Exodus 23:10

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

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

CEREMONIAL LAWS.

(10, 11) Six years . . . the seventh year.—The Sabbatical year which is here commanded was an institution wholly unknown to any nation but the Hebrews. It is most extraordinary that any legislator should have been able to induce a people to accept such a law. Prima facie, it seemed, by forbidding productive industry during one year in seven, to diminish the wealth of the nation by one-seventh. But it is questionable whether, under a primitive agricultural system, when rotation of crops was unknown, the lying of the land fallow during one year in seven would not have been an economical benefit. There was no prohibition on labour other than in cultivation. The clearing away of weeds and thorns and stones was allowed, and may have been practised. After an early harvest of the self-sown crop, the greater part of the year may have been spent in this kind of industry. Still the enactment was no doubt unpopular: it checked the regular course of agriculture, and seemed to rob landowners of one-seventh of their natural gains. Accordingly, we find that it was very irregularly observed. Between the Exodus and the Captivity it had apparently been neglected seventy times (2Chronicles 36:21), or more often than it had been kept. After the Captivity, however, the observance became regular, and classical writers notice the custom as one existing in their day (Tacit. Hist. v. 4). Julius Cæsar permitted it, and excused the Jews from paying tribute in the seventh year on its account (Joseph., Ant Jud. xiv. 10, § 6). The object of the law was threefold—(1) to test obedience; (2) to give an advantage to the poor and needy, to whom the crop of the seventh year belonged (Exodus 23:11); and (3) to allow an opportunity, once in seven years, for prolonged communion with God and increased religious observances. (See Deuteronomy 31:10-13.)

Benson Commentary

Exodus 23:10-11. The institution of the sabbatical year was designed, 1st, To show what a plentiful land that was into which God was bringing them, that so numerous a people could have rich maintenance out of the products of so small a country, without foreign trade, and yet could spare the increase of every seventh year. 2d, To teach them confidence in his care and bounty while they did their duty; that as the sixth day’s manna served for two days’ meat, so the sixth year’s increase should serve for two years’ subsistence. 3d, Thus he would try and secure their obedience, keep them in dependance upon himself, and give to them and all their neighbours a manifest proof of his singular and gracious providence over them. 4th, By this kind of quit rent they were likewise admonished that God alone was the Lord of the land, and that they were only tenants at his will. And being thus freed from their great labours in cultivating the ground, in manuring, ploughing, sowing, weeding, reaping, they were the more at leisure to meditate on God’s works, and to acquaint themselves with his will. 5th, Another reason also is given here, That the poor of thy land may eat. God gave a special blessing to the sixth year, whereby it brought forth the fruit of three years; and in years of so great plenty, men are generally more negligent in their reaping, and therefore, the relics are more. So that in this appointment God had in view a more comfortable provision for the poor. It was likewise a curb to avarice, and habituated them to the exercise of humanity to their slaves, and even beasts. In like manner with thy vineyard and olive-yard — Thou shalt not prune nor dress them, nor gather and appropriate to thy own use what they shall produce, but shalt leave them to the poor.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

23:10-19 Every seventh year the land was to rest. They must not plough or sow it; what the earth produced of itself, should be eaten, and not laid up. This law seems to have been intended to teach dependence on Providence, and God's faithfulness in sending the larger increase while they kept his appointments. It was also typical of the heavenly rest, when all earthly labours, cares, and interests shall cease for ever. All respect to the gods of the heathen is strictly forbidden. Since idolatry was a sin to which the Israelites leaned, they must blot out the remembrance of the gods of the heathen. Solemn religious attendance on God, in the place which he should choose, is strictly required. They must come together before the Lord. What a good Master do we serve, who has made it our duty to rejoice before him! Let us devote with pleasure to the service of God that portion of our time which he requires, and count his sabbaths and ordinances to be a feast unto our souls. They were not to come empty-handed; so now, we must not come to worship God empty-hearted; our souls must be filled with holy desires toward him, and dedications of ourselves to him; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

