Leviticus 27
English Standard Version

Laws About Vows
27 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, If anyone makes a special vow to the Lord involving the valuation of persons, 3 then the valuation of a male from twenty years old up to sixty years old shall be fifty shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary. 4 If the person is a female, the valuation shall be thirty shekels. 5 If the person is from five years old up to twenty years old, the valuation shall be for a male twenty shekels, and for a female ten shekels. 6 If the person is from a month old up to five years old, the valuation shall be for a male five shekels of silver, and for a female the valuation shall be three shekels of silver. 7 And if the person is sixty years old or over, then the valuation for a male shall be fifteen shekels, and for a female ten shekels. 8 And if someone is too poor to pay the valuation, then he shall be made to stand before the priest, and the priest shall value him; the priest shall value him according to what the vower can afford.

9 “If the vow is an animal that may be offered as an offering to the Lord, all of it that he gives to the Lord is holy. 10 He shall not exchange it or make a substitute for it, good for bad, or bad for good; and if he does in fact substitute one animal for another, then both it and the substitute shall be holy. 11 And if it is any unclean animal that may not be offered as an offering to the Lord, then he shall stand the animal before the priest, 12 and the priest shall value it as either good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall be. 13 But if he wishes to redeem it, he shall add a fifth to the valuation.

14 “When a man dedicates his house as a holy gift to the Lord, the priest shall value it as either good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall stand. 15 And if the donor wishes to redeem his house, he shall add a fifth to the valuation price, and it shall be his.

16 “If a man dedicates to the Lord part of the land that is his possession, then the valuation shall be in proportion to its seed. A homer of barley seed shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver. 17 If he dedicates his field from the year of jubilee, the valuation shall stand, 18 but if he dedicates his field after the jubilee, then the priest shall calculate the price according to the years that remain until the year of jubilee, and a deduction shall be made from the valuation. 19 And if he who dedicates the field wishes to redeem it, then he shall add a fifth to its valuation price, and it shall remain his. 20 But if he does not wish to redeem the field, or if he has sold the field to another man, it shall not be redeemed anymore. 21 But the field, when it is released in the jubilee, shall be a holy gift to the Lord, like a field that has been devoted. The priest shall be in possession of it. 22 If he dedicates to the Lord a field that he has bought, which is not a part of his possession, 23 then the priest shall calculate the amount of the valuation for it up to the year of jubilee, and the man shall give the valuation on that day as a holy gift to the Lord. 24 In the year of jubilee the field shall return to him from whom it was bought, to whom the land belongs as a possession. 25 Every valuation shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary: twenty gerahs shall make a shekel.

26 “But a firstborn of animals, which as a firstborn belongs to the Lord, no man may dedicate; whether ox or sheep, it is the Lord's. 27 And if it is an unclean animal, then he shall buy it back at the valuation, and add a fifth to it; or, if it is not redeemed, it shall be sold at the valuation.

28 “But no devoted thing that a man devotes to the Lord, of anything that he has, whether man or beast, or of his inherited field, shall be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy to the Lord. 29 No one devoted, who is to be devoted for destruction from mankind, shall be ransomed; he shall surely be put to death.

30 “Every tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the Lord's; it is holy to the Lord. 31 If a man wishes to redeem some of his tithe, he shall add a fifth to it. 32 And every tithe of herds and flocks, every tenth animal of all that pass under the herdsman's staff, shall be holy to the Lord. 33 One shall not differentiate between good or bad, neither shall he make a substitute for it; and if he does substitute for it, then both it and the substitute shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed.”

34 These are the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses for the people of Israel on Mount Sinai.

This is it!  The last chapter of the book of Leviticus!  We're going to end with a section about special vows and oaths that the people would take before the Lord.  First comes some kind of special vow that involves the valuation of persons.  I have no idea what such a vow would entail, but this wouldn't seem to have anything to do with slavery or redemption as we've already talked about those issues.  Since the priests are involved in this then it can probably be interpreted as an oath to pay some special kind of offering, I would guess for thanksgiving for all the Lord has provided, where a donation is being made to the Tabernacle (or later the Temple).

The valuation of an adult male aged 20 to 60 years old should be 50 shekels of silver and for a female was 30 shekels of silver.  A shekel is a unit of weight and not so much of currency, though they would later make silver coins that each contained a shekel of silver that would be called shekels.  That is why we'll also see this as a measure of capacity sometimes.  The Levites were to keep accurate weights and measures that were to be used when the people measured out the price they were to pay in such situations so that the people would not use dishonest scales or weights and measures.

For a child from 5 years old up to 20 years old, then the valuation would be 20 shekels of silver for a male child and 10 shekels of silver for a female child.  For an infant or young child from the age of 1 month old to an age of 5 years old the valuation would be 5 shekels for a male child and 3 shekels for a female child.

For an elderly person over the age of 60, the valuation for a male would be fifteen shekels and for a woman would be 10 shekels.  There is then one more stipulation at the end of this first section to say that the priest could adjust the amount to be paid if the person in accordance with their means, but if they were a person of sufficient means they should be asked to pay the full price.

