The Mystery of the Shemitah: The 3,000-Year-Old Mystery That Holds the Secret of America's Future, the World's Future, and Your Future!

by Jonathan Cahn

  —EXODUS 23:10–11

  During the Sabbath year it was not only for the people to rest, but also the land. The fields would lie fallow, the vineyards untended, and the groves unkept. The land itself would observe its own Sabbath to the Lord.

  . . . that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. In like manner you shall do with your vineyard and your olive grove.

  —EXODUS 23:11

  During the Sabbath year the people of Israel were to leave their fields, vineyards, and groves open for the poor. For the duration of the year the land belonged, in effect, to everyone. And whatever grew of its own accord was called hefker, meaning, “without an owner.” So during the Sabbath year the land, in effect, belonged to everyone and no one at the same time.

  Elul 29

  Just as striking as what happened to the land during the Sabbath year was what happened to the people on the last day of that year:

  At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release of debts. And this is the form of the release: Every creditor who has lent anything to his neighbor shall release it; he shall not require it of his neighbor or his brother, because it is called the LORD’s release.

  —DEUTERONOMY 15:1–2

  “At the end of every seven years” refers to the last day of the Sabbath year. Elul was the last month of the Hebrew civil year, and the twenty-ninth day was the last day of Elul. So on Elul 29, the very last day of the Sabbath year, a sweeping transformation took place in the nation’s financial realm. Everyone who owed a debt was released. And every creditor had to release the debt owed. So on Elul 29 all credit was erased and all debt was wiped away. The nation’s financial accounts were, in effect, wiped clean. It was Israel’s day of financial nullification and remission.

  In the Hebrew reckoning of time, each day begins not with the morning but with the night. This goes back to Genesis 1, when the account of Creation records that there was first darkness, night, and then the day. So every Hebrew day begins with the night before the day. And since night begins with sunset, every Hebrew day begins at sunset. Therefore the moment that all debts had to be reckoned as wiped away was the sunset of Elul 29.

  The Remission

  In English, the Elul 29 command ordains that every creditor shall “grant a release.” But the original Hebrew commands every creditor to make a “shemitah.” In those first two verses of Deuteronomy 15 the word shemitah appears no less than four times. At the end of the second verse it is written, “Because it is called the Lord’s release.” In Hebrew it is called the Lord’s “Shemitah.”

  The word shemitah is most often translated as “the release” or “the remission.” The English word remission is defined as “the cancellation or reduction of a debt or penalty.” The Shemitah of ancient Israel refers not only to the releasing of the land but also to the nullification of debt and credit ordained by God and performed on a massive nationwide scale.

  Shemitah became the name of the last day of the Sabbath year, Elul 29, the Day of Remission. But it also became the name of the Sabbath year in its entirety. The seventh year would become known as the Year of the Shemitah, or simply, the Shemitah. The Year of the Shemitah would begin with the releasing of the land and end with the Day of Remission, when the people would themselves be released.

  So the word shemitah covers both the seventh year and the last day of that year. There’s a reason for that. That last day of Elul 29 is the year’s crescendo, its peak and culmination—the remission of the Year of Remission. In a sense, everything about the Shemitah year builds up to that final day, when everything is released, remitted, and wiped away in one day—or, more specifically, to the eve of that day, to the final sunset.

  The Radical Ramifications

  The idea of a nation ceasing all work on its land for an entire year is a radical proposition. No less radical is the idea of a day in which all credit and debt are wiped away. The ramifications of these two requirements are so great that concerns arose in later generations as to the Shemitah’s financial and economic consequences. These concerns were intensified when the Jewish people returned to the land of Israel in modern times.

  In order to resolve these concerns, the rabbis sought to come up with ways of avoiding the Shemitah’s more radical requirements. One of these was based on the idea that the Shemitah applied primarily to Jewish-owned land. So in the Year of the Shemitah, Jewish farmers would sell their lands to non-Jews and continue to work. The selling would be done under an agreement in which the land would revert to the Jewish farmer at the end of the Shemitah year.

  In the same way, the rabbis devised ways to get around the cancellation of debts. The rabbinical sage Hillel developed a system whereby debts could be transferred to a religious court. Since a court is not an individual, the debt would survive the Year of the Shemitah. Still others came up with other strategies around it. So the Shemitah continued to be observed, in one form or another, but those forms became increasingly symbolic.

  Not everyone accepted these methods. Orthodox Jews in Israel tell stories of Jewish farmers who faithfully kept the Shemitah’s requirement without any alteration and ended up with an extra abundant harvest the following year. Regardless of the controversy surrounding them, the fact that these methods were devised by the rabbis reveals two things that will prove important in unlocking the mystery of the Shemitah:

  1. The Shemitah bears consequences that specifically affect the financial and economic realm.

  2. The effects of the Shemitah bear key similarities to the effects of an economic and financial collapse.

  The Call of the Shemitah

  What was the reason for the Shemitah in the first place? There are several answers—all of which touch the spiritual realm.

