The Sabbath Year

       Counting for the Sabbath year was to start when the Israelites entered into the land which [hwhy Y@hovah] gave to them. For six years they could sow and prune and gather from the land. The seventh year was to be a year of sabbath rest for the land and a sabbath for [hwhy Y@hovah].

       I love how God takes a moment to answer the fears and doubts about a whole sabbath year. He is talking to chiefly agricultural people. If they don’t sow or reap, how will they live?

       From our 20/20 hindsight, we might be tempted to condemn the Israelites as faithless and foolish. Didn’t God provide the manna? Didn’t He provide extra manna the day before Sabbath? Didn’t He provide more than enough quail to fill their grumbling bellies, if not their grumbling hearts (Exodus 16, Numbers 11)?

       Let’s not condemn them, but think of our own faithlessness and fears. But don’t despair. In verses 20-22, God in His goodness answers them before they can ask.

       20-22 And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase: Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store.

       When I used to have a garden, I once practiced a miniature sabbath year. I lived long enough at one place to have a garden for over seven years. I deliberately left it alone to see what happened. The perennials grew back and I had onions and oregano and chives. Maybe a self sown cantaloupe.

       Did I overflow with financial and spiritual blessings? At the time, life was very hard and my “stuff” blinded me to a lot of blessing that was there.

       In an exegetical argument, one might say that God never told me to have a sabbath year. True. I just wanted to give it a try. As I was a passionate gardener and found great joy in gardening, perhaps it was a sacrifice God never requested of me. As I said, life was hard.

       Perhaps one lesson of my own story is to be sure that what we choose to sacrifice or offer God is the thing that God is actually asking. (If I smoke, for example, but have been stealing, God probably would want me to stop stealing first.)

1Sa 15:22 And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

Well, the coffee cup is empty and it’s time to go to work. Thanks for reading.

Shalom!