Leviticus 25:2 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

When ye come into the land, so as to be settled in it; for the tithe of the wars was not to be accounted, nor the time before Joshua's distribution of the land among them, Joshua 14:7,10. Keep a sabbath, i.e. enjoy rest and freedom from ploughing, tilling, &c. Unto the Lord, i.e. in obedience and unto the honour of God. This was instituted partly for the assertion of God's sovereign right to the land,. in which the Israelites were but tenants at God's will; partly for the trial and exercise of their obedience; partly for the demonstration of his providence as well in the general towards men, as more especially towards his own people, of which see below, Leviticus 25:20-22; partly to wean them from inordinate love, and pursuit of or trust to worldly advantages, and to inure them to depend upon God alone, and upon God's blessing for their subsistence; partly to put them in the mind of that blessed and eternal rest provided for all good men, wherein they should be perfectly freed from all worldly labours and troubles, and wholly devoted to the service and enjoyment God; see on Exodus 23:11; and lastly, that by their own straits in that year they might learn more compassion to the poor, who were under the same straits every year.