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God is putting lines of mercy amid all the black print of the law. It would seem as if wherever God could find a place at which He might utter some word of pity or compassion, He filled up that place with an utterance of His solicitude for the welfare of man. Flowers look lovely everywhere, but what must be the loveliness of a flower to the wanderer in a desert? So these Gospel words are full of charm wherever we find them, but they have double charmfulness being found in connection with institutions, instructions, precepts, and commandments marked by the severest righteousness. In the midst of time God graciously puts a year of release. We find in this year of release what we all need — namely, the principle of new chances, new opportunities, fresh beginnings. Tomorrow, said the debtor or the slave, is the day of release, and the next day I shall begin again: I shall have another chance in life; the burden will be taken away. The darkness will be dispersed, and life shall be young again. Every man ought to have more chances than one, even in our own life. God has filled the sphere of life with opportunities. But moral releases can only be accomplished by moral processes. The man who is in prison must take the right steps to get out of it. What are those right steps? — repentance, contrition, confession — open, frank, straightforward, self-renouncing confession; then the man must be allowed to begin again; God will, in His providence, work out for such a man another opportunity; concealment there must be none, prevarication none, self-defence none. Where the case lies between the soul and God — the higher morality still — there must be an interview at the Cross — a mysterious communion under the blood that flows from the wounded Christ. All this being done on the part of the creditor and the owner, what happens on the side of God? The answer to that inquiry is: "The Lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it" (ver. 4). God never allows us to obey the law without immediate and large compensation. We cannot obey the laws of health without instantly being the healthier; we cannot obey the laws of cleanliness without the flesh instantly thanking us, in stronger pulsations and wider liberties, for what we have done to it. A blessing is attached to all obedience, when the obedience is rendered to law Divine and gracious. The reward is in the man's own heart: he has a reward which no thief can take away from the sanctuary in which it is preserved; heaven is within. None can forestall God, or outrun God, or confer upon God an obligation which He cannot repay; He takes the moisture from the earth only that He may return it in copious showers. No man can serve God for nought.

(J. Parker, D. D.)

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KJV: At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release.

WEB: At the end of every seven years you shall make a release.