Leviticus 26:34

Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(34) Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths.—The land, which participates both in the happiness and misery of the Israelites (see Leviticus 18:25), and which through their disobedience of the Divine laws would be deprived of her sabbatical rests as long as the rebellious people occupy it, would now at last be able to enjoy its prescribed legal rest, when it is ridden of these defiant transgressors, and as long as they remain in exile.

Benson Commentary

Leviticus 26:34. The land shall enjoy her sabbaths — It shall enjoy those sabbatical years of rest from tillage, which you, through covetousness, would not give it: a most seasonable warning this. Jeremiah complains, that in his time they had contemned the ordinance of God respecting the septennial sabbaths, and had not given their servants liberty, (Jeremiah 34:17,) and gives this as one cause of their being delivered to slavery, Lamentations 1:3. And this is expressly mentioned as a principal reason of their seventy years captivity, 2 Chronicles 36:21.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

26:14-39 After God has set the blessing before them which would make them a happy people if they would be obedient, he here sets the curse before them, the evils which would make them miserable, if they were disobedient. Two things would bring ruin. 1. A contempt of God's commandments. They that reject the precept, will come at last to renounce the covenant. 2. A contempt of his corrections. If they will not learn obedience by the things they suffer, God himself would be against them; and this is the root and cause of all their misery. And also, The whole creation would be at war with them. All God's sore judgments would be sent against them. The threatenings here are very particular, they were prophecies, and He that foresaw all their rebellions, knew they would prove so. TEMPORAL judgments are threatened. Those who will not be parted from their sins by the commands of God, shall be parted from them by judgments. Those wedded to their lusts, will have enough of them. SPIRITUAL judgments are threatened, which should seize the mind. They should find no acceptance with God. A guilty conscience would be their continual terror. It is righteous with God to leave those to despair of pardon, who presume to sin; and it is owing to free grace, if we are not left to pine away in the iniquity we were born in, and have lived in.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Sanctuaries - The holy places in the tabernacle and the temple (Psalm 68:35. Compare Psalm 74:7).

I will not smell the savor ... - See Leviticus 1:9.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

34. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, &c.—A long arrear of sabbatic years had accumulated through the avarice and apostasy of the Israelites, who had deprived their land of its appointed season of rest. The number of those sabbatic years seems to have been seventy, as determined by the duration of the captivity. This early prediction is very remarkable, considering that the usual policy of the Assyrian conquerors was to send colonies to cultivate and inhabit their newly acquired provinces.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Either,

1. Because it shall be rid of you, who were the unprofitable and heavy burdens thereof, under whom it in a manner groaned. Or rather,

2. Because it shall now enjoy those sabbatical years of rest from tillage, which you through covetousness ofttimes would not give it, as the next verse informs us, though God commanded it, Leviticus 25:4.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths,.... The sabbatical years, or seventh year sabbaths, when, according to the law in the preceding chapter, it was to rest from tillage, Leviticus 25:2,

as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; so long it should lie uncultivated, at least in part, there not being a sufficient number left to till it in general, or as it should be; this was the case during the seventy years' captivity in Babylon:

even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths; or complete them, as Aben Ezra, which is a bitter sarcasm upon them for their neglect of observance of the law concerning the sabbatical years; but now the land should have its sabbaths of rest whether they would or not; and it seems as if it was on account of this sin, as well as others, that they were carried captive; and it is remarkable, if what Maimonides (x) says is right, that it was at the going out or end of a sabbatical year, that the first temple was destroyed, and the Jews carried captive, and endured a seventy years' captivity; which some say was because they had neglected seventy sabbatical years; see 2 Chronicles 36:21.

(x) Hilchot Shemitah Vejobel, c. 10. sect. 3.

Geneva Study Bible

Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

34. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths] The verb râẓâh has for its general meaning in Ḳal. ‘to accept,’ ‘to be satisfied with,’ and so ‘to enjoy,’ the land being regarded as having been long deprived of its rights, which are now restored. Accordingly the Hiph. (as the causative voice), occurring only in 34 b, may perhaps mean ‘cause [God] to accept’ her sabbaths, and so virtually ‘pay back’ those which had been disregarded and were due to God. The same verb is rendered ‘accept’ in Leviticus 26:41; Leviticus 26:43. See on Leviticus 26:41.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 34, 35. - The land had not participated in the sins of its inhabitants. The latter had thought that, by the neglect of the sabbatical years, they had enriched themselves by the fruits of those years which would otherwise have been wasted. The result was that they lost the land altogether for a period equal to that during which it ought to have kept sabbath, and the land "as long as she lay desolate kept sabbath, to fulfill threescore and ten years" (2 Chronicles 36:21). From the entrance into the holy land until the Babylonish Captivity there elapsed eight hundred and sixty-three years, in which time there ought to have been kept one hundred and twenty-three sabbatical years. As only seventy are made up by the duration of the Captivity, it may be concluded that fifty-three sabbatical years were observed by the Israelites; but this conclusion is very doubtful. It is more likely that seventy, being a multiple of the sacred number seven, was regarded as sufficient to purge all previous neglects, whatever they might have been. Leviticus 26:34

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Object of the Divine Judgments in Relation to the Land and Nation of Israel. - Leviticus 26:34 and Leviticus 26:35. The land would then enjoy and keep its Sabbaths, so long as it was desolate, and Israel was in the land of its foes. השּׁמּה ימי כּל, during the whole period of its devastation. השּׁמּה inf. Hophal with the suffix, in which the mappik is wanting, as in Exodus 2:3 (cf. Ewald, 131e). רצה to have satisfaction: with בּ and an accusative it signifies to take delight, take pleasure, in anything, e.g., in rest after the day's work is done (Job 14:6); here also to enjoy rest (not "to pay its debt:" Ges., Kn.). The keeping of the Sabbath was not a performance binding upon the land, nor had the land been in fault because the Sabbath was not kept. As the earth groans under the pressure of the sin of men, so does it rejoice in deliverance from this pressure, and participation in the blessed rest of the whole creation. וגו אשׁר את תּשׁבּת: the land "will rest (keep) what it has not rested on your Sabbaths and whilst you dwelt in it;" i.e., it will make up the rest which you did not give it on your Sabbaths (daily and yearly). It is evident from this, that the keeping of the Sabbaths and sabbatical years was suspended when the apostasy of the nation increased, - a result which could be clearly foreseen in consequence of the inward dislike of a sinner to the commandments of the holy God, and which is described in 2 Chronicles 26:21 as having actually occurred.