. Release (v. 10) as the people were commanded to release their servants to return to their own families and lands. Rest (vv. 11-12) was an extra year of rest given to the land since the previous year would have been a Sabbath year. Restoration (vv. 13-17) of any property that was sold since the last year of Jubilee would revert to its original owner, for the Lord wanted His land to remain with the families to which it had been given.
Application
God puts an emphasis on rest for His people and His land and I need to have a time of rest or come apart.
Leviticus 25:1– 17 (NET)
1 The Lord spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai: 2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land must observe a Sabbath to the Lord. 3 Six years you may sow your field, and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather the produce, 4 but in the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath of complete rest —a Sabbath to the Lord. You must not sow your field or prune your vineyard. 5 You must not gather in the aftergrowth of your harvest and you must not pick the grapes of your unpruned vines; the land must have a year of complete rest. 6 You may have the Sabbath produce of the land to eat—you, your male servant, your female servant, your hired worker, the resident foreigner who stays with you, 7 your cattle, and the wild animals that are in your land—all its produce will be for you to eat.
8 “‘You must count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, and the days of the seven weeks of years will amount to forty-nine years. 9 You must sound loud horn blasts —in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, on the Day of Atonement—you must sound the horn in your entire land. 10 So you must consecrate the fiftieth year, and you must proclaim a release in the land for all its inhabitants. That year will be your Jubilee; each one of you must return to his property and each one of you must return to his clan. 11 That fiftieth year will be your Jubilee; you must not sow the land, harvest its aftergrowth, or pick the grapes of its unpruned vines. 12 Because that year is a Jubilee, it will be holy to you—you may eat its produce from the field.
13 “‘In this Year of Jubilee you must each return to your property. 14 If you make a sale to your fellow citizen or buy from your fellow citizen, no one is to wrong his brother. 15 You may buy it from your fellow citizen according to the number of years since the last Jubilee; he may sell it to you according to the years of produce that are left. 16 The more years there are, the more you may make its purchase price, and the fewer years there are, the less you must make its purchase price, because he is only selling to you a number of years of produce. 17 No one is to oppress his fellow citizen, but you must fear your God, because I am the Lord your God.
Illustration: The Power of Crying Out
A father tells this story: I was $20,000 in debt with unsecured loans. For two years I had been trying to sell some land to cover the debt, but I couldn’t even get a phone call of interest. I tried realtor after realtor without success. Finally, in desperation, I walked into the woods and cried, “O, God!” That’s all that came out. My voice failed as emotion flooded me, and I groaned in the spirit. The next day, a couple told my wife, they’d heard we had land for sale. Within twenty-four hours of crying out, we had an agreement to sell the land for $20,000. Praise God! We are now debt-free. (The Power of Crying Out,” by Bill Gothard, page 40).