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This opportunity to do a Torah commentary came up suddenly. Right through mid-week before the Shabbat, another fine Messianic Rabbi In Training (MRIT) was scheduled to do this one; he even had it written. But then he fell under the weather and needed a quick replacement. The rabbi called me Thursday night, during my men’s Torah study, to ask if I could fill in and assure me I could just use last years’ if I needed to. I told him I could probably do better than that.

I got the call around 8:30 PM Thuesday night. I didn’t get home and settled in front of my keyboard until two hours later. By 1 AM, I was done. Good thing we stayed on-topic in our Torah study; the portion was fresh in my mind and all I really needed to do was transfer some of what we had discussed into commentary form. It may not be exciting, but this is what I came up with. Or listen to it!

Shabbat Shalom.

This week, we have a double portion for our weekly reading. It includes B’har, a Hebrew word that means, “On the mount,” as well as the portion known as “B’chukotai,” a Hebrew word that means, “In my statutes.” This double portion covers Leviticus chapter 25 through Leviticus chapter 27, and brings to an end our time in Leviticus for this Torah year.

This week’s reading covers the concept of giving even the land the people of Israel will enter, the land God has promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, a Sabbath rest.

LEVITICUS 25:2B-5
‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a Sabbath to the L-RD. For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. But in the seventh year the land is to have a Sabbath of rest, a Sabbath to the L-RD. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest.

Now, when many people look at this passage, they comment on how marvelous it is, how it shows God’s wisdom that modern agricultural science bears out the idea of giving the land a rest from producing crops is such a good idea; they cite the science of crop stress, soil enrichments and all these wonderful facts about farming that confirm that God knew what he was talking about in this passage.

Well, I’m not here to talk to you about how wonderful it is that God knew all this. Of course He knew it! He’s God! I’m here today to mention how sad it is that it took us well over 3,000 years of the science of man, from the time of the Exodus to figure out that God was right all along!

Of course, I think it’s also important to dig deeper than that. You see, God’s not just some cosmic farmer handing down crop management tips from his heavenly Monsanto office. God is going well beyond general truths here; he’s laying down some very special promises to the people of Israel, and they are conditional promises, based on the obedience or disobedience the people of Israel display in response to the L-RD’s commands.

You see, this is not merely about agriculture here. This is actually a teaching the L-RD is giving about how completely He wants us to observe His Sabbaths. You see, it’s not just enough for us to observe it as believers. He wants His Sabbaths to be observed by all of creation, a point he makes clear here by pointing out that even the Promised Land itself should rest; not only on the seventh day of the week, when we are to do no regular work, but in the seventh year, when we are to rest the land for an entire year.

Now, some people might read this and say, OK, we get the point. Observing the Sabbath is a good idea. Got it. But do we really have to observe a year of not working the land once every seventh year? I mean, c’mon, that would ruin the economy, people would starve.

No, they wouldn’t. God’s promises for both the seventh year Sabbath for the land, as well as the fiftieth-year Jubilee, show two important things: first, God will provide; and second, these really are special promises for His people as they enter the Promised Land, and not just good general agricultural principals that would work anywhere in the world. We read one of these promises in:

LEVITICUS 25:20-22
You may ask, “What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?” I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in.

Now that’s a promise that definitely will not work just anywhere! I mean, go ahead and try it if you want to; find some secular farmers who don’t observe the L-RD’s commands and have them work the land six out of every seventh year, being sure not to work the land at all in the seventh year, but in no other way honoring God or observing His commands. I can almost guarantee you that their sixth-year crop will NOT be a triple harvest.

Remember, God’s promising to offer His people this triple harvest in the sixth year, before they actually observe the seventh-year agricultural Sabbath. The promise and provision will be obvious, giving His people confidence to indeed follow through with their obedience. The point is, these are special promises by the L-RD to His people, not just some guidebook to farming in Israel.

Yet there will still be doubters, people who say, “C’mon, I mean, we’re talking about dirt here. We’re supposed to let dirt rest? God can’t be serious, can He?”