Some people instead may wish to make a special sacrifice of an animal instead of a special offering of money.  In such a case whatever animal is offered is holy to the Lord and must be sacrificed and no substitutions are to be made.  If the man tries to make a substitution of good for bad or bad for good, both the original animal and substitute were holy and belonged to the Lord.  If the animal that was brought for sacrifice was found to be unacceptable for sacrifice because it was "unclean" for some reason, then the priest would make a valuation of the animal's worth and the man would have to pay 120% of the valuation in order to buy the animal back.

The same kind of rule applies for a man seeking to dedicate his house to the Lord.  The priest will make the valuation and if the man wishes to buy the house back at some point, then he will have to pay an additional 20% to the valuation to buy it back.

​If the man wishes to dedicate his land to the Lord, then the valuation of this will be proportion to the amount of barley seed that it takes to see the land--50 shekels for each homer of barley seed.  This will be the price if the dedication takes place immediately after the year of jubilee if there are 50 years remaining until the next year of jubilee.  If however the donation is made after the year of jubilee then the valuation will be prorated for how many years are remaining (since there are 50 years between years of jubilee, I think it's safe to assume you subtract one shekel of silver for each year in accordance with the number of homers of barley seed needed to seed the land).  If the man wishes to redeem his field before that time, he is to pay 120% of the valuation, but he only has until the year of jubilee to do so.  If he chooses not to redeem the land before that time, then that land permanently belongs to the Lord and is like one of the fields that the Lord gave to the priests.  If however this was land that he bought which is supposed to be returned to someone else on the year of jubilee, then the priest will calculate the valuation of land on that day and the purchaser of the land will pay that price (no additional penalty as he's not redeeming it) to the Lord as a holy offering, and the land will be returned to its original owner.  The man who sells his field to another and then has that new owner dedicate the land to the Lord may not try to redeem the land that he sold--he does not own it.  He must wait for the year of jubilee for the land to be released back to him.  Only the person who made the dedication is able to redeem the property.

The final instructions in this section have to do with exactly what a "sanctuary shekel" is that we've been reading about so far.  God tells the priests that the sanctuary shekel should never change and always be equal to 20 gerahs.  While you and I probably have no idea what this means, the priests did know what it means.  It was a very specific amount that what unchangeable throughout the years so that even if the value of people's currency inflated or deflated, the valuations given to the Lord here would stay the same without need for adjustment for inflation or deflation.

God wraps up with some additional laws based off of other laws we've already read.  No one is to dedicate a firstborn animal to the Lord because it is already holy to the Lord and was to be sacrificed, or if the animal is unclean then it is to be bought back at 120% of the valuation, or sold for the valuation if the man does not wish to redeem it.

That which is devoted to the Lord belongs to the Lord and is not to be sold or redeemed by the priests once it belongs to them.  Anything that is vowed for destruction (we'll see that later in the book of Joshua for instance with the city of Ai) is to be destroyed and there is to be no ransom to be paid for the people or property that is under that vow of destruction.  Any man woman or child that falls under such a vow is to be put to death--again, this has to do with God telling his people to vow to completely and totally destroy their enemies in some instances.  We'll again see this in 1 Samuel 15 where king Saul is to completely destroy the Amalekites--every man, woman, child, animal and all that they owned was to be destroyed.  Saul tried to save some of the spoils of war rationalizing that he could offer them as a sacrifice to the Lord, but the Lord had forbidden this in this law.  God's response to this was that obedience is better than sacrifice and that Saul's kingdom would be taken away from him and given to another (David) because of this.

The tithe that is commanded in the Law also belongs to the Lord and is holy.  If the man needs to redeem some of his tithe (needs some of the seed back for instance), then he is to pay 120% of its valuation.  As for the tithe of his herds and flocks when every tenth animal passes under the herdsman's staff and is given to the Lord, there is no redemption or substitution that can be made.  If the man tries to exchange or make a substituted then both the animals will belong to the Lord.  Each man is to give exactly what he vows and there is to be no deceit in the process.  This is the sin of Ananias and Sephirah that we see in the book of Acts as they vowed to give the full value of their land to the Lord and then held some back and lied to the apostles and the Holy Spirit about the value of the land that they sold, and God struck both Ananias and Sephirah dead for their sin that day.  See here the words of Peter to Ananias:

​
Acts 5:3-4
English Standard Version3 But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? 4 While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.”

We just studied that passage this week in The Gospel Project.  If you're one of the members of our Gospel Project study group on the 99-1 Discipleship Discord server, then you may want to go back and listen to that message again in light of what you read here today as it helps us to understand some of what is going on there.

Jesus will come back an make more more addition to these laws that we read today in the New Testament that such vows should never be used to circumvent the letter or spirit of the Law (for instance, honoring one's parents by taking care of them as they get older).


