Exodus 23:10-11 - Exposition

CEREMONIAL LAWS ( Exodus 23:10-19 ).

Law of the Sabbatical year . Days of rest, at regular or irregular intervals, were well known to the ancients and some regulations of the kind existed in most countries But entire years of rest were wholly unknown to any nation except the Israelites. and exposed them to the reproach of idleness.. In a primitive condition of agriculture, when rotation of crops was unknown, artificial manure unemployed, and the need of letting even the best land sometimes lie fallow unrecognised, it may not have been an uneconomical arrangement to require an entire suspension of cultivation once in seven years. But great difficulty was probably experienced in enforcing the law. Just as there were persons who wished to gather manna on the seventh day ( Exodus 16:27 ), so there would be many anxious to obtain in the seventh year something more from their fields than Nature would give them if left to herself. If the "seventy years" of the captivity were intended exactly to make up for omissions of the due observance of the sabbatical year, we must suppose that between the time of the exodus and the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, the ordinance had been as often neglected as observed. (See 2 Chronicles 36:21 .) The primary object of the requirement was, as stated in Exodus 23:11 , that the poor of thy people may eat , what the land brought forth of its own accord in the Sabbatical year being shared by them ( Leviticus 25:6 .). But no doubt it was also intended that the Sabbatical year should be one of increased religious observance, whereof the solemn reading of the law in the ears of the people at the Feast of Tabernacles "in the year of release" ( Deuteronomy 31:10 ) was an indication and a part. That reading was properly preceded by a time of religious preparation ( Nehemiah 8:1-15 ), and would naturally lead on to further acts of a religious character, which might occupy a considerable period ( Nehemiah 9:1-38 ; Nehemiah 10:1-39 .). Altogether, the year was a most solemn period, calling men to religious self-examination, to repentance, to the formation of holy habits, and tending to a general elevation among the people of the standard of holiness. What they leave the beasts of the field shall eat . There was to be no regular ingathering. The proprietor, his servants, the poor, and the stranger were to take what they needed; and the residue was to be for the cattle and for the beasts that were in the land ( Deuteronomy 25:6 , Deuteronomy 25:7 ). Thy vineyard—thy oliveyard . Corn, wine, and oil were the only important products of Palestine; and this mention of the vineyard and the oliveyard shows that one and the same law was to hold good of all the lands in the country, however they might be cultivated. The whole land was to rest.