The LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, (2) “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the LORD. (3) For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, (4) but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the LORD. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. (5) You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. (6) The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired worker and the sojourner who lives with you, (7) and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: all its yield shall be for food.
Leviticus 25:1-7And if you say, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ (21) I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. (22) When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives.
Leviticus 25:20-22
Every seventh year, called the Shemitah, God wants the land to rest from laboring for mankind. He promised that if his people allow the land to rest in that year–no sowing or reaping–then he would provide a triple harvest in the sixth year, enough to still be eating it in the ninth year.
This can all be a little hard to grasp when you don’t live in an agrarian culture, so I charted it out to see why we would need a triple harvest in the sixth year when we are only supposed to skip planting and harvesting in one year.
- The GREEN BARS represent the time from planting until harvest.
- The YELLOW BARS represent the harvest period.
- The BLUE BARS represent the time in which that year’s grain harvest is stored and used.
- The GRAY BARS represent the periods in which the fields are left fallow or are growing other crops.
The barley crop is in a darker shade than the wheat.
As you can see, the barley and wheat crops are planted beginning around the month of Cheshvan, roughly around October, and grow for 4-8 months before harvesting. The barley begins to ripen around the end of Adar and the beginning of Nisan, which is around March or April.
According to Leviticus 23:10-14, no barley from the new harvest may be eaten until after the wave offering that is done a few days after Passover. This wave offering is sometimes called Early Firstfruits.
The wheat harvest begins almost two months later at the beginning of the month of Sivan, just before the holiday known as Pentecost, Shavuot, or Later Firstfruits.
Each of these harvest periods lasts from one to two months, and that grain has to last until after Passover the next year. The crops from year 5 are stored and eaten up until the harvest of year 6.
Barley and wheat were the primary staple crops of the ancient Near East, including Israel. They were the main source of calories for almost everyone. Although God allows the people to eat what grows of its own in the 7th year, he does not allow mass harvesting for sale or storage, and there wouldn’t be a lot of grain growing on its own. Since there is no planting or harvesting in year 7, the harvest from year 6 has to last at least two full years or people will begin to starve.
If the people follow this plan, God promised that there would be a triple harvest in the 6th year. Why triple if only two years are required to get through the Shemitah year? Because a double harvest is the bare minimum to survive, and God wants to reward his people for their faithfulness. He doesn’t want us to barely get by.
In its plainest sense, this law only applies to those living in the land of Israel, and it requires that you leave your fields fallow in the 7th year and only eat what you have stored up and what grows on its own without cultivation. Don’t buy fresh produce at the grocery store. Don’t import avocados and tomatoes from Mexico. Just trust divine Providence.
However, the principle applies more broadly: God rewards those who trust in him and demonstrate their trust by keeping his commandments, even when they don’t make sense.
The rewards of the Kingdom of God are not stored up for the religious, the popular, the powerful, or even for those who suffer the most. There is nothing virtuous about self flagellation. No, the rewards of the Kingdom are stored up for those who trust in God.
I’m not saying that you will always be rich. Sometimes God makes you poor, like in the seventh year, so you’ll learn to trust in him more. Sometimes he makes you sick or takes away everything you have, like Job, but he only does it so that you will have the opportunity to grow into the great man or woman of God that he knows you can be.
Consider Joseph. When he was young, he was tactless and possibly a bit foolish, but he trusted God. Despite that trust, his brothers betrayed him and sold him into slavery. In Egypt, he was abused, slandered, and imprisoned.
He thought he would become the patriarch of a large and wealthy family. Instead he became the top prisoner in a dungeon, and a servant to white-color criminals. Despite many years of injustice and misery, Joseph kept his faith that God was in control and that justice would ultimately prevail.
But then Pharaoh had a nightmare that no one could interpret, and one of those criminals remembered the young Hebrew seer who worked in the prison. Joseph was brought up from the pit and–after thirteen years!–rewarded with status and wealth beyond anything he had ever dreamed.
It’s hard to see the finish line when your course is through valleys, jungles, and swamps, but if we could always see exactly what reward lay at the end, we’d have no need for faith.
Great trials build great faith, and great faith brings great rewards, but the timing and the forms of trial and reward are God’s to decide, not ours.
