Leviticus 25:1 - Meaning and Application

The law of Moses placed great weight on the Sabbath. The Sabbath was the oldest of all God’s appointed institutions, meant to preserve the knowledge and worship of the Creator among people. That law not only renewed the weekly Sabbath, but also added a sabbatical year to honor it even more: “In the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest for the land” (Leviticus 25:4).

From this, the Jews drew a popular tradition that after the world had lasted six thousand years, with a thousand years being like one day to God, it would end and the eternal Sabbath would begin. But that is a weak basis for setting the day and hour, which belong to God alone to know. This sabbatical year began in September, at the end of harvest, in the seventh month of their religious year.

The law for that year was clear. First, when seedtime came after their ingathering, they were not to sow grain in their land. In the spring, they were not to prune their vineyards, so they should not expect either a harvest or a vintage the next year. Second, whatever the ground produced on its own, they were not to claim as property or use it in an ordinary way. They could use it only as food from day to day, and they were to leave it for the poor, servants, foreigners, and animals (Leviticus 25:5-7).

It was to be a Sabbath of rest for the land. They were to do no work on it and expect no crop from it. All yearly field work was to stop in the seventh year, just as daily work stopped on the seventh day. The Jews also say they did not begin counting sabbatical years until after they had fully conquered Canaan, in the eighth year of Joshua. Then the seventh year after that was the first sabbatical year, and the fiftieth year was the jubilee.

In this year there was also to be a general release of debts (Deuteronomy 15:1-2), and a public reading of the law at the feast of tabernacles (Deuteronomy 31:10-11). These added duties made the year more solemn. God used this arrangement to teach several lessons.

He showed them that he was the true owner of the land, and that they held it from him only as tenants at his pleasure. Landowners often set terms for their tenants about when to work the ground and when to let it rest. In the same way, God gave them that good land with conditions, so they would know they were not owners in their own right, but people depending on their Lord.

It was also a kindness to the land itself. Giving it rest would keep it healthy for future generations, and God wanted them to think about later generations, not use the land as if it existed only for their own age. Because they were freed for a whole year from country labor, they would have more time for worship and for learning God and his law.

They were also taught generosity. They were not to keep everything for themselves, but to let others share in the gifts of God’s goodness, especially what the earth produced without their work. At the same time, they learned to depend on God’s care. Human life does not depend on bread alone, and even bread does not come only by human effort, but by God’s blessing, if he chooses, without man’s labor or worry (Matthew 4:4).

This law also reminded them of the easy life in paradise, when man ate freely of every good thing, before sin brought labor and sweat. Work and toil came in with sin. It also taught them to think about the poor, who did not sow or reap, and yet lived by God’s blessing on a little. In all this, the year of rest pointed ahead to the spiritual rest believers enter through Christ, our true Noah, who gives us comfort and rest in our work and in the toil of our hands because of the cursed ground (Genesis 5:29).

Through Christ, we are freed from the heavy burden of worldly care and labor. Both are made holy and sweet to us, and we are helped and encouraged to live by faith. And just as the produce of this sabbath of the land was shared by all, so the salvation Christ has won is a common salvation. This sabbatical year seems to have been reflected again in the Christian church when believers had all things in common (Acts 2:44).