Soil from Stone

Leviticus 25:1-13 And the LORD spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying, (2) 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. (3) Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; (4) But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. (5) That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land. (6) And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee, (7) And for thy cattle, and for the beast that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat. (8) And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. (9) Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. (10) And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. (11) A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. (12) For it is the jubile; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field. (13) In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession.

Leviticus 25:18-22  Wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety.  (19)  And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety.  (20)  And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase:  (21)  Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years.  (22)  And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store.

Every seventh year, 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.

At first, there appears to be a contradiction between verses five and six and again between verses eleven and twelve.

The conflict can be resolved in one (or both) of two ways: 1) “Food for you and your servants” and “the increase of the field” could refer to the triple harvest of the previous year; or 2) God might intend for people to take from the fields only what they need for the moment or the day. I believe that both answers are correct. The triple harvest is obviously intended to get people through until the next regular harvest, but that only works well for dry goods. Many crops don’t preserve well.

Matthew 12:1  At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat.

I believe we are allowed to eat directly from the fields during the sabbath and jubilee years just as Yeshua’s disciples did on the weekly sabbath. We may not take in the harvest to sell or to store for later, and we are required to trust in Providence from one day to the next. God promised food and security if we trust and obey him.