Mark 7:5-13
​English Standard Version

5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,
“‘This people honors me with their lips,
    but their heart is far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
    teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”
9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 11 But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)-- 12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

Punishment for Disobedience​
14 “But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, 15 if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. 17 I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you. 18 And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins, 19 and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. 20 And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.

21 “Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you, sevenfold for your sins. 22 And I will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that your roads shall be deserted.

23 “And if by this discipline you are not turned to me but walk contrary to me, 24 then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins. 25 And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the covenant. And if you gather within your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. 26 When I break your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven and shall dole out your bread again by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied.

27 “But if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, 28 then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. 29 You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. 30 And I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you. 31 And I will lay your cities waste and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing aromas. 32 And I myself will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled at it. 33 And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.

34 “Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies' land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. 35 As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it. 36 And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues. 37 They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though none pursues. And you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. 38 And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. 39 And those of you who are left shall rot away in your enemies' lands because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquities of their fathers they shall rot away like them.

40 “But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, 41 so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, 42 then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43 But the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes. 44 Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. 45 But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.”

46 These are the statutes and rules and laws that the Lord made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai.

This passage goes hand-in-hand with the last one, and it makes sense that if there are blessings for obedience, there will probably be punishment for disobedience.  We'll see a long section of "blessings and curses" when the covenant is reconfirmed at the end of the book of Deuteronomy.  God wanted to bless His people, but blessings would be withheld, there would be natural consequences to actions, and sometimes God will even intentionally take corrective action in a loving way to discipline His children to get them back on the right path.  God is not the kind of father that lets His children go off the rails without making every attempt at intervention, though we'll see that even He eventually gets to the point of letting them get exactly what they ask for--for example where we studied in our Gospel Foundations lessons about the people rejecting God and asking for a king (Saul) so that they could be like all the other nations.

God's requirement here is total compliance and obedience.  There is no room for partial obedience.  They most love and adhere to and obey all of the Law to receive His blessings.  Breaking the smallest part of the Law was breaking covenant with God and would mean that the whole nation would be guilty if any one person broke covenant and it would open everyone to the curses that were promised instead of the blessings.  No one other than Jesus (and originally Adam before the Fall) could possibly keep the entire Law, so then was it God's plan to always be judging His people?  That is the idea that some people have of God--that He's always angry at them and out to get them.  The answer is "No," God desires everyone to be saved and to be under the grace that He provides, but for those who choose to try earn God's favor by their own merit, they will always come up short--we must instead rely on God's unmerited favor.  That doesn't mean that God is a push-over though.  He will eventually judge both the living and the dead and He is a good Father that gives just the right amount of correction.

God knows exactly how stubborn, stiff-necked, and rebellious these people will be, and He tells them exactly what He's going to have to do to correct them.  Just like a good professor lays out all the consequences in his or her syllabus so that the students can't say "no one ever told me," God lays out all the consequences of sin in the Law.  Pestilence, famine, losses in battle, being conquered by those who hate them and hate God, and punishment so severe that it can only be described as "sevenfold" (remember that seven is the number of God's perfection and holiness and a number of completeness as there are seven days in a week).  He will utterly and completely bring them to their knees, but will not destroy them on account of the covenant that He made with Abraham and His plan to bring forth a Messiah from these people, Jesus Christ, who would save them from their greatest enemy--sin.

God says that even nature will be against them if they sin and live in rebellion as their crops will not be safe from the animals and the animals will have a bloodlust and will attack them and their livestock and even their children in the open field and will have no fear of them.  God meant for animals to be subject to man as the natural order of creation, but as men sin more and more, the order of things gets messed up more and more and the animals no longer fear man because man no longer looks like Creator God to them.

God promises that as the rebellion gets worse, the sin of the people will get worse and it will be a downward cycle as God would become their enemy and withhold even more blessings hoping for them to repent while at the same time giving them over to a depraved mind as we see in Romans 1.  For in this passage, God says they will get to a point where the famine that God sense becomes so bad that ten families will have to make bread together in one oven and split the bread between them to ration it and no one will be filled, yet the rebellion of people will be so great that the people will turn to cannibalism and child sacrifice to fill their stomachs rather than to repent before a holy God and ask for His blessing to be restored after atonement was made for their sins.  Notice how their child sacrifice goes hand-in-hand with their idolatry as God mentions that part of what God will do when they get to this point is that He will destroy their high places, their sanctuaries of worship to their false gods and idols and I think worst of all, once they get to this point God promises to no longer accept their sacrifices.  Maybe part of that is they are making sacrifices to false gods or they are making sacrifices on the altar of the LORD but no longer know the God they pretend to be worshiping and instead worship a god that they have invented who winks at their sin or is as corrupt as they are.  In any sense, this is tantamount to God saying that there is a place they can go where they have crossed the line and there will be no forgiveness offered to them--that's a scary place to be and it is words like these that probably inspired the sermon titled "Sinners In the Hands of an Angry God."  Again, this is the way that many people think of God all the time, but that is because so many people hate God and love their sin to the point where they have completely rejected God and would rather believe wild fairy tales (like evolution) just so that they do not have to acknowledge God as Creator which would therefore also make Him King and mean that there is a Law that is His that they are to live by.  When you live in darkness, the light is scary to you, but those who live in the light have no need to fear for they can see clearly--the evil person lives in darkness because he neither wants to see nor be seen and imagines that the darkness will hide him or her from God's all-seeing, all-penetrating light.  Light will always overcome darkness!

