Then shall the land enjoy its sabbaths all the days of the desolation, when ye are in your enemies' land; then shall the land rest, and enjoy its sabbaths.
Leviticus 26 sets two futures before Israel: blessing if they listen, and growing judgments if they will not. Verse 34 names one of the strangest. The land itself receives the rest its people refused to give it, while they are far away in enemy country.
Every seventh year the ground was to lie unworked. What stopped Israel from keeping it was not ignorance. It was sight.
I now turn to one more instance of the power of the visible and its effect on Israel — the way it turned them aside from keeping the Sabbatical year. Here it is all the more striking and solemn, because Jehovah had made special provision to meet the case (see Lev. 25:20-21). The desire of His heart was that the land should keep a sabbath to the Lord. Nothing could be more clear, or more beautiful in what it pictures. Did Israel hold to the mind of Jehovah in this? Jehovah promised to command His blessing on them in the sixth year, so that it would bring forth fruit for three years. As far as they were concerned, that promise was in vain. The visible work of man's hands, their sowing and reaping, was greater and better to them than His blessing.
How much rest was owed? The length of the exile answers.
There is no record that Israel ever kept the Sabbatical year or the year of Jubilee. Lev. 26:34-35 predicts what would happen if the Israelites did not let the land keep the sabbaths. It reads almost like a prophecy: the land should lie desolate because it did not rest during your sabbaths. In Jer. 25:11-12; Jer. 29:10; Dan. 9:2 the actual desolation is said to be seventy years. And as the land was to have rested one year in every seven, it follows that the 70 answers to 70 × 7 = 490 years.
The verse gives the sabbaths to the land, not to Israel. So whose land was it?
The sabbath year was the same truth written large, so that everyone could read and see it. It brought the land into prominence: "a year of rest for the land," of which Jehovah was landlord, and Israel His tenants — holding it only as long as He allowed.
The rest was a sign of who owned the ground. And it took in more than the farmer.
The land was to enjoy its 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. God had care for both. Whatever the distance between them, both alike are His creatures. This reminded the children of Israel that they were only tenants.
Israel's refusal did not cancel God's rest. He took it another way. What they would not give, He collected.
Their land too would not escape. They had despised His sabbaths — in days, in years, in jubilees. So there would be a judicial sabbath: the land would lie desolate while Israel was in the enemies' land. The land that flows with milk and honey would lie desolate and rest. It would take the rest it never had while the tribes lived there.
Commentators point to the exile in Babylon as the moment this came true.
Leviticus 26 holds threats for the people if they should fail in their conduct. "But if you will not listen to me" (v. 14) — He threatens them with the heaviest judgments, and at last with driving them out of their land (v. 31-39). This is exactly what happened when they were carried captive to Babylon (compare 2 Chron. 36:21 with Lev. 26:34), and the land enjoyed its sabbaths while Jerusalem lay desolate. Once every seven years there was to be a year of rest. But the people had no faith in God to keep it. Because they did not believe God, He found this means of enforcing obedience to His law.
The chapter does not end in the emptied land.
A promise follows this threat: "If they confess their iniquity… then I will remember my covenant with Jacob" (v. 40-42). That is, they would be brought back.
What the law never got from them, mercy will one day give: "the Jubilee will be made good to them in grace when they acknowledge their Messiah" (Morrish Bible Dictionary).
- Owner. The land was Jehovah's; Israel held it as tenants, and its seventh-year rest was the standing sign of whose it was.
- Refusal. Ruled by what they could see, they prized their own sowing and reaping above God's promise of a sixth-year harvest. No record shows them ever keeping the sabbath year.
- Collection. God did not drop His claim. He took as a "judicial sabbath" what they would not give: the land rested while its people were gone.
- Arithmetic. Seventy years of desolation answer to 490 years of unkept sabbaths — the debt counted to the last year.
- Return. The threat is not the last word. Confession brings God back to His covenant. Grace will yet make good the Jubilee Israel never kept.