This is the first mention of the Sabbatical year; the law for it is given at length in Leviticus 25:2. Both the Sabbatical year and the weekly Sabbath are here spoken of exclusively in their relation to the poor, as bearing testimony to the equality of the people in their covenant with Yahweh. In the first of these institutions, the proprietor of the soil gave up his rights for the year to the whole community of living creatures, not excepting the beasts: in the latter, the master gave up his claim for the day to the services of his servants and cattle.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10. six years thou shalt sow thy land—intermitting the cultivation of the land every seventh year. But it appears that even then there was a spontaneous produce which the poor were permitted freely to gather for their use, and the beasts driven out fed on the remainder, the owners of fields not being allowed to reap or collect the fruits of the vineyard or oliveyard during the course of this sabbatical year. This was a regulation subservient to many excellent purposes; for, besides inculcating the general lesson of dependence on Providence, and of confidence in His faithfulness to His promise respecting the triple increase on the sixth year (Le 25:20, 21), it gave the Israelites a practical proof that they held their properties of the Lord as His tenants, and must conform to His rules on pain of forfeiting the lease of them.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And six years thou shall sow thy land, The land of Canaan, given to their ancestors and to them, and which they were now going to inherit; and when they came into it they were to plant it with vines and olives; or rather, these being ready planted, they were to prune and dress them; and they were to till their land, and plough it, and sow it with various sorts of grain, for six years running, from the time of their possession of it:

and shall gather in the fruits thereof; corn and wine, and oil, into their own garners, treasuries, and cellars, as their own property, to dispose of as they pleased for their own use and profit.

Geneva Study Bible

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

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10, 11. The fallow year. In every seventh year the fields, vineyards, and olive-gardens are to remain uncultivated, such produce as they bear naturally being not gathered by the owners, but left to the poor. The terms in which the law is expressed leave it uncertain whether (as is generally supposed) a year common to the whole land is intended, or (Riehm, HWB. s.v. Sabbathjahr; Wellh. Hist. p. 117 f.; Nowack, Archäol. ii. 162; W. R. Smith in EB. iv. 4180; Bä.) one varying with he different properties, and reckoned in each from the year in which it first began to be cultivated: the analogy of v. 12 would favour the former interpretation; practical considerations, and the analogy of Leviticus 19:23-25, would support the latter. In Leviticus 25:1-7 (H) it is represented as a fixed year to be observed throughout the country simultaneously; but this does not determine the question whether it had that character from the beginning. A common septennial fallow year, must, in practice, have had its inconveniences: 2 Chronicles 36:21 (cf. Leviticus 26:34-35) seems to imply that it was not observed, at least regularly, before the exile: but there are several notices of its observance in the Greek period (e.g. 1Ma 6:49; 1Ma 6:53 : DB. iv. 325b).

10–12. The seventh year to be a fallow year, and the seventh day to be a day of rest. The motive, it may be noticed, is in each case a philanthropic one.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 10, 11. - 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. (See Tacit. Hist. 5:4: - "Septimo die otium placuisse ferunt, quia is finem laborum dedit; dein, blandiente inertia, septimum quoque annum ignaviae datum"). 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 ver. 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 (ibid. chs. 9. and 10.). 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, 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. Exodus 23:10

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Here follow directions respecting the year of rest and day of rest, the first of which lays the foundation for the keeping of the sabbatical and jubilee years, which are afterwards instituted in Leviticus 25, whilst the latter gives prominence to the element of rest and refreshment involved in the Sabbath, which had been already instituted (Exodus 20:9-11), and presses it in favour of beasts of burden, slaves, and foreigners. Neither of these instructions is to be regarded as laying down laws for the feasts; so that they are not to be included among the rights of Israel, which commence at Exodus 23:14. On the contrary, as they are separated from these by Exodus 23:13, they are to be reckoned as forming part of the laws relating to their mutual obligations one towards another. This is evident from the fact, that in both of them the care of the poor stands in the foreground. From this characteristic and design, which are common to both, we may explain the fact, that there is no allusion to the keeping of a Sabbath unto the Lord, as in Exodus 20:10 and Leviticus 25:2, in connection with either the seventh year or seventh day: all that is mentioned being their sowing and reaping for six years, and working for six days, and then letting the land lie fallow in the seventh year, and their ceasing or resting from labour on the seventh day. "The seventh year thou shalt let (thy land) loose (שׁמט to leave unemployed), and let it lie; and the poor of thy people shall eat (the produce which grows of itself), and their remainder (what they leave) shall the beast of the field eat." הנּפשׁ: lit., to breathe one's self, to draw breath, i.e., to refresh one's self (cf. Exodus 31:17; 2 Samuel 16:14). - With Exodus 23:13 the laws relating to the rights of the people, in their relations to one another, are concluded with the formula enforcing their observance, "And in all that I say to you, take heed," viz., that ye carefully maintain all the rights which I have given you. There is then attached to this, in Exodus 23:14, a warning, which forms the transition to the relation of Israel to Jehovah: "Make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth." This forms a very fitting boundary line between the two series of mishpatim, inasmuch as the observance and maintenance of both of them depended upon the attitude in which Israel stood towards Jehovah.