“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.”
Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the enemy's land; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. The exiled community's forced absence becomes the land's Sabbath rest: the years of sabbatical rest that Israel refused to give the land are taken by force through the exile. The land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths communicates the irony of the covenant curse: the community that refused to rest the land faces exile that gives the land the rest it was denied. 2 Chronicles 36:21 fulfills this verse literally: the land enjoyed its Sabbath rests throughout the seventy-year Babylonian exile.
COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS
Publish a note on this verse
0/2000
No notes on this verse yet. Be the first to write one!