And Jehovah spoke to Moses in mount Sinai, saying,
Through most of Leviticus, God speaks from the tent of meeting, the tent where Israel worshipped. Chapter 25 opens from a mountain instead. Commentators read that one change of place as the key to the whole chapter.
One writer traces the whole chapter back to that one detail:
Most of what God says in the book of Leviticus comes "from the tent of meeting." This is easy to explain. Those words deal with the service, communion, and worship of the priests, or with the moral state of the people. Here, however, God speaks from quite a different place. The chapter we have now reached deals with Jehovah's claims as Lord of all the earth. It is not about the worship and communion of a priestly house, or about the internal ordering of the nation. It is about the claims of God in government — His right to give a certain part of the earth to a certain people, to hold as tenants under Him. In a word, this is not Jehovah in "the tabernacle," the place of worship. It is Jehovah on "Mount Sinai," the place of government.
What comes from Sinai is new, and it reaches into Israel's future:
Here, in chapter 25, God speaks to His servant Moses on Mount Sinai and gives him a new revelation. It runs through this chapter and the next. It deals with the land, and with Israel's return to it in the future. Any one of them might act so as to bring God's wrath down on himself. Even so, Jehovah had bound Himself to give the land to the descendants of Jacob, and He would surely keep His word. Yet the land, though given to them to hold, was never fully theirs. It was God's. So one day they will inherit it again. No one can override Jehovah's claim to it. But if it is His, then He had the right to set the terms on which the people held it and enjoyed it.
God gave this law early, while Israel was still in the desert. He tied it to a promise that made obedience possible:
Here was, to worldly ears, the strangest law ever laid on a people. Nebuchadnezzar, despot as he was, could not have dared to issue it; nor Cyrus the Persian, nor Alexander. Julius Caesar would have counted it sheer madness. Jehovah laid it down as a matter of course for a people set apart to Himself. And He did so this early in their wilderness history. He spoke it to Moses at Mount Sinai, which Israel left early in the second year. He told them then of their coming to the promised land. Yet many years had to pass, through their own sinful folly, before another generation followed the rebellious one. He knew the end from the beginning. Nor did Jehovah ever fail to make good the extraordinary means He adopted. While Israel obeyed, He gave them the produce of three years in every sixth year. That carried them through that year, the sabbath year, and the eighth year, when they sowed and waited for the harvest. So it was a constant working of divine power and goodness towards a people He was encouraging to trust and honour Him.
Israel already had a weekly day of rest. The seventh year applied the same principle to the ground itself, and in doing so said out loud who the owner was:
But the sabbath year was the same thing written large, to be read and seen by everyone. It brought the land into prominence: "a year of rest for the land," of which Jehovah was landlord, and Israel His tenants at will.
Letting go of the harvest for a year was how a farmer admitted the title was not his — and refusing to let go had a consequence:
By giving up his right of property every seventh year, the Israelite acknowledged the One he held it from. For that year he was not the owner. The harvest belonged to anyone else as much as to him. God set the year apart plainly as a sabbath to Jehovah. That year Jehovah fed everyone freely from what grew under His hand, without anyone farming it. Israel's whole hold on the land depended on recognising God's lordship. If they broke this command, the land would enjoy the sabbaths they had taken from it, lying empty while God cast the people out.
The seventh year also pointed beyond itself, to the jubilee:
The sabbath of the land, laid down in this scripture, was the pledge of the jubilee. It came while the forty-nine years were still running — the age of man's confusion and disorder. It was a bunch of the fruit of the jubilee year brought back into the middle of the wilderness. This sabbath did not do the work of the jubilee, but it still had its flavour. It did not bring the jubilee early, but it bore witness to it.
- Place — God speaks from Sinai, not the tent of meeting. He speaks as ruler of the earth, not as the One receiving worship.
- Claim — Because the land is His, He may set the terms on which His people hold it; they are tenants, not owners.