Well, let’s take a look at just how serious God is about this command. We find this in:

LEVITICUS 26:33-35
I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins. Then the land will enjoy its Sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the Sabbaths you lived in it.

So, what God is saying here is that while His people are certainly free to either obey His command for the agricultural Sabbath, or to disobey, there will be a penalty if they ignore this command: God will scatter his people among the surrounding nations, lay waste to all that was built there, and the land will lay desolate until all of the agricultural Sabbath years and Jubilee years they failed to observe have been fulfilled. I’d say this passage at least suggests that the L-RD takes this command many people read past quite seriously.

The parashah goes on from here to establish rules for observing the fiftieth-year Jubilee, in which those who sold property are allowed to return to it, those who are in bondage are allowed to go free, and those who are in debt are forgiven their financial burdens.

Once we enter chapter 26, however, the theme changes to the topic of obedience versus disobedience, and here is where we delve into the part of this week’s teaching that focuses on the life application aspect of these commands. Why is that important?

Well, how many here are farmers? Not many? OK, how many of you raising your hands are actually farmers in the land of Israel. Boom. Nobody left. Right?

You see, while agricultural commands are the topic, what applies to us all is our willingness to either agree with God, that His rules and instructions are right and just, and follow through with that by obeying Him – or to disagree with Him and walk in rebellion and disobedience.

We have that choice, all of us. We are free to do either and God will not step in and prevent it. However, there is a cost to disobedience, even for believers. Not just for the Jewish believers who looked forward to the promised Messiah, but for all of us looking back on the fulfillment of that Messianic promise in Messiah Yeshua.

Leviticus 26 makes it very clear where God stands. First, Hhe promises to reward the children of Israel richly if they obey Him. But then, He also outlines the penalties that will befall them, the correction they will suffer if they disobey. We read this in:

LEVITICUS 26:14-16A
“‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, then I will do this to you:

The passage then continues on to outline all the levels of punishment that the L-RD will dole out to Israel if they continue to walk in disobedience. As Rob observed in our men’s group Torah study this week, there’s an interesting parallel between these punishments, and the plagues the L-RD sent upon Egypt when Pharoah refused to fear and obey God in allowing Moses and the Israelites to leave for three days to worship God in the desert, and bury Joseph’s bones outside of the land of Egypt as he had requested.

The similarity is that God doesn’t correct or rebuke or punish all at once; it comes in waves, and between each wave, God offers a chance for repentance and a return to obedience. As each opportunity for repentance passes, the next wave of punishment gets a little more severe. Each time, this comes not because God loves dishing out punishment to His people, but as an attempt to wake them up to their rebellion and offer them a chance to return to the path of obedience.

We read this in:

LEVITICUS 26:27-28
“‘If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over.

So you see, between each wave of punishment, God inserts and if-then statement. If you continue to disobey, here’s the next thing I’m going to have to do, and it’s harsher and more severe than the last.

What’s the solution? We read this in:

LEVITICUS 26:40-45
“‘But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their fathers—their treachery against me and their hostility toward me, which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies—then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin, I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. For the land will be deserted by them and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. They will pay for their sins because they rejected my laws and abhorred my decrees. Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the L-RD their God. But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the L-RD.’”

If we confess, if we repent, if our uncircumcised hearts are humbled, if we pay for our sins, then the L-RD will remember his covenant with us and return us to right standing before Him. Now, some people believe this is all done away with; that repentance comes one time when we surrender our lives to Yeshua, and then is completely unnecessary because we’re forgiven. But that’s not so.

For as long as there is an ability to rebel against God, for as long as we are able to choose disobedience over obedience, there is a need for repentance, humbling, and payment for sins. It is important to remember that simply saying, “I’m sorry,” isn’t true repentance. It involves turning away from the disobedience. It involves making restitution to those we’ve wronged. Those are all things we are capable of, but in our rebellion, sometimes refuse to do.

Fortunately, the one thing we can’t do on our own – to pay our owner for his loss as a result of our rebellion – and our owner is the L-RD – is a price that has already been paid for us, by the Messiah Yeshua.

May we never treat the price He paid in our place, for our disobedience, as though it came from a dollar store.

Shabbat Shalom.