Notice in the downward spiral of things that worst thing that God lists is for them to forget to keep His Holy Sabbaths (not just the Sabbath Day, but all the other holy days that point towards the work that God has done, is doing, and is going to continue to do---specifically through Jesus and through the Church until Christ returns and there is a New Heaven and a New Earth when all these things will ultimately be fulfilled).  This is how bad it got during the time of the Divided Kingdom (which we are about to study in our Gospel Foundations lessons--in fact, this whole downward spiral exactly maps the future history of Israel--God knew EVERYTHING they were going to do and everything He was going to do in response) so that we see that the people would go into exile--the Northern tribes would be "lost" and never return as far as we know and the two southern tribes along with most of the tribe of Levi would go into exile in Babylon.  God's reason for the 70 years of exile in Babylon?  It was because the people failed to keep the Sabbath Year for 490 years, so God gave rest to the land (as promised here) for the 70 years that they had failed to let the land rest.  God would cause all of their walled cities that they trusted in for security to be torn down, for the Temple that they believed to keep them safe to be ransacked and plundered, and torn down and for their children to be taken by these pagan kings who would try to reeducate them, give them new identities, and force them into worship of themselves (the pagan kings) and their gods, even to the point of trying to train them to be magicians and sorcerers--two of the areas of the law that we know God hates and demanded the death penalty for.  The people at this point in their lives will lose all hope and all joy--they will hang up their harps on the willow trees and will weep and no longer desire to sing any of their songs of deliverance and redemption, because they no longer believe in a God who is Redeemer and Savior, or they believe themselves to be so bad that God would never want to redeem or save them and that they deserve the punishment they are getting--yet even at this point, many of the people will still rebel and not repent.

This is not just talking about the exile to Babylon, but also all the other nations that conquered the Jews during the 400 years of silence in the intertestamental period--the Greeks and the Romans are the two biggest kingdoms to rule the people at this time.  Both have their purposes in God's plan to make a common language for the known world and to make the system of roads and safe passage from nation to nation so that the gospel could easily go forth "in the fullness of time," but these pagan and wicked nations also did much to try to make the people of God as pagan and secular as they were--to worship knowledge, philosophy and material possessions.  By the time that Jesus comes on the scene the people have been so messed up, they have forgotten who they are and the beginning of His ministry has to be The Sermon on the Mount to remind people of the Law and the high standards that God demands for His people if they want to experience the blessings of the coming kingdom, and the judgment that is coming for all those who live in opposition to the King and His Kingdom (they just didn't understand that they were listening to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords).

With all that bad news, we're probably feeling like there's no good news to be heard, but God finishes by reminding His people that all they need to do to avoid these punishments or to obtain deliverance and redemption once again when things get bad--even so bad as the last group of punishments where it seems as if God is going to let their enemies destroy them and take their land from them--is to cry out to the LORD in repentance.  We probably all know the verse "If my people which are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land."  (2 Chronicles 7:14).  That promise to the Jewish people ties in directly to this promise here in Leviticus.  If they confess and are humbled and make amends for their iniquity and sin, God will remember His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  But the people will still have to wait out the punishment of letting the land rest for failure to keep the Sabbaths.  There is no short-circuiting those consequences.  God promises them that no matter what, He will still be their God and they will still be His people even when they are in exile, and that He will not utterly destroy them (even though they probably deserved it from time to time) for God had bigger plans than those people in that place at that time and He would preserve these people for the sake of the gospel.  For He had chosen His Son to be born through these people so that through these children of Abraham the Abrahamic covenant would be filled that "Through you, all the nations of the world will be blessed."  This was ultimately fulfilled by Christ's penal substitutionary atonement on the cross.  God's plan will never be thwarted!  Even if He has to do His work by working around us instead of through us, His will is going to be accomplished, and He will never break His covenant because His covenant is consistent with His nature and His character.  God can only break His covenant if God can stop being who and what God is.  Since He cannot change His nature or identity, then His covenant is unbreakable.  This is why to love God is to love and obey His commandments.

Leviticus 26:1-13
English Standard Version

Blessings for Obedience
26 “You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God. 2 You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.

3 “If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, 4 then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5 Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely. 6 I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And I will remove harmful beasts from the land, and the sword shall not go through your land. 7 You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 8 Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. 9 I will turn to you and make you fruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you. 10 You shall eat old store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new. 11 I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. 12 And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. 13 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

It is human nature to ask "What does it benefit me?" or "What do I get out of this?" when being asked to take on rules and regulations.  God repeats some of the Law here, specifically a summary of the first four commandments about how the people are supposed to treat Him, and then gives them a conditional covenant that hinges on their obedience to these commands.