- Gift — God gave the law while Israel still had no land. He promised a triple harvest in the sixth year, so obeying meant trusting Him.
- Reach — Giving up one harvest in seven proved who owned the land. Taking that rest back cost Israel the land itself.
- Result — Every seventh year carried the taste of the jubilee ahead, a sample of the rest God intends.
Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, When ye come into the land that I will give you, the land shall celebrate a sabbath to Jehovah.
God speaks this law at Mount Sinai, to people still camped in the desert who own no land yet. The command sounds strange — the land itself must rest — and it raises two questions: who owns the land, and how could a farming nation survive a year without sowing?
Notice where God speaks this law from, and who He says owns the land:
Israel could only keep the sabbath year after they came into the land... And the LORD spoke these words from Mount Sinai and not from the tabernacle (Lev. 1:1). Every seventh year, the land which belongs to the LORD, and which was not to be sold, had to enjoy complete rest... The LORD was the Lord of the land, the owner of the land, and Israel received the land as a gift; they were the tenants.
The land's rest is a claim on time and on crops. One commentator argues that God's claim was perfectly fair:
Just as Israel rested from all their work on the seventh day, the land was to rest from the farmer's work in the seventh year. The same word describes both... One-seventh of their time God did not allow them to use for their own ends. One-seventh of the increase of the ground God did not allow the occupier to keep as his own. The LORD had a right to do that, and this law showed strict righteousness. The farmer had full right to the produce of his own work. God claimed as His own, to give away, only what the land grew without the occupier's labour. The occupier was not to fill his barns and storehouses that year for his own profit.
No emperor would have dared to make such a law. God backed it with His own supply:
Here was, to worldly ears, the strangest law ever laid on a people. Nebuchadnezzar, despot as he was, could not dare to issue it; nor Cyrus the Persian, nor Alexander. The LORD laid it down as a matter of course for a people separated to Himself... While Israel obeyed, He gave them the produce of three years on every sixth year. That carried them through the sixth year, through the sabbath year, and through the eighth year, when they sowed and waited for its harvest. So divine power and goodness worked for them all the time, and He was encouraging them to trust and honour Him.
This rest was not a landowner's privilege:
The land was to enjoy her sabbaths, as a standing sign that it belonged to the Lord. So the land, as well as man, must share God's rest. Here, however, the poor and the beasts of the field are prominent. There was care for both — both alike, whatever the distance between them, being creatures of God. This reminded the children of Israel that they were only tenants.
One writer traces Israel's failure to a simple sum about profit:
If Israel had stuck 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. For six years their crops were so plentiful. Then selfishness would say, "Why not get the same profit from the seventh year too?" Instead of resting and giving God glory, Israel preferred their own works, and so lost instead of gaining. So Leviticus 26:31-35 foretells what followed: the people scattered and the land lying desolate, while God gave the land its needed rest.
The seventh year sits inside a forty-nine-year cycle. The jubilee closes that cycle, and the seventh year gives an advance taste of it:
The grapes of Eshcol were the down payment on Canaan to the camp of Israel while they were still in the wilderness or on the way... And the sabbath of the land, laid down in this scripture, was the down payment on the jubilee. It came while the forty-nine years were still running — the age of the confusion and disorder of man's way. It was a bunch of the fruit of the jubilee year brought back into the middle of the wilderness. This sabbath did not do the work of the jubilee, but it still had its flavour. It did not bring the jubilee forward, but it bore witness to it.
- Owner. The land is God's; Israel holds it as a gift and lives on it as His tenants.
- Claim. Because He owns it, He keeps back one year in seven, and that rest belongs to Him.
- Gift. He funded His own command, giving three years' produce in the sixth year, so obedience only ever cost faith.
- Reach. That rest reached past the landowner to the poor and even to the animals — all creatures of the same God.
- Result. Israel chose profit over rest and lost both — scattered from the land, while the land took the rest they had refused it.
