Bible Commentaries

And the LORD spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying,

And the Lord spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai. — Posthuman, returning from the eastern parts, is, by Sulpitius, Sulp., Dial i., cap. 2. brought in thus speaking: I saw the Red Sea, I went up Mount Sinai, the very top whereof, reaching up almost to heaven, cannot be come at.

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Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the LORD.

Then shall the land keep a Sabbath. — By their weekly Sabbath they professed that themselves belonged to God, though Seneca jeers them for it, as those that cast away the seventh part of their time. By this seventh year Sabbath, they professed that their land belonged to God, and that they were only his hinds, his tenants, and tithemen. Hence it is called the Lord’s land, Hosea 9:3 and Immanuel’s. Isaiah 8:8

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Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof;

Six years. — Beginning at September, according to the Jews’ civil account.

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But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard.

A Sabbath of rest unto the land. — This and the jubilee year shadowed our eternal rest. Colossians 2:16-17 Hebrews 4:9 (l.) Every seventh day they rested from their labours. (2.) Every seventh year the ground rested. (3.) Every seventh seventh (as some reckon it) was the jubilean Sabbath: at which time all debts were remitted, prisoners released, mortgages restored to the right inheritors. The great and eternal Sabbath comprehends all these. How then should we breathe after it, and even go forth to meet it, as the Jews do their weekly Sabbath, beginning it an hour sooner than the law required? and this they called their Sabbatulum, or little Sabbath.

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That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: [for] it is a year of rest unto the land.

Thou shalt not reap, — sc., All at once, as other years: but now some, and then some, for thy necessary food. Maimon., in Jobel.

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And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee,

Shall be meat for you. — Thus God taught and inured them to depend upon his providence, and to feed on faith, as some read that text. Psalms 37:3 For though the owner of the field might gather, even on that year, for the maintenance of himself and family, yet he was neither to sow his field, thereby to increase his harvest, nor to hedge his field, or lock up his vineyard, …

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And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years.

Seven Sabbaths of years. — See on Leviticus 25:4 .

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Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth [day] of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.

In the day of atonement. — Here began the jubilee: this feast was founded in a fast. "They that sow in tears, shall reap in joy": neither is there any such comfort as theirs that have soundly soaked themselves in godly sorrow. Pardon of sin is the only foundation of all jubilees: and when God hath pardoned us, our hearts are in fittest frame to pardon others.

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