If the people of God obey the commands of God, then God will bless them with rain and good crops of grain and grapes so that they will never be without food.  God will give them peace and safety and security in their land and will protect them from invaders and will even protect the people from the wild beasts.

God promises miraculous victories to them in war where they can defeat armies 20 to 100 times the size of their forces because God will fight for them.

God promises that the people will have the blessing of many children so that they will have heirs to inherit their covenant land and that God will confirm His covenant with each new generation.  He will be their God and they will be His people.

God again promises not just enough food to make it from season to season and year to year, but they would have an overabundance of food that they could store in their storehouses (to survive during the Sabbath years and the Year of Jubilee as well as to provide food for those around them who were in need and to provide for those who were their servants and slaves who were in their care).  God promises that they would have enough to do all that He commanded but also that none of it will go to waste.  They will always be able to clear out the old to make room for the new.

Probably the greatest promise here is that God's presence would dwell with His people and that they would not need to fear living in His presence, for if they are obedient to all that He has commanded than their sin will be atoned for and they need not worry about His holiness consuming them.  In fact, He even promises that He will walk among them.  While this may bring back images of God walking in the Garde with Adam and Eve, we know that this points forward to the time of Jesus (though the people were in no way obedient, God still did this) and the time of the New Heavens and the New Earth where God will once again dwell with His people and walk with them in a way that is the fulfillment of this covenant, because only then will we be perfectly obedient to all of God's Law.  God will do for us then in heaven all these things that we imagined to be earthly rewards for here and now.  The people were looking to make a kind of Utopia where they created heaven on earth where God would once again step into their world, but God has been making a place for us and has been about making us fit for that place so that there will be a new heaven and a new earth and "earth and heaven be one" as the lyrics of "This Is My Father's World" state.

Leviticus 25:35-46
English Standard Version

Kindness for Poor Brothers
35 “If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. 36 Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. 37 You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. 38 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.

39 “If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: 40 he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. 41 Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers. 42 For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. 43 You shall not rule over him ruthlessly but shall fear your God. 44 As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. 45 You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. 46 You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.

For those looking to find "welfare" commanded in the Bible, this is probably one of the best passages, but it's not like the welfare programs of today that are secularized and teach people to depend on government instead of God.  No, this should have been a natural overflow of the people of God taking care of each other.  There were to be no homeless or indigent people among the people of God.  If a man could not care for himself and his family, then they would be taken in (we'll see exactly what the rules were for this in the next paragraph), and if your brother (neighbor) got into a situation where he needed to borrow money from you, you were to lend it without interest to him and were never to sell him and his family food for above cost because you don't try to make a profit off of your brothers and sisters in the family of God.  This is what God their Redeemer who saved them out of slavery commanded.

That is a great transition to the next point that God makes--they were never to be slaves to one another.  They could be hired men (hourly-wage employees).  Whatever the man's debt for which he is working to pay it off, the debt must be canceled and he must be set free at the year of jubilee--the man, and his wife, and their children will all be set free to return to their clan and to their family's land which will be returned to them that year.  The longest anyone would have to wait to return home in such a situation is 50 years if they incurred such a debt the day after the Day of Atonement in the year of jubilee and had to wait a full 50 years for the next year of jubilee.

No Israelite was to be the servant of another Israelite because they were only to be servants of God.  He is the one who bought them with a great price, though they did not realize it yet.  For this reason in the New Testament, we are called slaves of God and slaves of Christ--though often this word is translated as "bondservant" because the translators felt that the word "slave" had been sullied by the African slave trade.

So then, if some form of slavery or indentured servitude was okay, what exactly did that look like and how is that different than what we think of when we think of the word "slave"?  Well, we've already seen in the Law that human trafficking was illegal and was a capital crime. Kidnapping people and selling them for a profit, even the people who were your enemies, was illegal.  Here God gives commands for how the stranger, sojourners and indentured servants being discussed here should be treated.  They are not to be bought and sold as slaves nor are they to be abused as the taskmasters in Egypt did--the passage calls this treating them "ruthlessly."  Once again this connects back to who God is and what He had done for His people.