Six years shalt thou sow thy field, and six years shalt thou prune thy vineyard, and gather in the produce thereof,
Leviticus 25 sets a seven-year rhythm for the land: six seasons of sowing and pruning, then a year when the ground rests. Verse 3 is the working half of that pattern, and it raises two questions — why God gives six years of labour, and by what right He stops the seventh.
Most of Leviticus comes from the tent where Israel worshipped. This chapter opens from somewhere else, and the change of place marks a change of subject.
Here, however, God speaks from quite a different place. "The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai." Every expression in Scripture has its own special meaning. So we are right to expect a different kind of message from "Mount Sinai" than from "the tent of meeting." And so it is. This chapter deals with Jehovah's claims as Lord of all the earth. It is not about the worship and communion of a priestly household, or the internal ordering of the nation. It is about the claims of God in government — His right to give a certain part of the earth to a certain people, to hold as tenants under Him.
The six years belong to the worker, and what his own effort produced is his. God keeps back only what no one laboured for.
One-seventh of their time God did not allow them to use for their own ends. One-seventh of the increase of the ground God did not allow the occupier to keep as his own. Jehovah had a right to do that, and this law was strictly righteous. The farmer had full right to the produce of his own tilling. God claimed as His only the increase of the land, on which the occupier had spent no labour...
Stopping work for a year was how an Israelite admitted where his field came from.
The land was the Lord's, as all land is, but here the Lord asserts His claim to it. By giving up his right of property every seventh year, the Israelite acknowledged from whom he held it. For that year he was not the owner: the harvest belonged to anyone as much as to him, appointed expressly as a Sabbath to Jehovah. That year Jehovah fed everyone with what sprang up under His hand, with no human farming. Israel's whole hold on the land depended on that recognition of the divine lordship.
A farmer who stopped in the seventh year faced two years without a fresh harvest. God's answer was a sixth-year crop big enough to cover both.
Now here was, to worldly ears, the strangest law ever imposed on a people. Nebuchadnezzar, despotic as he was, could not dare to issue it; nor Cyrus the Persian, nor Alexander. Jehovah laid it down as a matter of course for a people set apart to Himself... While Israel obeyed, He gave them the produce of three years in every sixth year. That carried them through not only that year, but the sabbatic year and the eighth, when they sowed and waited for the harvest. So it was a constant exercise of divine power and goodness toward a people whom He was encouraging to trust and honour Him.
The same pattern ran through Israel's calendar in other ways, and writers read all of them as pictures of a rest still to come.
The Jewish system held up the millennial rest to view in several ways worth noting. Every seventh day was a sabbatical day. Every seventh year was a sabbatical year. And every seven times seven years there was a jubilee. Each of these observances set before the eyes of faith the blessed prospect of a time when labour and sorrow would cease, when "the sweat of the brow" would no longer be needed to satisfy hunger.
Israel did not keep this law. One commentator names the motive, and the cost.
If Israel had kept to this, they would have been richly blessed... All they needed was faith to believe God. But we know how selfish our own hearts are. Their crops were so plentiful in the six years that selfishness would say, "Why not get the same profit from the seventh year too?" Instead of resting and giving God glory, Israel preferred their own works, and so lost instead of gaining... Despite much experience, we are slow to learn that selfishness defeats its own ends.
- Owner. The command comes from Sinai, the place of government. There God presses His right to give a portion of the earth to a people who hold it under Him.
- Allotment. Six years of sowing and pruning belong to the farmer. What grows on its own in the seventh year stays God's, to give away as He pleases.
- Acknowledgement. Giving up his right of property every seventh year, the Israelite admitted whose field it really was. His whole hold on the land hung on that.
- Trust. No ruler on earth would dare order a nation to stop farming. God backed the order with three years' produce in the sixth year, so obeying Him meant trusting Him.
- Loss. Israel wanted the seventh year's profit too. They worked instead of resting, and lost both the blessing and the rest the law pictured.
but in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest for the land, a sabbath to Jehovah. Thy field shalt thou not sow, and thy vineyard shalt thou not prune.