All the days of the desolation it shall rest, [the days in] which it did not rest on your sabbaths, when ye dwelt therein.
God tells Israel what their empty land will do while they live in a foreign country. It will catch up on the rest they refused to give it. The verse turns a national disaster into strict accounting: every seventh year of rest they withheld, the land now takes back in desolation.
The rest here is not a gift but a sentence. One writer names what kind of sabbath it is:
Their land would not escape either. They had despised His sabbaths — in days and years and jubilee years — so there would be a judicial sabbath: the land would lie desolate while Israel was in the enemies' land. The land flowing with milk and honey would lie desolate and have rest, in place of the rest it did not get when the tribes lived there.
Leaving the fields alone every seventh year was Israel's admission of who owned the ground. Breaking the command cost them the ground itself:
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 ownership every seventh year, the Israelite admitted who he held it from. For that year he was not the owner: the harvest belonged to anyone as much as to him, and it was appointed as a Sabbath to Jehovah. That year Jehovah fed everyone freely with what grew up under His hand without human farming. Israel's whole hold on the land depended on this recognition of the divine lordship. Because they broke this command, the land was to enjoy the Sabbaths that had been taken from it, lying empty while the people were driven out.
The same writer carries the claim forward to Jesus' story about tenant farmers:
In His parable of the tenant farmers, the Lord directly links their rejection of Himself with their rejection of Jehovah's rights over the vineyard He had rented out to them. Here the idea carried by the Sabbatical year is extended and developed (Matt. 21:33-41). The prophets had been His servants, sent to collect His fruit: "Finally He sent His Son to them, saying, 'They will respect My Son.' But when the tenants saw the Son, they said to themselves, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill Him and have His inheritance.'" So comes the righteous sentence on them.
Why would a whole nation ignore one command? One writer traces it to plain greed:
So God's word through Jeremiah came true: the land of Israel would be left desolate, to 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 given them.
Another writer traces it to unbelief:
Once every seven years there was to be a year of rest. But the people did not have faith in God to keep it. Because they did not believe God and would not allow the sabbath years, God found this way of enforcing obedience to His law.
The verse ties the length of the desolation to the number of sabbaths owed. One writer counts them:
There is no record of the Sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee ever being kept. Leviticus 26:34-35 predicts what would happen if the Israelites did not let the land keep its sabbaths. It reads almost like a prophecy. In Jer. 25:11-12; Jer. 29:10; Dan. 9:2 the actual desolation is said to be seventy years. And as the land was to have rested one year in every seven, it follows that the 70 years answer to 70 × 7 = 490 years. Now the kingdom began in 1095 B.C., and Jerusalem was taken in 606 B.C., which is just 490 years. It seems that in this, as in everything else, they failed to obey. But the Jubilee will be made good to them in grace when they acknowledge their Messiah.
Another writer notes how long that rest ran:
Verses 34 and 35 expect that they would ignore the commands about the sabbath, especially about the land. So God would give the land a long sabbatical rest, when they were driven out and it lay desolate. We all know how long a rest that land has had until quite recent years.
The chapter does not end with an empty field:
God does not close this searching word of His without remembering His covenant — as it says, with Jacob, and His covenant with Isaac, and His covenant with Abraham. He speaks here with unusual emphasis of His covenant with each one of them. So even from His own mouth, the One they had sinned against so long and so deeply, there would be a threefold witness for His mercy in that day. "And I will," says He, "remember the land."
- Owner. Every seventh year Israel admitted that the land was the Lord's and they were only tenants.
- Robbery. Greed and unbelief made them work the land every year, taking rest that belonged to God.
- Repayment. The desolation is a judicial sabbath. The land collects while they are gone what they refused to give while they were there.
- Reckoning. Seventy years of rest answer to 490 years of missed sabbaths. God's accounts balance.
- Remembrance. The chapter that empties the land ends with God remembering His covenant — and remembering the land. He will yet make good the Jubilee in grace.