THE SHABBAT YEAR

“Six years you will sow your field; six years you will prune your grapevines and gather their produce. But in the seventh year is to be a Shabbat of complete rest for the land, a Shabbat for Adonai; you will neither sow your field nor prune your grapevines.”
Leviticus 25:3-4

Every morning I awake and settle in to my daily pattern. I have been doing this for years now. I am not one who is able to sleep in as a result of many years of waking up early, so my internal clock awakes me daily at 4:30am. This seems to be both a blessing and a curse at times. Once awake I begin my regiment of both exercise and quiet time alone with Adonai. At 6am I am beginning to get ready for work, showering, shaving, waking the kids, packing lunches, and the process that comes with all that. By 6:30am I am out the door to drop off the kids and then to work. Eight hours average at work doing the same thing I have been doing for eight years now and then back to home where the evening routine plays out. It is a constant circle with very little change. It is because of this cycle, though, that I have come to a point where I cannot wait for Friday evening. Knowing that from Friday evening through Saturday evening I will have time to rest because of Shabbat gives me the refreshing I need to go another six days till the next break. Now while I have shared before about Adonai’s command to rest on Shabbat, we read in Leviticus 25 that the land also is required to rest.
This opening parashah of the Torah this week is titled B’har, and within this section we read of the laws of Shemitah, the Sabbatical year. It was in this seventh year where the Jewish people were commanded to not plant their fields or tend to them. In the course of forty-nine years this specific year would come about seven times. This idea seems odd to us as we live in a time when it is go, go, go. To get ahead we must give more of ourselves. Expand the boundary, work the overtime, give up sleep for the chance to pull forward. Yet Adonai’s Kingdom is different, and should be the standard as opposed to the exception. Just as He commanded that people rest on the seventh day, so also He commands that His land must rest.
For six years straight that people were allowed to plant their crops, tend their vines, and gather their harvest. For six years they were to be purposeful to work in the fields and make their living on the land. But, in the seventh year, they were to be purposeful to do the exact opposite. They were not to till, plant, sow, or prune. Whatever came up as a result from the seeds before was theirs to eat of, but they were not to touch the ground outside of this harvesting. The reason for this was again, Adonai’s land needed rest as well as His people.
Reading on in Leviticus 25 we find the term Yovel, translated as the year of Jubilee. It was in the fiftieth year, after the seven Sabbatical years had passed, that something more would be in place. On the tenth day of the seventh month, with the sound of the trumpet heard in the background, a time of consecration was made and liberty claimed throughout the land. Adonai’s people were to return to their land, eat from their land, and by back their land if sold based on the number of years left for harvesting. In many ways, it would become an illustration for us of how we were purchased back based of the payment Yeshua made for us.
While all this can be confusing, there is a point I am trying to make in this writing. The point revolves around value. Adonai is so in love with us and values us beyond what we can truly understand. As such He desires only the best for us. It is because of this value that He looks after us and commands us to take a break and enter the rest of Shabbat. But as He also values all His creation, He also commands a rest of the land. This rest of the land in a stair step, for the Jubilee can only come after the seven Sabbatical years. Life may tell us to go faster and expand, stay in the groove and make our mark, but Adonai tells us to rest and trust in Him, and He will be sure we are cared for. “Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land. Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety” (Lev 25:18-19). This is what I want for us all.

Leviticus 25:1-18