Israel's calendar gave the soil itself a rest. One year in seven the fields were left alone, and the year belonged to the Lord. Why would God hold back a whole year's farming from His own people? And how were they meant to eat?
The law of the seventh day was now applied to the ground itself.
As on the seventh day they were to rest from all their work, so in the seventh year the land was to have rest from farming. The word used of the one is the word used of the other. It was to be a Sabbath of rest, "shabbath shabbathon."
The rest was not only for the soil's sake. It was the Owner's claim on His land, and Israel's hold on the country hung on admitting it.
The land was the Lord's, as all land is, but here the Lord asserts His claim to it. In giving up the right of property every seventh year, the Israelite acknowledged the One from whom he held it. For that year he was not the owner: the harvest belonged to anyone as much as to him, and it was expressly as a Sabbath to Jehovah that this was appointed. That year Jehovah fed everyone freely with what sprang up under His hand apart from human cultivation. It was upon this recognition of the divine lordship that Israel's hold on it all depended.
Picture the country during that year, and then ask who could have guaranteed it.
What a sight it must have been. In the Sabbatical year the land lay fallow everywhere. There was no sound of farming. The plough and the harrow lay idle. No one sowed seed or watered a field. The sixth year's crop had been unusually abundant, providing enough for three years. So the whole population had plenty, with no shortage for man or beast. Who could promise this? Who could fulfil such a promise, but one? He to whom the land belonged, the Lord Jehovah, the Creator.
Keeping the command cost nothing but confidence in God — which is exactly why it was not kept.
If Israel had held to this, they would have been greatly blessed. All that was needed was faith to believe God. But we know how selfish our own hearts are. When their crops were so abundant for six years, selfishness would say, "Why not get the same profit from the seventh year too?" Instead of resting and giving God glory, Israel preferred their own works, and so lost instead of gaining.
The missed years added up. One writer counts back from the seventy years of captivity to where the neglect began:
Now if seventy years of rest were given, it looks as if the land had not had its seventh-year rest for four hundred and ninety years. Seeing that Judah was carried away captive B.C. 610, four hundred and ninety years before that would bring us to B.C. 1100. This was just about the date when the children of Israel clamoured for a king, and when God said, "They have rejected me from being king over them" (1 Sam. 8:7).
(The original prints this date as "B.C. 120," an arithmetic slip.)
The seventh year also pointed past itself, to the fiftieth year — the jubilee.
The sabbath of the land, laid down in this scripture, was the first instalment of the jubilee. It came while the forty-nine years were still running — the age of the confusion and disorder of man's way. It was a bunch of the fruit of the jubilee year brought into the wilderness again. This sabbath did not do the work of the jubilee, but it still carried its flavour; it did not anticipate it, but it witnessed to it. On the fiftieth year the jubilee would restore every sold possession, and every sold Israelite, to the place appointed at the beginning.
Beyond the jubilee, the rested land points further still — to the thousand-year Millennium.
In the Sabbath of rest for the land and the jubilee Sabbath at the end of fifty years, we have the clear provision of God for the Millennium. God's eye is upon His inheritance. These Sabbaths picture the rest of God in His inheritance. If His people fail to let the land enjoy them, He Himself must step in, as we see later, with chastening.
- Owner. For one year in seven the harvest belonged to anyone as much as to him. Giving it up was how the Israelite admitted whose land it was.
- Rest. The same wording covers the seventh day and the seventh year: rest from all work, "a Sabbath to the LORD."
- Trust. Only the Creator could promise a sixth-year crop big enough for three years. Obeying meant taking God at His word.
- Refusal. Selfishness asked why a whole year's profit should be given up. Israel preferred their own works and lost instead of gaining, and the land took its missed rest later, in captivity.
- Reach. The rested land was an advance taste of the jubilee. It also pictures the rest of God in His inheritance — a rest He will have, even if it takes chastening.