“The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes.”
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. The exile as the land's sabbatical period is restated: the desolate land finally receives the rest it was denied. The paying for sins is not punitive satisfaction but the natural consequence of the covenant violation: the exile is both the curse and the period of sabbatical restoration that the land requires. The rejection of my laws and the abhorrence of my decrees — the vocabulary of covenant violation — ground the exile in the specific failures of the covenant community.
COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS
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