And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and gather in its produce;
God gave Israel a farming calendar shaped like the week. Six years of sowing and reaping, then a year when the fields rest. That raises two plain questions. How does a family eat through a year with no crop? And who does the fallow year serve?
After a run of prohibitions, the tone shifts. One writer sees the six-and-one pattern of the working week carried over into the land's calendar.
In contrast to the negative laws of the first nine verses, verses 10-19 speak positively about the attitude Israel was to show toward God. God told people to work six days of the week. In the same way He tells them to sow their crops six years out of seven, and to let the land lie fallow in the seventh year. This was good for the land. It also showed consideration for the poor. They could come onto someone else's property and take any produce that came up on its own, even though no one had worked the land.
The field was never really the farmer's. Its rest said who owned it, and who else God had in view.
The land was to enjoy her sabbaths, as a lasting sign that it belonged to the Lord. So it, as well as man, must share God's rest. Here, however, the poor and the beasts of the field are prominent. Both had to be considered. However far apart they stand, both alike are creatures of God. This reminded the children of Israel that they were only tenants. They held their land, their vineyards and their olive groves from the Lord. So they had to consider even the poor and the beasts of the field, because these too were the objects of His care.
The command itself gives no answer to the food problem. One commentator ties the answer to the warning against other gods that closes the same section.
The second section — verses 10-13 — commands rest, not only for man and beast but even for the land. The natural tendency would no doubt be to ask: if we keep verse 11 about one year's rest in seven, how are we to live in the seventh year? The answer surely would have been: as to that, you must trust in God. That is why, we think, the section closes by telling them to be "circumspect," or "on their guard," and not to name other gods. No false god could give them any such assurance. They would only destroy the assurance that would enable them to obey.
Set beside the other duties here, the fallow year does moral work on the heart.
Yet it becomes clear, as we look at what is before us here, how great a check to covetousness these ordinances would be. Every seventh day was a Sabbath of rest. Every seventh year was a sabbath year as well. Three times a year every male was to appear before the Lord, and never empty-handed. The firstfruits were to be for Him.
Israel did not keep the law, and greed got the opposite of what it wanted.
If Israel had held to this, they would have been greatly blessed. The six years they worked would have provided more than enough to keep them through the seventh year. All they needed was faith to believe God. But we know how selfish our own hearts are. Their crops were so abundant for six years that selfishness would say: why not get the same profit from the seventh year too? Israel would not rest and give God glory. They preferred their own works, and so lost instead of gained... Despite much experience, we are slow to learn that selfishness defeats its own ends.
Commentators read these repeated rests as a pledge of a coming age of rest that has not yet arrived.
It is striking to see the many ways the Jewish system held the millennial rest in view. Every seventh day was a sabbatical day. Every seventh year was a sabbatical year. Every seven times seven years there was a jubilee. Each of these solemn signs held before the eye of faith the blessed prospect of a time when labour and sorrow would cease.
One writer draws the point out of how a land lease worked.
As the jubilee drew near, the lease of the land dropped in value to the holder. In the same way, as the coming of Christ seems near to us, we value the earth and earthly things less.
- Owner — the fallow year was a standing reminder that the land was the Lord's and Israel only tenants on it.
- Trust — the tenant could only live through year seven by taking God at His word. That is why the same passage warns against other gods.
- Curb — resting the land struck at covetousness, one of many checks God set on greed.
- Reach — the rest reached past the farmer to the poor, and past them to the animals; both are God's creatures.
- Result — Israel kept sowing and lost what greed grasped for. The rest they refused still lies ahead: a time when labour and sorrow cease.
but in the seventh thou shalt let it rest and lie [fallow], that the poor of thy people may eat [of it]; and what they leave, the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thine olive-tree.
For one year in seven, a whole farming nation had to leave its fields alone. God's reason is not the soil but people — the poor eat first, then the animals. So how was Israel to live that year?
The command only makes sense if the fields were never really Israel's to begin with.
The land was to enjoy her sabbaths, as a lasting sign that it belonged to the Lord. So the land, as well as man, had to share God's rest. Here, though, the poor and the beasts of the field stand out. God had thought for both alike, however great the distance between them, since both were His creatures. This reminded the children of Israel that they were only tenants. They held their land, their vineyards and their olive groves from the Lord. So they had to consider even the poor and the beasts of the field, because these were the objects of His care.
God did not take a share of the harvest the farmer worked for. He took the year's growth that no one worked for at all.
God did not allow them to use one seventh of their time for their own ends. He did not allow the occupier to keep one seventh of the ground's increase as his own. Jehovah had a right to do that, and this law showed strict righteousness. The farmer had full right to what his own work produced. But God claimed as His alone the growth of the land that had cost the occupier no labour. That year the barns and storehouses were not to fill up for the occupier's profit... This law was a test: it would show whether greed and disregard for others would mark the people the Lord had brought out of Egypt.
The verse names its beneficiaries in sequence — the poor, then what is left over.
