Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the LORD.
When ye come into the land which I give you. It has been questioned on what year, after the occupation of Canaan, the Sabbatic year began to be observed. Some think it was the seventh year after their entrance. But others, considering that as the first six years were spent in the conquest and division of the land (Joshua 5:12), and that the Sabbatical year was to be observed after six years of agriculture, maintain that the observance did not commence until the fourteenth year.
The land keep a sabbath unto the Lord. It commenced immediately after the feast of ingathering. This was a very special arrangement. The command to give rest to the land every seventh year, when the extent of country was so disproportionate to its population, must appear exceedingly strange to those who have not duly considered it. The generality of people would account for it perhaps from its being conducive to the good of the land, which would be too much exhausted if it were not permitted occasionally to lie fallow. But this could not be the reason; because then a seventh part of the land would most probably have been fallow every year, and not the whole at once.
Moreover, it would not have been suffered to produce anything which would tend to counteract the main design; whereas all the seed that had been accidentally scattered on it during the harvest was suffered to grow up to maturity. Nor can the idea of being fallow be applied with any propriety to the oliveyards and vineyards, which, though not trimmed and pruned that year, were suffered to bring all their fruit to maturity.
Some other and deeper reasons, then, because this appointment must be sought for. Not only all agricultural processes were to be intermitted every seventh year, but the cultivators had no right to the soil. It lay entirely fallow, and its spontaneous produce was the common property of the poor and the stranger, the cattle and game. This year of rest was doubtless to invigorate the productive powers of the land, as the weekly Sabbath was a refreshment to people and cattle. But it was calculated to teach the people, in a remarkable manner, the reality of the presence and providential power of God, and to train them to habits of trust and confidence in Him.