God is so serious about the sabbath that He made it one of the 10 Commandments.
What is interesting is that we don’t rationalize away any of the other 9 commandments: idolatry, adultery, respect for our parents, murder, theft, lying…
But when it comes to “You shall keep the Sabbath day holy”, we want to do the bare minimum.
The Israelites were no different.
Just as God so often does, He took the sabbath from being a day of rest to a heart issue.
Exodus 34:21, “Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest.”
He wasn’t going to give them an escape clause because it was plowing or harvest time.
Leviticus 25:2, “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to the LORD.”
God instructed the children of Israel to plant and prune for six years, and on the seventh year, they were to let the land rest, and they could harvest whatever the land naturally gave them.
The sabbath year was a year of trusting in God’s provision for them.
Trusting that He would provide and would not let them go hungry.
Commentators tell us that the Jewish people found loopholes in keeping this command.
Some would either sell their land at the end of the 6th year and buy it back at the beginning of the 8th year - claiming they did not work the land in the 7th year.
Some would rotate working 6/7 of the land every year, so that every 7 years, a part of their land rested.
The point wasn’t so much that God wanted the land to rest as much as He wanted to teach them to trust Him as their provider.
And this is the danger in being legalistic.
We become hyper-focused on keeping the law that we miss the deeper meaning of the law.
God didn’t give us laws to control our lives, but to build a relationship with us.
He gave us the law of the sabbath to teach us to trust in Him as our provider.
To teach us the truth behind the verse, “It is vain for you to rise up early,
to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep.” Psalm 127:2
When we make the sabbath about a day in the week, we lose the bigger picture of God’s law.
We don’t work on the sabbath, because we trust that God will provide for us.
We don’t labor on the sabbath, because we dedicate a day to strengthening our relationship with Him.
We set aside a day for the Lord because He promises He will refresh and restore us, and give us the strength we need to labor the remaining six days.
When we make the sabbath about a day or a law, we miss the sweet and beautiful relationship God intended for it to be.
And in doing so, we miss the wonderful benefits it brings to our spirit.
"The point wasn't that God wanted the land to rest as much as He wanted to teach them to trust Him as their provider." That's something that I always need to hear. Because I can take a day off and still spend every minute of it worrying about what isn't getting done. That's not sabbath. Real rest requires letting go of the illusion that it all depends on me. Still learning that. 🤍
So beautiful and simplistic. Thank you!