The seventh day was the day of rest. The seventh year was to give the land rest. That seventh year was meant for the poor above all. Whatever grew by itself belonged to them, and what they left the beasts of the field were to eat. What a gracious provision this was! How merciful and gracious our God is!
The same word for letting the land rest appears in the law about cancelling debts.
Compare Exodus 23:11, where the same word used here for "release" is applied to the land — letting it rest. That assures us plainly: this was not an absolute cancelling of all debt. It was a temporary one during the land-rest, which might prevent payment... God would have no poor among His people. Yet there would always be some, left to test and draw out the mercy of their brothers. Their care was to make poverty cease in practice. Nor did they need to fear loss through this freedom; they would be blessed in all they put their hand to.
Obeying meant staking a whole year's food on a promise.
Nowhere but in Israel was such a provision made, because it was not man's thought but God's. What a sight it must have been! In the sabbatical year the land lay fallow everywhere. No sound of farming. The plough and harrow laid aside, no seed sown, no field watered. The sixth year's crop had been so large that it provided enough for three years. So it met the people's needs in full, and nothing was lacking for man or beast. Who could promise this? Who could keep such a promise, but One?
Commentators see these repeating sabbaths as pictures of an age of rest still to come.
It is interesting to notice the many ways the Jewish system held up the millennial rest to view. Every seventh day was a sabbath day. Every seventh year was a sabbatical year. And every seven times seven years there was a jubilee. Each of these held a blessed prospect before the eye of faith: a time when labour and sorrow would cease. Then no one would need the sweat of the brow to satisfy hunger.
The command was, in the end, ignored — and the land took its rest anyway.
So the word of God through Jeremiah came true. The land of Israel would lie desolate and enjoy the sabbaths it had not enjoyed for years. The people were greedy: they wanted crops in the seventh year as well as in the six years God had allotted them. That is why God had told them through Jeremiah that the land would stay desolate for 70 years — the length of Judah's captivity in Babylon.
- Owner. The land was the Lord's; Israel farmed it as tenants, and the fallow year was the standing reminder.
- Rent. God claimed no part of what their labour produced — only the seventh year's growth, which cost them nothing.
- Table. God gave that free growth to the poor first, and the wild animals after them.
- Trust. The sixth year's crop had to feed three years. The year ran on God's promise, not on planning.
- Refusal. Greed for a seventh crop cancelled the rest for centuries. Then exile gave the land the sabbaths its tenants had withheld.
-- Six days thou shalt do thy work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest; that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger may be refreshed.
Exodus 23 is full of everyday laws, and this one puts a limit on work that God Himself sets. What stands out is who the rest is for: the landowner, his animals, and the people in his household who own nothing.
The command names the ones with the least power to claim a day off. The same kindness runs through the laws around it, which even give the land its rest.
In Exodus 23:12 and 13 the sabbath is a time of rest not only for the people, but also for the animals that served them. It was also given so that "the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed." The land was to enjoy its sabbaths as a constant sign that it belonged to the Lord, so that not only man, but the land itself, the poor and the beasts of the field were to share God's rest. All were the objects of God's tender compassion.
The command could sound like one more restriction on a working people. It runs the other way, and the next verse shows what obeying it would prove.
Again the law insists that they were to work for six days only and rest the seventh day — Saturday. This rest included their servants and their animals (v. 12). This was a gracious provision of God for their own benefit, not by any means a law that would oppress them. Yet obedience would show respect for God's authority, a matter insisted on in verse 13.
It seems odd for a law to order rest for farm animals. The reason lies in what the seventh day stood for.
The sabbath was a day that involved yourself, your family, your servants, even your very cattle, your ox and your donkey. The God of Israel, the Creator, cared for them all, and brought them within the kind reach of the seventh day. No wonder: the day was the sign of the rest of creation, and man, with all the animals under him, was part of creation. It might be the lower part; but still it was a part which God did not forget in His law.
Scripture also uses a man's treatment of his working animal as a test of the man.
Next comes a test: how men treat the creation that God placed under the human race. Indifference to one's animal is unworthy; cruelty is worse. So the righteous is concerned for his animal's life, while even the wicked's tender mercies are cruelty. The Lord's tender mercies are over all His works.
God gave this law to Israel alone. Yet the need behind it is physical, and every nation shares it.
God never gave the Sabbath to the nations in the same way He gave it to Israel. Among all the sins listed against the Gentile nations, we never find Sabbath-breaking. Still, it seems to be a principle of God's rule over the earth that man and beast should have one day in seven as a break from work. Both need it physically.
The weekly day pointed past itself. The rest it stood for has not arrived yet, and that decides what this present time is for.
If one has entered into rest, he has done with works, just as Scripture says of God Himself (Hebrews 4:10). But the bright day when we shall rest has not yet arrived. He therefore urges the saints to be diligent in the meantime. Now is the time for work. Everyone who has the love of Christ must feel this in such a world, for the simple reason that sin and misery cover the world. Divine love, whether in God or in His people, refuses to rest in evil or in misery. After Christ comes, it will not be so. "So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God."
