The Sabbath Year

One of my favorite passages in Scripture is Leviticus 25. Yes. That’s right. I said Leviticus- also considered to be one of the ‘boring’ books in the Bible because it’s a list of rules. But they are rules that God gave the Israelites when establishing a nation. Just think about it for a minute. If GOD, the Sovereign God who knows us inwardly and outwardly and created each of us, if He gave us suggestions on how to live, don’t you think they might be helpful? Or handy?

Leviticus 25 is all about The Sabbath Year. Here is some of it.

“ ¹ The LORD said to Moses at Mount Sinai, ² “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the LORD. ³ For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. ⁴ But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the LORD. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. ⁵Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest. ⁶ Whatever the land yields during the sabbath year will be food for you—for yourself, your male and female servants, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you, ⁷ as well as for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. Whatever the land produces may be eaten.”

¹⁸ “‘Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land. ¹⁹ Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety. ²⁰ You may ask, “What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?” ²¹ I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. ²² While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in.

 ²³ “‘The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers. ²⁴ Throughout the land that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.”

I have a point to sharing this passage. Never fear. 

It is fairly common knowledge that the Bible has as one it’s commandments, “Honor the Sabbath by keeping it holy.” That’s once a week aka after 6 days of work, we need to rest and glorify God through our rest. College students have a hard time honoring this commandment. And perhaps it’s not just a college thing and perhaps it isn’t even a personal sin but a societal sin as well. We do not rest when we should. And every so often we all have mental breakdowns and panics in consequence of our sin.

But God commanded more than that. Not just every seventh day but every seventh year we are supposed to rest. In a community where agriculture was how people survived, God commanded them to stop harvesting their fields every seven years. To me this makes sense. You will deplete the nutrients in a field quickly and your crops won’t be as fruitful if you continually push your land to produce more (hence now why people always dump fertilizers on the ground). But this passage doesn’t talk just about harvests. It talks about debts, loans, homes, animals, and family. In other words, it addresses most aspects of life.

Every seven years we are supposed to take a Sabbath year. One year where we calm ourselves down and honor God by making sure we get rest. I have no idea what that would look like nor do I think our society quite understands. The best examples in our society are sabbatical years that professors, professionals and missionaries take to regroup and recover.

And I haven’t even talked about the Jubilee year where we are supposed to free all debts, slaves and commitments after every 7 sets of 7 years (aka every 50^th year).

Hmm. Interesting.

It is also interesting to know this random tidbit of my life: This past year was the hardest and most difficult year for me to get through. I had a lot of family problems, a lot of friendships end, and a lot of inward problems that I needed to deal with.

But I wasn’t the only one. I know many people who had it rough. From dealing with alcoholism, to eating disorders, to emotional and mental instability, to committing terrible crimes, to needing to find a new job or place to live. This year sucked for many of us a lot more than past years have. And not just in what we were struggling with but our temptations, our emotional handlings of these temptations and with life in general.

Why?

I believe it was because it was supposed to be my Sabbath year. I was 21 turning 22. So were my friends. Or the others were a multiple of 7 in age, ironically enough. We were burnt out and Satan knew that. He attacks when we are most vulnerable and he tried doing it in full force.

My God is my protector, however, and He rescues me even though I was not resting. Although I was emotionally exhausted, physically exhausted and my brain hurt, God was willing to be my protector and He was rescuing my friends.

What would it have looked like if I had made this year my Sabbath Year? What would it look like if as a community we had a Sabbath Year? How can we go about living life so that next time, I will honor God and look to Him for my rest and my protection?