70 years of Sabbath
Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2022 9:21 am
I find 2 Chronicles 36:21 to be both curious and revealing:
"...until the land enjoyed her Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years."
In Exodus 23:10, God gives Moses the command that "you shall sow your land six years and harvest its yield, but the seventh year you shall let it rest"
Then in Leviticus 25 this is restated. "Whenever you come into the land...six years you shall sow your fields, ...but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land." But then the Jubilee year is added (Lev 25:8) "You shall count seven Sabbaths of years for yourselves...forty-nine years... the fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee to you...in it you shall neither sow nor reap.
Not to get carried away with the math, but that means in every 50 year period, there should be 8 years that no one does any farming. This farming rule is probably and easy one to forget, when you wander in the desert for 40 years, then spend 5 or so years of war and conquest before settling down to build your homes and start any actual farming. Plus for the first 300 or so years in the promised land (period of Judges) everyone was individually responsible for following God's laws. It is a tough decision to fully embrace the faith and you should not actively grow food for your family for an entire year and if everyone does that, there is no neighbor who might be able to help you out. I would have a hard time quitting my job for a year every seventh year, I even find it hard to take unpaid sick time off even though God has always provided for my needs. A Sabbath year requires a huge amount of faith. There is no record in the Bible of anyone taking a Sabbath year, but to be fair there is also no mention that anyone skipped it either.
Saul became king in 1050BC. Now there was somebody responsible to make sure people understood God's laws. The kingdom could have mandated the Sabbath year, or even set up food banks or import treaties to encourage a Sabbath year, but that's not the point. The point is the Faith in God.
If I return to the pointless math of 8 years of rest in every 50 year period starting with the beginning of the kingdom in 1050BC, Israel had skipped 70 years of Sabbaths and Jubilees when Jeremiah makes his prophesy of 70 years of exile (605BC). The counting off of the 70 years of rest is much more challenging since not everyone was taken away into exile or returned from exile at the same time and there were years of siege (hiding within the city walls) and years rebuilding in which we have no insight to the farming activity. What we can count is the years from the final fall of Jerusalem in 586BC to the rededication of the Temple with Ezra in 515BC. Okay, that is 71 years and it may sound like I'm doing math to try to support the prophesy, but the author of 2 Chronicles recognized God was enforcing the rules He put in place.
"...until the land enjoyed her Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years."
In Exodus 23:10, God gives Moses the command that "you shall sow your land six years and harvest its yield, but the seventh year you shall let it rest"
Then in Leviticus 25 this is restated. "Whenever you come into the land...six years you shall sow your fields, ...but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land." But then the Jubilee year is added (Lev 25:8) "You shall count seven Sabbaths of years for yourselves...forty-nine years... the fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee to you...in it you shall neither sow nor reap.
Not to get carried away with the math, but that means in every 50 year period, there should be 8 years that no one does any farming. This farming rule is probably and easy one to forget, when you wander in the desert for 40 years, then spend 5 or so years of war and conquest before settling down to build your homes and start any actual farming. Plus for the first 300 or so years in the promised land (period of Judges) everyone was individually responsible for following God's laws. It is a tough decision to fully embrace the faith and you should not actively grow food for your family for an entire year and if everyone does that, there is no neighbor who might be able to help you out. I would have a hard time quitting my job for a year every seventh year, I even find it hard to take unpaid sick time off even though God has always provided for my needs. A Sabbath year requires a huge amount of faith. There is no record in the Bible of anyone taking a Sabbath year, but to be fair there is also no mention that anyone skipped it either.
Saul became king in 1050BC. Now there was somebody responsible to make sure people understood God's laws. The kingdom could have mandated the Sabbath year, or even set up food banks or import treaties to encourage a Sabbath year, but that's not the point. The point is the Faith in God.
If I return to the pointless math of 8 years of rest in every 50 year period starting with the beginning of the kingdom in 1050BC, Israel had skipped 70 years of Sabbaths and Jubilees when Jeremiah makes his prophesy of 70 years of exile (605BC). The counting off of the 70 years of rest is much more challenging since not everyone was taken away into exile or returned from exile at the same time and there were years of siege (hiding within the city walls) and years rebuilding in which we have no insight to the farming activity. What we can count is the years from the final fall of Jerusalem in 586BC to the rededication of the Temple with Ezra in 515BC. Okay, that is 71 years and it may sound like I'm doing math to try to support the prophesy, but the author of 2 Chronicles recognized God was enforcing the rules He put in place.