So the seventh day here is a picture, not the arrival. The true rest belongs to a coming day.
The Lord is about to give a picture of all His dealings in grace with His people. Before He does so, He sets out the Sabbath as the meaningful expression of that rest which remains for the people of God. It was a real observance, to be kept by Israel; but it was also a picture of what is yet to be.
- Rest given. Six days of work end in a stop that God commands. It is a gift for the people's own good, not a law meant to oppress them.
- Rest shared. The day reaches past the owner to the servant's son, the alien, the ox and the donkey. All of them are objects of God's tender compassion.
- Rest owed to creation. The seventh day was the sign of creation's rest, so it covered the animals too. God did not forget the lower part of what He made.
- Rest as measure. How a man treats his working animal shows what he is. The righteous cares for its life; even the wicked's tender mercies are cruel.
- Rest still coming. Now is the time for work, because love cannot rest while sin and misery cover the world. The Sabbath rest that remains belongs to the day when Christ comes.
And ye shall be on your guard as to everything that I have said unto you; and shall make no mention of the name of other gods -- it shall not be heard in thy mouth.
This verse closes a long run of laws with two demands. Israel must watch everything God has said. And they must keep the names of other gods off their lips. Why would God care so much about what His people say?
The command looks back over the whole block of laws before it. One writer sums up that stretch and shows where the ban on false gods sits inside it:
No one may take advantage of the weak or those under authority. Violence cannot go unpunished, and neither can insult where we owe respect... No one may trouble or mistreat a stranger, a widow or an orphan. No one may burden the poor or insult judges. God is to be honoured with the first of the fruits, of the sons, and of the cattle. Israel must show themselves to be holy men to God... The seventh year was the land's Sabbath, just as the seventh day was for each Israelite. Each Israelite must avoid naming false gods, and keep the appointed feasts three times a year to the true God.
The same section had just ordered rest for the land, the ox and the servant. Another writer draws out what that rest taught Israel about who owned the country:
The land was to enjoy its sabbaths, as a lasting sign that it belonged to the Lord. So the land, as well as man, must share God's rest. Here, though, the poor and the animals of the field stand out... In this way the children of Israel were reminded that they were only tenants.
Leaving the fields unsown for a whole year raised an obvious question: what do we eat? One writer links the call to watchfulness to that question:
The natural reaction would be to ask, "But if we keep verse 11 and rest the land one year in seven, how are we to live in the seventh year?" The answer would have been, "For that you must trust God." This explains, we think, why the section closes by telling them to be "circumspect," or "on their guard," and not to name other gods. No false god could give them any such assurance. False gods would only destroy the assurance that made obedience possible. In fact Israel did not obey this law, as 2 Chronicles 36:21 suggests.
God does not start with bowing down or sacrificing. He draws the line much earlier, at speech. One writer explains why:
This rest was a gracious provision of God for their own benefit, not a law to oppress them. Yet obedience would show respect for God's authority, a matter insisted on in verse 13. They were not even to speak the names of idols. Such easy speaking may lead to an easy recognition of these things.
The same writer names the principle underneath every such command:
There can be no alliance between the people of God and His enemies. "Friendship with the world is enmity with God."
Israel did not keep this command. One writer sets it beside words the Psalms put in the mouth of Christ:
Here was One who could say in all the energy of His holy soul, "The lines have fallen for Me in pleasant places; indeed I have a beautiful inheritance." In the same Psalm He said: "The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on My lips" (Ps. 16:4-6). How different all this was from Israel! God had commanded them: "make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips" (Ex. 23:13). Who for a moment would think of connecting the name of our Lord Jesus with the slightest act of disloyalty to His God and Father?
What Israel would not do for God, God promises to do for Israel. One writer quotes the promise:
Israel has been an unfaithful wife to the Lord, playing with many lovers... In her blindness she did not know who it was that truly loved her. He gave her grain, wine and oil, and dressed her with jewels. But when grace works in her heart, she will turn to Him in sorrow and repentance, so that He may receive her to His heart once more... "And in that day, declares the LORD, you will call Me 'My Husband,' and no longer will you call Me 'My Baal.' For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more" (Hosea 2:14-17).
- Careful. The command reaches back over everything God had just said: justice for the poor, rest for land, animals and servants. It asks for watchfulness across all of it, not obedience we pick and choose.
- Trust. The seventh-year rest demanded faith for food. No false god could give that assurance, so naming one would only wreck the confidence that made obedience possible.
- Speech. God stops the drift at the lips, not at the altar. Easy talk about idols leads to easy recognition of them.
- Christ. Where Israel failed, One could say He would not take the names of other gods on His lips. He kept the command from the heart.
- Restored. In the end God Himself takes the names of the Baals out of His people's mouth. They call Him Husband and remember the idols no more.