WHAT IF GOD HAD NOT GIVEN THE LAND REST LAW

After emphasizing the need for justice among his people, God surprises the reader with another seemingly strange command: “Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow; That the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beast of the field may eat. In like manner you shall do with your vineyard and your olive grove” (Ex. 23:11).

What if God had not included this commandment? What if He had not shown any concern for the land?

God created the land and knows how to maintain its health and productivity. With this commandment He shared with His people a wonderful principle that would have prevented the land from being depleted, and it would produced abundantly, generation after generation.

If God had not included this commandment, He would have denied His people knowledge that was critical for their long-term well being. The Israelites were to be in the land for hundreds of years. The population would have grown, and the temptation would have been to squeeze as much as possible out of the land. Giving vineyards, olive groves, etc. a year- long break would have allowed a high level of natural rejuvenation and a restored level of productivity.

This commandment reveals God’s undeniable special touch, not only because it manifests God’s love and wisdom toward his people, but also his deep concern for the needy. In fact, the land rest law was also meant to be God’s gift to the poor and the needy: “That the poor of your people may eat”(V.11). During the seventh year the fruit of the land was to go fully to the poor who could freely gather from ungathered fields.

Though beneficial to the people at large and to the needy, it can be stated with total certainty that no human being would ever dream of conceiving of such an amazing principle. The concept was simply too strange and extreme and demanded such a high level of faith (God promised double gathering on year six) that very few would have gone along with. God alone could have asserted such a challenging, yet grand concept.

Giving the land a seventh year rest may appear perplexing at first, yet if God had not given Israel such a great gift we would have been denied another solid piece of evidence that God is, that His wisdom is endless, that He loves His people, that He cares for the needy, and that His ways are always grand.

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