The people were however allowed to buy male and female slaves from the nations around them and from any sojourners living in the Promised Land, just not from the people of God.  These slaves were to obey all the same laws and were to fear God and worship him, and they were to be taken care of--not mistreated or abused.  They would be the property of the one who purchased them.  I know that doesn't sound right to us, but the people were supposed to take good care of all that they owned and it makes sense the sense that these people who were not part of the covenant should not be treated as "family" for the purposes of inheritance because they had no right to land since that was part of God's eternal covenant with the children of Abraham, however, it does mean that these slaves and their families were to be part of the inheritance that was passed along from generation to generation and that the Israelites would continue to care for these people who would loyal to their families.  We've already seen a good example of this in Genesis with Eliezer of Damascus.  He was the slave of Abraham, but was well taken care of and seemed to manage Abraham's household (much like Joseph did for a time with Potiphar's household), and Eliezer became the slave of Isaac, the son of the promise, after the death of Abraham.  So, our minds should not conjure up thoughts of slave ships and slaves being beaten to the point of death.  That was a perversion of Scripture and something God has always hated, and as mentioned before was something that God commanded the death penalty for.  Such slaves that were not of the people of God had no chance of being redeemed by a kinsman redeemer, nor did they have the promise the year of jubilee.  However, they had the opportunity not specifically mentioned here to convert to Judaism and to be adopted as a part of the family who had once owned them as a slave and to instead be treated as a brother or sister.  Their identity and status would change at the point of conversion.  In this way, the "gospel" as it was revealed at that time was at work among those who lived among the people of God, but were not part of the people of God.  These people would have to obey laws they did not understand from a God they did not know, but they would see some of this through the people of God and it would make them want to have a relationship with this God whom they could not approach.  With that in mind, read what the New Testament says about us where not part of God's people who have not been brought near and adopted into His family.

​1 Peter 2:10-12
English Standard Version10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

​11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

Ephesians 2:11-22
English Standard Version
One in Christ
11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands-- 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Ephesians 1:3-14
English Standard Version
Spiritual Blessings in Christ​
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Romans 8:12-17
English Standard Version
Heirs with Christ
12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Romans 6:15-23
English Standard Version
Slaves to Righteousness
15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

​20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

These are just a few of the passages in the New Testament where we are told of our change in status from being slaves of sin and the flesh, but being changed to be sons, heirs, and slaves of righteous.  We once had no inheritance, but now we have an eternal inheritance as co-heirs with Jesus, yet just because we are family does not mean that God is not both King and Master.  We still serve Him, but now we do so willingly (we'll get to that part of the Law later when we'll talk about the real meaning of the word "bondservant" as one who has willingly given themselves over to another as they choose not to be released when the year of jubilee comes or once their debt is paid off.)  There's much more that can and will be said about servitude and slavery in the Old Testament and New Testament, but let's not forget that the theme of today's passage was about generosity, hospitality and taking care of our neighbors who are of the same identity as us as well those who are in our care and custody (maybe those who work for us and are of a different identity).  The Law tells us that in both cases we treat everyone with at least a common grace and hospitality, but for our brothers and sisters in faith there is an uncommon grace because of the uncommon grace which God has lavished on us.

1 John 3:1-3
English Standard Version
3 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

Leviticus 25:23-34
English Standard Version

Redemption of Property​
23 “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me. 24 And in all the country you possess, you shall allow a redemption of the land.

25 “If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, then his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold. 26 If a man has no one to redeem it and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, 27 let him calculate the years since he sold it and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and then return to his property. 28 But if he does not have sufficient means to recover it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of jubilee. In the jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his property.

29 “If a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, he may redeem it within a year of its sale. For a full year he shall have the right of redemption. 30 If it is not redeemed within a full year, then the house in the walled city shall belong in perpetuity to the buyer, throughout his generations; it shall not be released in the jubilee. 31 But the houses of the villages that have no wall around them shall be classified with the fields of the land. They may be redeemed, and they shall be released in the jubilee. 32 As for the cities of the Levites, the Levites may redeem at any time the houses in the cities they possess. 33 And if one of the Levites exercises his right of redemption, then the house that was sold in a city they possess shall be released in the jubilee. For the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the people of Israel. 34 But the fields of pastureland belonging to their cities may not be sold, for that is their possession forever.

God reminds the people that the Land that they are about to receive is a gift from God and their eternal inheritance and they are never to sell or give away the land in perpetuity (why the Jewish people should never engage in "land for peace" deals).  They are always to make provision for the land to be returned or redeemed (a buy-back option).

if for some reason the family becomes poor and cannot buy back their land, then their nearest relative known as their kinsman redeemer is to buy back the land for them.  We'll see this take place in the book of Ruth, and this is also something that Jesus fulfills as He is our Kinsman Redeemer who bought back everything and everyone that belonged to God with the price of His own blood.

Every man was supposed to redeem his family's land as soon as they became able to do so--no foreigner was to own the land that was promised to the people of God as part of God's covenant with His people.  Even if the man is unable to buy back his land, then it is to be returned to him (or his family if he dies) at the year of jubilee.  This is the law for land that is in the open country or for towns and villages that have no wall around them.

If however the property was in a walled city and the man sells his home and property there, he only has one year to buy it back before the property is perpetually owned by the new owner and that property will not be released back in the year of jubilee as the idea of the year of jubilee was to make sure that families could continue to own their farm land, but there was no intent for it to apply to those who lived in the cities.

