Systematic Theology – The Land

The Sabbath Of The Land And Man

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: 9-19

Genre: Speech

Track: 09 of 19

Dictation Name: 09 The Sabbath Of The Land And Man

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us begin with prayer. Oh Lord our God unto whom all glory belongeth we come to Thee in a world where men seek Thy glory for themselves and seek to play God in their own lives and in the lives of others. We thank Thee our Father that Thy righteousness, thy justice shall prevail and judgment shall overwhelm all workers of evil. In this confidence we come to be strengthened by Thy word, to be made strong in Thee that we might be more than conquerors through Christ our Lord. In His name we pray, Amen.

Our subject today is The Sabbath Of The Land And Man. The Sabbath Of The Land And Man and our scripture is Exodus 23:10-11. Let’s make it 10-13. Exodus 10 beginning with verse ten.

“And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof:

11 But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard.

12 Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.

13 And in all things that I have said unto you be circumspect: and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth.”

We have here in verses ten and elven the first reference to the Sabbath of the land. Other texts dealing with the Sabbath of the land are Leviticus 25:1-7, 10-11 and 20-22. In the seventh year the land must rest. Pruning was also included in the ban as well as harvesting. Planting of trees and vines, vegetables and the like was also forbidden in the seventh year.

On the other hand according to Maimonides to water an irrigated field or orchard was permitted. The purpose of the Sabbath is restoration and rest, not death and therefore what is planted is to be kept alive. The land could not be leased or rented for use by unbelievers because this would be an evasion of the Sabbath of the land. Works of necessity were to continue such as milking, grazing cattle and the like. We see this in Exodus 23:4-5, Deuteronomy 22:4, Matthew 12:11 and Luke 13:15. The rabbis permitted a man to clear stones and other obstructions from a neighbor’s field as an act of charity but not as an exchange of services, there could be no reciprocity, in other words during the Sabbath year you could work if it were an act of charity whereby you helped a poor neighbor who needed the help of friends in order to further his own future. The works of necessity not only included such things as raising your cattle, milking cows, but also the building of a cistern when you needed water. Produce could be picked for family use but not for harvesting and sale. The poor could enter the field for gathering of things for their consumption but not to harvest nor to sell. Now certain things are apparent from the laws concerning the Sabbath year. The land first of all must rest. We do know that to allow the land to lie fallow means a restoration of its fertility. Then second in the Sabbath year debts were cancelled as Deuteronomy 15:2 and other texts make clear. This meant a rest from the burden of debt and also a release for slaves. Third there could be no cessation of a concern for the poor. The poor must still be provided for and could enter the fields to glean for eating.

Then fourth as we saw previously on another occasion living for seven years on six years income without long term debt fosters providence and foresight. It creates a very superior people. But there is still another factor of very great importance with regard to the law of the Sabbath year. The Sabbath requires rest. The word means cessation, intermission, the Sabbath is an intermission from our day by day activity in order that we might rest and be restored. Now there is another word in the Hebrew for rest which is used in Ruth 3:1 when Naomi says to Rush:

“Then Naomi her mother in law said unto her, My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee?”

Now Naomi was talking about finding a husband for Rush. Marriage then and now has involved a lot of work and more than a few women might disagree with the idea that marriage is a rest such as Naomi termed it. But when we analyze this word together with the word Sabbath we begin to understand something of what the bible means by the idea of rest, of a Sabbath. What Naomi meant was that in a godly marriage Ruth however active, however hard at work, would be under the protection of a man of God, in this case Boaz. This is the heart of rest in the bible, not only rest in the sense that Naomi meant but in terms of the Sabbath. We rest from our cares, from our concerns under the protection of God. This is why without faith there can be no rest. The Sabbath means taking hands of our lives and committing them unto God who hast said according to Hebrews 13:5-6:

“I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

6 So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.”

A true rest means thus a break with the processes of our working world. It is a cessation of work and therefore a cessation of debt is also required but no cessation of responsibility for the poor. The Sabbath requires responsibility before you get to the Sabbath. You must be provident six days out of seven and six years out of seven in order to rest. The Sabbath rest does not permit us to play God because it says we rest in God and we trust in His providential care. This is why when you create an inflationary social order you destroy the possibility of rest. Because with the expanding inflation man is never able to catch up with the possibility of rest because his hard assets continually depreciate as against the amount that is taken from them by taxation which is at the heart of inflation. The Sabbath thus requires a godly people and a godly social order and when we establish a Christian culture and a Christian society and Christian premises of debt then we will see the possibility of a rest the seventh year which today inflation militates against. Inflation creates a condition of continual unrest psychologically and social unrest, climaxing in vast problems, upheavals and troubles. The Sabbath for the land restores the fertility of the soil more than manuring and fertilizing do and we can say that the weekly Sabbath and the seventh year Sabbath have a like restorative function.

