Importance of the Sabbatical Years

God was very serious about observing the Sabbatical Years and the Jubilees.  The Sabbatical Years were not on God’s wish list.  It was on His to do list.  God wanted the land to be able to rest.  There is a reason that goes beyond just the rest and revitalization of the land.  It is the shadow to revelation.  Sometimes we need to learn to stop working, start resting and care for our brethren.  God warned the Children of Israel in Leviticus 26:33-35.

³³And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. ³⁴Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths. ³⁵As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.

You would think with this warning that the children of Israel would observe the Sabbatical Years and the Jubilees.  Yet in 2 Chronicles 36:19-21:

¹⁹And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. ²⁰And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia:  ²¹To fulfil the word of Yehovah by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.

This is when Babylon, captured the land and destroyed the Temple.  The 70 years was to compensate for the years that the land was not allowed to rest.

God is serious, He is not slack concerning His word.

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