Exodus 23:11
But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard. But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard.
In the seventh year the land was to rest and lie still, fallow and uncultivated, with no sowing or planting, no tending of vineyard or oliveyard, and all agricultural labor and agricultural business stopped. The sabbath year began after the harvest, reckoned as the seventh year after settlement in Canaan. God promised sufficient produce in the sixth year to sustain the people until the crops from the eighth year were ready, so that for one year they were to depend wholly on the Lord and have faith in His arrangements as householder.
What grew of itself was not to be stored but left as common property for the poor of the people, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow to eat, and what they left the beasts of the field, the wild animals, and the cattle and herds were to eat. In like manner the same provision applied to the vineyard and to the oliveyard or olive groves. Letting the soil thus rest benefited the land and renewed the forces necessary for growth, for patient, thoughtful care of land includes both resting it and changing crops.
The command is a special direction for protecting the poor and unfortunate by providing food for the needy, to lessen suffering and give hope to people in distress. It teaches that God owns the land and the people possess it only for a time, and faithfulness in devoting its provision to relief of the poor and to other benevolent uses keeps fresh the truth of God's ownership and the opportunity to be channels of blessing. In this way selfishness is trained to be eradicated and breadth and nobility of character to be developed. Freedom from field labor gave leisure and time for rest, prayer, meditation, teaching households, study, social fellowship, worship, and acts of kindness that ordinary cares and labor can crowd out.
The command shows that nature is not God but that God controls nature. It teaches that God is the manager and householder, present and exercising providential care over all the earth, with all nature under His supervision and all productions of the ground under His ministration, to give faith in His providence because He can withhold His blessings or bestow them.