When we rest on the Lord’s Day, when we cease from our labors, when we stretch out and take a nap, we rest. We are restored, revitalized. A man without sleep is disoriented and exhausted, I can say that with heartfelt earnestness having had to fly two nights with very little sleep and still feeling the effects of it. The Sabbath rest can be compared thus to sleep, to a good night’s sleep, and to the restorative function of sleep. Now some churchmen would prefer a more spiritual conception of the Sabbath and would balk at saying well it’s a physical rest that is very much needed. But man is a unity, the rest he needs his trust in God’s care, a trust in God’s providence and this rest enables him to sleep in peace night after night. This is what David was talking about when he declared so beautifully in Psalm 4:5-8, if you have any problems sleeping at any time these are verses are memorize.

“Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord.

6 There be many that say, Who will shew us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us.

7 Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.

8 I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.”

Now that’s the Sabbath rest. Taking hands off our lives and saying I will both lay me down in peace and sleep for Thou Lord only makest me dwell in safety. The sacrifice or offering of justice is a precondition of rest, together with a thorough trust in the Lord. The result is the ability to sleep in peace and in the safety of faith. Thus the weekly Sabbath is good for our total health, physical and spiritual.

The land is strengthened and restored and so too is man by the Sabbath and therefore the Sabbath is basic to any thinking about the future. When man has no Sabbath it means He is draining the future for the present, this is what inflation is about. Inflation means that we are spending future wealth for present enjoyment. It is a dissipation of capitol, it is an accumulation of wealth, borrowing against the future to expend it on the present and so there is less and less wealth because the future is consumed by the present. A sabbatical year thus should be a social goal and we need to work for it as Christians, that he whole of society know the Sabbath rest. It survives only in one area, the academic community. Professors get a rest every seventh year with pay. Having been in an academic atmosphere for some years a good many years ago I‘d have to say that the professorial rest very often means a rest for the student from their tired lectures and less a rest for the professors who sometimes came back very bleary eyed, a little bit a worse for the year of dissipation. But man apart from God cannot rest and that’s why the academic sabbatical has never been as fertile in its potential as it could be. There is no peace saith by God to the wicked according to Isaiah and again Isaiah says in Isaiah 57:20-21:

“But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.

21 There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”

It is absurd to admit as some are ready to do now that a Sabbath can be restorative for land but not for man.

The Sabbath was made for the son of man and man in Christ and the Sabbath is the great untapped resource that the world has before it. But we live in an anti-Sabbitarian age and when I say that I’m not talking about the Sabbitarianism of traditional theology which is church oriented, the Sabbath is man oriented, society oriented. It means that you live in an inflation free society, in a society that is geared to providence. A society that is hostile to debt and which is governed by the principle of trust in God. Man is a part of creation and God’s Sabbath blessings begin with the soil and reach their climax in man, therefore rest in the Lord. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God we live in a day when men are at war with Thee and when men despise Thy Sabbath and its meaning and the earth has no rest. And we are beset with wars and rumors of wars and inflation and more inflation. Oh Lord our God teach us to rest day by day and weekly to take hands of our lives completely and to rest in Thee. Give us grace to work for the reordering of all things in our social orders that Thy Sabbath, Thy Sabbath year may permeate our society and that men may rest in Thee. Grant us this we beseech Thee in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] We know next to nothing about the history of the Sabbath where it relates to practical concerns like the land. It’s something that scholars have not seen fit to concern themselves with. There are indications that apparently the Sabbath of the land was once observed to some degree, that the influence of Puritanism did lead to a certain amount of this. There were also indications that it was observed in some areas of the Middle Ages. We desperately need a careful study of the subject. We have had no famine since the famine in New England in their first winter because controls have been removed on agriculture. We are likely to have controls in the present direction of government policy continues. So we live in a very difficult time because everything that the nations are doing points to the possibility of famine. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] In the bible it was all at the same time, yes. John?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes, but let me say this, one of the problems that we have is that when you create an inflationary society which is an anti-Sabbath, a no rest society, because inflation does not permit it, everything is done more hurriedly and more poorly. Because everyone is seeking to keep pace with inflation by getting rich quicker. Work therefore becomes poorer and poorer in quality. I do believe that what you will find because we know that the quality of goods goes down as inflation goes up because the longer you take in producing something the more it costs and with inflation you have to cut costs by cutting quality. I do believe in other parts of activities you get the same kind of thing, shortcuts, and the shortcuts lead to disasters. So you destroy rest, therefore you destroy responsibility. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] It would mean that we would have to be provident six years out of seven so we could rest the seventh…

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] To have enough accumulated funds and to have the food and especially in the modern age with modern facilities it would be very easy because we have vast food reserves, usually. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes, that’s right, and there is a difference between preparation for disaster and preparation for rest, a dramatic difference. Well we shall continue our studies in the implications of Sabbath rest and inflation and the kind of society that is required by the biblical premises.

Let us bow our heads now in prayer.

Oh Lord our God we thank Thee that Thou hast ordained a rest for us. Give us grace to enter into the rest that is Jesus Christ and life lived in conformity to Thy word. Bless us now day by day, prosper us in Thy service, grant us Thy peace, mercy and blessing, in Christ’s name, Amen.