Leviticus 25:1-17 NKJV
25 And the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, 2 “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to the Lord. 3 Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather its fruit; 4 but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the Lord. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. 5 What grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine, for it is a year of rest for the land. 6 And the sabbath produce of the land shall be food for you: for you, your male and female servants, your hired man, and the stranger who dwells with you, 7 for your livestock and the beasts that are in your land—all its produce shall be for food.
8 ‘And you shall count seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years; and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. 9 Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. 10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family. 11 That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee to you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of its own accord, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine. 12 For it is the Jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat its produce from the field.
13 ‘In this Year of Jubilee, each of you shall return to his possession. 14 And if you sell anything to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor’s hand, you shall not oppress one another. 15 According to the number of years after the Jubilee you shall buy from your neighbor, and according to the number of years of crops he shall sell to you. 16 According to the multitude of years you shall increase its price, and according to the fewer number of years you shall diminish its price; for he sells to you according to the number of the years of the crops. 17 Therefore you shall not oppress one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the Lord your God.
In this fascinating section of Leviticus, we hear of the “sabbath of solemn rest” for the land. In this year the Israelites were not to sow seed or prune the vineyards. God was teaching His people to trust Him to provide, even though they would not be growing more food for themselves. Through Moses, God was instructing the Israelites that when they come into the land of promise they are to treat the land with respect, giving it a rest every seventh year. As the Creator of all, God certainly knows how to care for His creation, in this case, the land. And every fiftieth year, after seven sabbath cycles, the Israelites were to proclaim a year of Jubilee (in the Hebrew, a “shout of joy; a battle cry”). As God says to Moses in v. 12, “For it is the Jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat its produce from the field.”
Just as the Israelites were to rest on the Sabbath from their work, so the land was given a time of rest from its work of production. On each seventh year, the landholders let the land lie fallow. The fields were left unsown, and the vineyards were left unpruned; their owners too did not harvest their produce for commercial use. The self-grown grain and the self-grown grapes were not gathered up for storage and sale. They were treated as common property that was available to be gleaned as food by all the people and animals that resided on the land. Thus, the land was given a time of rest from human cultivation. God teaches that He alone is the One who provides for His people in His own way. The only thing the people had to do was trust and obey.
Christians celebrate a weekly sabbath of sorts each Lord’s Day in the Divine Service, our “seventh day.” On this day and in the conduct of the Devine Service we receive from the Lord the gifts of His faith-strengthening Gospel preached, and Sacraments administered. He gives; we receive. He “works,” we rest in Him and His gifts.
Let us pray: Thank You, God, for giving us Your Word and Sacraments through which we are fed and nourished in the faith; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.