  The Shemitah bears witness that the land and, for that matter, the earth, belong to God. It is only entrusted to man as a steward. God is sovereign. His sovereignty extends also to the realms of money, finances, economies, and possessions. These are entrusted to man’s keeping but ultimately belong to God.

  The Shemitah declares that God is first and above all realms of life, and must therefore be put first and above every realm. During the Shemitah Israel was, in effect, compelled to turn away from these earthly or worldly realms and turn to the spiritual.

  The Shemitah cleanses and wipes away, ends imbalances, levels accounts, and nullifies that which has built up in the previous years—a massive cleansing of the financial and economic slate. It ends entanglements and brings release. Its release applies not only to the land and to the nation’s financial accounts, but also to something much more universal. The Shemitah requires the people to release their attachments to the material realm: their possessions, their finances, their real estate, and their claims and pursuits concerning such things. It is the breaking of bonds. And those who release are, likewise, released, no longer possessed by their possessions—but free.

  The Shemitah is a reminder that God is the source of all blessings, spiritual and physical alike. But when God is removed from the picture, the removal of blessings will ultimately follow. The Shemitah thus deals with a particular flaw of human nature—the tendency to divorce the blessings of life from the Giver of those blessings, to divorce the physical realm from the spiritual. It then seeks to compensate for the loss of the spiritual by increasing its claims over the physical world, pursuing more and more things, increase, gain—materialism. This increase of things, in turn, further crowds out the presence of God. The Shemitah is the antidote to all these things—the clearing away of material attachments to allow the work and presence of God to come in.

  The observance of the Shemitah is an act of submission and humility. It is the acknowledgment that every good thing comes from God and cannot ultimately be owned, only received as an entrustment. Possessions are let go, accounts are wiped out, that which has built up is wiped away. The Shemitah humbles the pride of man.

  Lastly, the Shemitah shares the attributes of the Sabbat
h day—an entire year given to rest and let rest, to release and be released, to unburden others and lay one’s burdens down, to wipe clean the slate and have one’s own slate wiped clean—the time appointed by God for rest, refreshing, and revival.

  First Puzzle Pieces

  Before we move on, let’s take stock of what we now know about the first key. These are the puzzle pieces that will become critical to unlock the mystery of the Shemitah:

  • The Shemitah is to years what the Sabbath is to days.

  • It takes place once every seven years.

  • It is unique and distinct from the six years that precede it.

  • It is the year of cessation, release, and rest—the ceasing of what has not ceased up to the time of its coming.

  • The Shemitah specifically touches the financial and economic realms.

  • It leads and builds up to its climactic final day, Elul 29, the Day of Remission, the Day of Nullification.

  • On Elul 29, all debts are canceled and all credit released, and the nation’s financial accounts are transformed and wiped clean.

  • The Shemitah is sweeping, radical, and extreme.

  • Its effects, consequences, and repercussions bear key similarities to that of a financial and economic collapse.

  The Shemitah, like the Sabbath day, was intended to be a blessing for the nation of Israel. The words and concepts most associated with it—“the release,” “the remission,” “the forgiveness of debt”—are all positive. But the mystery of the Shemitah concerns judgment. This raises an important and obvious question: How could something intended to be a national blessing become linked to national judgment?

  Let’s take it one step further: How could something intended to be a national blessing transform into national judgment? In the next chapter we will find the second key to the answer.

  Chapter 5

  SECOND KEY: 586 BC and the JUDGMENT SIGN

  The Prophet in the Ruins

  How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow is she, who was great among the nations! . . . All her gates are desolate. . . . Her children have gone into captivity . . .

  —LAMENTATIONS 1:1–5

  THE PROPHET WALKS in the midst of the ruins of the fallen city. What was once the capital of his nation, the city of kings and princes, now lies in ashes and rubble. The streets are desolate. The city upon which rested the name and glory of God is destroyed. The land of Zion is left desolate.

  He had not been silent. He had sounded the alarm and warned his nation, over and over and over again. But they had rejected the warning and the bearer of that warning. They persecuted him and placed him in prison. And then the calamity of which he had long prophesied finally happened. The kingdom was no more. Gone was the Temple. Gone were the priests. Gone was the nation he had known and loved.

  The year was 586 BC. The city was Jerusalem. The kingdom was Judah. And the prophet was named “Yirmayahu” or, as he would later be known to much of the world, Jeremiah. He wept not only for the city and the land but also for his people. The city was desolate. Its fields were abandoned. Men, women, and children were taken captive into exile in the land of those who had wrought the destruction. Now, by the rivers of Babylon, they sat down and wept.