For the cities of refuge that belonged to the Levites (we'll talk about these later), they could redeem their houses at any time as this was all of the inheritance that they had as far as the Land.  Even if they sell their house in a walled city, it is to be returned to the Levite and his family on the year of jubilee.  The Levites were never allowed to sell the pasture land that surrounded their cities as this was their ancestral land that was to belong to them forever and they would use this land to raise the own flocks and herds for their sacrifices that they needed to make for themselves and their families and to feed their families--there were many more Levites than just the priests as the Levites transported the pieces of the Tabernacle, were the members of the choir and orchestra, did the custodial work to repair and upkeep the Tabernacle, and they were the ones responsible to teach the Law to the people.

Leviticus 25:8-22
English Standard Version

The Year of Jubilee
8 “You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. 9 Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. 10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan. 11 That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. 12 For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You may eat the produce of the field.

13 “In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property. 14 And if you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another. 15 You shall pay your neighbor according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of years for crops. 16 If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you. 17 You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.

​18 “Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then you will dwell in the land securely. 19 The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell in it securely. 20 And 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.

This is one of the most wonderful parts of the Law that has been fulfilled in Christ Jesus and has a "not yet" portion that is to be fulfilled in Christ at His second coming which we refer to as the Rapture.  We just studied how ever seven years, the land was to rest, but now the people are told to count off each group of seven and after the seventh seven, 49 years, and then the 10th day of the seventh month (so seven months after their celebration of Passover that year), the trumpet would sound--that is 10 days after The Feast of Trumpets which is Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement.  There is some debate as to if this is an additional Sabbath year, or if it is the last of the seven Sabbath years

So let's take a moment to talk about some of the special things that happen during The Year of Jubilee.  First, we see that all land that was part of God's eternal covenant with the people not just on a corporate level, but at a family/clan level and an individual level would be returned to the owner, even though the owner may have had the land seized in forfeiture of assists due to a debt, sold it, or in any other way had had his eternal inheritance taken from him or his family by others or lost it by being careless with it.  God is faithful to keep His covenant with us even when we are not faithful to guard and protect that which is part of the eternal covenant that He has made with us.

Any sale or purchase of land that was made was to account for the fact that the land would be returned to its original owner at the next Year of Jubilee and therefore the value of the land would change based off of how long it was until The Year of Jubilee and they were not to charge each other for years in which the land was to lay fallow during a Sabbath year.  The people should not overvalue the land they are selling and take advantage of their neighbors (fellow citizens).

We'll also learn later that this is a time for every man who has been taken captive or has sold himself and/or his family into slavery or been taken as slaves because of a debt that they could not pay to be set free and have all of their rights restored, and all debts were forgiven--no matter the cost.  This brings to mind one of the prophecies of the coming of the Messiah from the book of Isaiah, Isaiah 61 to be exact.  In fact, this is the passage that Jesus read in the synagogue at the beginning of His ministry to define His mission and ministry (though only the first part of this passage as He came in His first coming to declare the year of the LORD's favor, but did not come to judge the nations at that time)  See how Jesus is promised to bring an even better "Year of Jubilee" in this passage, and we know that He gave a better inheritance, a better covenant, a better freedom, and a better forgiveness of not just monetary debts, but all the debt of sin that we owed against God.


Isaiah 61
English Standard Version

The Year of the Lord's Favor​
61 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
    he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,
    and the day of vengeance of our God;
    to comfort all who mourn;
3 to grant to those who mourn in Zion--
    to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
    the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
    the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
4 They shall build up the ancient ruins;
    they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
    the devastations of many generations.

5 Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks;
    foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers;
6 but you shall be called the priests of the Lord;
    they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God;
you shall eat the wealth of the nations,
    and in their glory you shall boast.
7 Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion;
    instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot;
therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion;
    they shall have everlasting joy.

8 For I the Lord love justice;
    I hate robbery and wrong;
I will faithfully give them their recompense,
    and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
9 Their offspring shall be known among the nations,
    and their descendants in the midst of the peoples;
all who see them shall acknowledge them,
    that they are an offspring the Lord has blessed.

10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;
    my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
    he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11 For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,
    and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
    to sprout up before all the nations.

So the people were to always trust the Lord to Provide (Jehovah-Jireh) and to trust The Lord of the Harvest (Jehovah Sabaoth) to provide an abundance in the 6th year to provide food for them in the 7th year, and to provide a harvest that they did not work for to sustain them in the eighth year until the crops that they planted were ready to harvest.  Think of this in relation to the Parable of the Talents where the wicked servant says in verse 24 that his master is known for "reaping where [he] did not sow, and gathering where [he] scattered no seed."


