The Problem Of Having A Seventh Year Without Sowing and Planting (Leviticus 25:20-21).
“And if you shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? Behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase, then I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for the three years.”
The first question we must raise here is as to the reference of ‘the seventh year'. Does it signify each sabbatical year after the six years of activity, ‘the seventh year' as described in Leviticus 25:4, or does it refer to the forty ninth year before the year of Yubile (but which is never elsewhere thought of in terms of the seventh year)? The view followed here is that it has in mind the sabbatical years following each six year period, that is the ‘seventh year' of Leviticus 25:4, the only seventh year referred to in the passage. Thus in the whole series of forty nine years the eighth and ninth years follow the first seventh year, and that is the first year in which the cause for concern described here would apply. The question is thus relating to all that has been spoken about since Leviticus 25:2.
So the question was, would the observance of the sabbatical year mean that in the seventh year, and in each succeeding seventh year, they would have to go short? No, God assured them, as he had multiplied the Manna on the sixth day so would He multiply His provision so that it covered the years when there was no organised production. As He had already given them evidence with the Manna that He was able to do a similar thing, they had no reason to be afraid.
The need for three years was because while activity on the land would take place in the last months of the sixth year for growth during the sabbatical year, there would be no organised reaping to follow in the first part of the seventh year, and no sowing was to take place within the last part of the sabbatical year, the seventh year, because it was forbidden. Thus the first sowing would be in the eighth year (the last part of the first year in the new series) which would produce growth in the ninth year. This confirms that at this time the year began in the spring (Exodus 12:2).