  The Mystery of the Seventy Years

  Jeremiah had prophesied all of it, the destruction and the exile. In fact, the Lord had revealed to him the length of the judgment, the exact number of years:

  And the LORD has sent to you all His servants the prophets . . . but you have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear. They said, “Repent now everyone of his evil way and his evil doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD has given to you and your fathers forever and ever. . . . Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘Because you have not heard My words . . . this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.’”

  —JEREMIAH 25:4–11

  According to Jeremiah’s prophecy, for seventy years the nation would be under the dominion of Babylon. At the end of the appointed time the Lord would cause Babylon to fall and the exiles to return to Zion. The prophecy would come true in 539 BC with the fall of the Babylonian Empire and the rise of the Persians led by King Cyrus. Cyrus would issue a decree granting the exiled Jewish people the right to return and rebuild their land. But why seventy years? The reason is deeply rooted in a mystery more ancient still.

  “As Long as She Lay Desolate”

  The Book of 2 Chronicles sheds more light on the same destruction and exile of which Jeremiah prophesied:

  And the LORD God of their fathers sent warnings to them by His messengers. . . . But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, till there was no remedy. Therefore He brought against them the king of the Chaldeans. . . . They burned the house of God, broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces with fire . . .

  —2 CHRONICLES 36:15–19

  The account goes on to speak of those carried away into exile. And then the missing key appears:

  And those who escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon, where they became servants to him and his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

  —2 CHRONICLES 36:20–21,

  emphasis added

  “Until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths” is a very strange and striking statement. How does a land enjoy its Sabbaths? And what could this possibly have to do with the seventy years of judgment? The answer is found in the deserts of Sinai.

  The Torah Clue

  In Leviticus 26 a prophecy is given of what would happen to the people of Israel if they turned away from God. They would be removed from the land and scattered to the nations. The prophecy would come true in 586 BC with the destruction of Jerusalem. But it is here in the Torah that the vital connection is revealed:

  I will lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation. . . . I will bring the land to desolation . . . your land shall be desolate and your cities waste. Then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest and enjoy its sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate it shall rest—for the time it did not rest on your sabbaths when you dwelt in it.

  —LEVITICUS 26:31–35,

  emphasis added

  The “sabbaths” of the land referred to in this passage are the Sabbath years—the Shemitahs. In other words, the Shemitah would hold the key to the timing of the Lord’s judgments. But why and how?

  The Covenant Sign

  The Shemitah was a sign of the nation’s covenant with God. Everything they had, the land and all its blessings, was dependent on that covenant and their relationship with God. It was all entrusted to them, but it belonged to God. If they turned away from God, then their blessings would be removed, or rather, they would be removed from their blessings.

  So for the people of Israel to keep the Sabbath year was to acknowledge God’s sovereignty over their land and lives. It was also an act of faith. It required their total trust in God’s faithfulness to provide for their needs while they ceased from farming. In the same way, to cancel all the debts owed them was to sacrifice monetary gain and, again, to rely on God’s providence.

  Lastly, the keeping of the Shemitah was, above all, an act of devotion and worship, to put God above everything else in one’s life. But for all this, a blessing was promised. If Israel would keep the Shemitah, God would keep and bless Israel with all that was needed and beyond.

  The Broken Shemitah

  On the other hand, to abandon or reject the Shemitah would signify the opposite—the breaking of the covenant and the rejection of God’s sovereignty over the land and lives. It would be as if they said, “The land does not belong
to God, but to us. Our blessings, our possessions, everything we have in our lives, comes not from God but from the work of our hands, nor does it belong to God, but to us. We will not sacrifice profit or gain for the sake of pursuing God, nor will we allow anything to halt or interrupt these pursuits. We have no need, no time, and no room for God in our lives or in the life of our nation.”

  So the matter of the Shemitah was critical. Upon it rested the nation’s future.

  The Shemitah and the Fall of a Nation

  Israel’s rejection of the Shemitah set in motion a series of far-reaching consequences and repercussions. If God is not sovereign over the land and its people, then the land and its people become cut off from the Creator. A God-centered worldview is replaced by a man-centered and self-centered worldview. So the people of Israel drove God out of their lives to become their own gods, masters of the land, their world, and their destiny. They could now rewrite the law and redefine what was right and wrong, moral and immoral.

  Without God nothing would be holy or, for that matter, unholy. Nothing had any purpose except the purpose they now assigned it. And with no true purpose, they could do whatever they wanted—not only with their land but also with their lives, with each other, and with their children. Thus they lifted up their children as sacrifices on the altars of foreign gods.

  It was for this last transgression that the judgment finally fell. It began with the breaking of the Shemitah and ended in the offering of their sons and daughters in the fires of Baal and Molech, the sin that would bring about the nation’s destruction.

  The Shemitah’s Judgment

  When the judgment fell in 586 BC, the holy city would be left a burning ruin, the holy land a vast desolation, and the people captives in a foreign land. What does this have to do with the Shemitah?