Matthew 25:24-28
English Standard Version
24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents.
Isn't that great that God is going to have some harvest of believers that none of us worked for?  Yes, it is typical that God sends out us a laborers into His fields and into His vineyard to work the fields and gather the harvest, but there will be people in heaven that none of us worked to evangelize or disciple--it was simply the work of the LORD bringing His elect to salvation.  That does not mean that we should be lazy and not be about the work of The Great Commission.  On the contrary, the people were responsible to work hard for six years not only to have enough food for themselves during those years, but to make tithes and offerings and to feed their animals and servants, to help all those who were in need, and to still have enough leftover to get them through the time that God told them to rest.  This is the same God's pattern for us for each week (the Sabbath Day), and we see the pattern in the months that the 7th month (the Sabbath Month in which the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement was celebrated) was supposed to belong to the LORD, as was the 7th year (the Sabbath Year), and every 7th Sabbath Year (the Year of Jubilee).  God has established a pattern for His people, and the number 7 is closely associated with God's holiness, and we are told to obey these commands because the Lord our God is holy.  While too much is probably made of "hidden codes" in the numbers in the Bible, this pattern seems obvious and the pattern doesn't seem very hidden, so when you see references to 7 or multiples of 7 such as 70 or 77, stop and pay attention and look to see if there is some meaning of fullness, completeness, holiness, or something pointing to the Person or work of the LORD, as this is number most closely associated with Him and what makes Him unique/different.  For instance the reference to forgiving "seventy-seven" or "seventy times seven" times is an indication of a forgiveness that only God is capable of.  We see reference to the sevenfold Spirit (probably the Holy Spirit) the is among the seven lamps (of the Golden Lampstand) in heaven that represent the seven churches, and Jesus holds seven stars in His hand that represent the seven "angels" (probably better translated more directly as "messengers") of these seven churches, and of course there's the famous passage in Daniel of the 70 sevens (sometimes translated as "weeks" in some translations, but "sevens" is better as they are groups of seven years).  We'll find more of these numbers that are significant as we go through the Bible (6, 12, and 40 specifically come to mind) and these numbers can give us some context clues as to if the passage is talking about something "falling short" (usually what 6 and multiples of 6 refer to as it's just shy of 7 and neither man nor the devil can ever quite get to God's perfection that we desire to have in our pride as we desire to "be like god"--see Genesis 3), 12 which seems to be one of the numbers related to the God's people and the fulfillment of God's covenant to include all of His elect (we see 12 tribes, 12 apostles, 12 foundations to the New Jerusalem, 12 gates by which the people enter, and we see 24 elders--probably the 12 sons of Israel and the 12 apostles), and of course the number 40 and its multiples has to do with judgment and trials (40 days and 40 nights of rain in the flood, 400 years in slavery in Egypt, 40 years in Midian for Moses, 40 years wandering in the wilderness for God's people, and 400 years of silence between the Old Testament and New Testament are just some examples--there are many more).  Again, we should not make too much of what is sometimes referred to as numerology, but we also should not overlook where God is trying to say something to us, and to get back to today's text, it is obvious that God has established a pattern for us in the days, weeks, months, and years to remind us of the Sabbath rest and to trust in Him, the Creator of all things, for our provision in the short-term and in the long-term (even our eternal provision as we studied today in that His covenant is renewed with us and all the benefits are restored to those of us who were not careful to keep and care for that which we were entrusted with). 

Leviticus 25:1-7
English Standard Version

The Sabbath Year
25 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.

This is the command (among other issues) that is going to eventually send the people, specifically the southern kingdom of Judah, into Exile again as prisoners of the Babylonians for God cites their breaking of this commandment as the reason that they will be in exile for 70 years since they had failed to let the land rest during their 490 years since they had entered the Promised Land and therefore the land needed to lay fallow for 70 years.

We know that this makes agricultural sense.  We have different techniques now to make sure that we don't take all the nutrients out of the soil such as rotating crops, adding fertilizer and nutrients and plowing crops under, but we still occasionally let a field "rest," though the farmers often have multiple fields and rotate through which field is resting.so that they don't rest all their fields at the same time now and have no crop (people today don't seem to like to save the surplus from the previous six years and trust God to provide for them in this way in the Sabbath year as that doesn't make sense to them).  I'm almost certain if we would continue to follow this model in faith that our harvests would be even more fruitful than using all of the modern techniques that we can think of because that's the way God works--obedience typically leads to blessing.

Something like this doesn't make any sense to the ungodly as it seems like lost income/profits, but God was teaching His people to trust in Him and His provision instead of themselves and their provision.  When the people became proud in their provision for themselves and acted like they did not need God, then God would use the other nations or drought, famine, or pestilence to remind His people that their only hope was to cry out to Him as everything we have comes from Him and He is the one who makes it rain on the just and the unjust.  The people would not starve during the seventh year because there was more than enough that had been saved by the people in the years of gathering and there was more than enough offered as part of the sacrificial system to take care of the Levites and priests.  God knew what He was doing even though it didn't make any sense to the ungodly, but the fact that the people never trusted God in this way says something about them (and probably us), for as soon as they entered the land they were supposed to start obeying this command and observing the Sabbath year and 490 years later the land had failed to have rested any of the 70 years of Sabbath rest that were required and this is why their exile in Babylon lasted 70 years as revealed to the prophet Jeremiah and discovered by the prophet Daniel in the book of Jeremiah (see Daniel 9:2 and Jeremiah 25:12).