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!
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The nation had driven God out of their lives and the Shemitah from their land. Now it would return to them. What they had refused to observe freely would now come upon them by force. It would come back at them not in the form of blessing, but of judgment.
They had driven the Shemitah from the land. Now the Shemitah had returned, and they themselves were driven out. They had removed God from their lives. Now their blessings would likewise be removed from their lives, and their lives from their blessings.
The Shemitah’s Desolations
During the Shemitah there was to be no sowing or reaping of the land. The nation had rejected the ordinance and had worked the land continuously, exploiting it for gain. But when the Shemitah returned to the land in the form of judgment, all sowing and reaping ceased, all tending of vineyards and groves came to an end, and no one worked the land. Through judgment and calamity the ordinance was now fulfilled.
During the Shemitah everyone who owned a vineyard or a grove had to open it up to those in need. Every field had to now be accessible to the poor. The gates of walled and fenced lands were unlocked and left open the entire year. In the destruction of 586 BC the gates were opened by force, walls were broken down, fences were destroyed, vineyards were exposed, groves were left unprotected, and private land became public and accessible to all. In judgment the Shemitah was fulfilled.
On the Shemitah’s last and climactic day all debt was canceled, all credit annulled, and the nation’s financial accounts were transformed in a massive nullification. In 586 BC the nation’s financial accounts were, likewise, transformed in a massive wiping away of the nation’s financial realm. The calamity canceled and wiped out debt and nullified credit by force. As it had always done, the Shemitah had transformed the nation’s financial realm, only now by the force of destruction.
The effect of the Shemitah was to wipe away that which had been built up. In 586 BC the Shemitah wiped away the kingdom itself. That which had been built up, the nation’s palaces and towers, were all wiped away. The kingdom itself had been nullified.
The Severe Sabbath
The Shemitah was the Sabbath of years, the year of rest, of fallow ground, of unkept vineyards, of stillness. In 586 BC and the years that followed, with the people in exile, the land of Israel rested. Its fields lay fallow, its groves unkept, its vineyards untended, its threshing floors silent, its olive trees abandoned, and its vine presses still. What was ordained from Sinai was now fulfilled:
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.
—LEVITICUS 26:34
There had been a total of seventy Sabbath or Shemitah years that the nation had not observed. So Israel’s judgment would last seventy years.
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 26:35
So it was the mystery of the Shemitah that held the secret of the timing of the nation’s judgment.
The Shemitah and World History
The judgment that fell on the land of Israel in 586 BC was a pivotal event in biblical history, Jewish history, and world history. In it the Temple of Jerusalem would be destroyed and the words of the Hebrew prophets fulfilled. In it the Diaspora, the scattering of the Jewish people throughout the world, would begin and the stage set for the formation of what would be known as Judaism and the coming of a Jewish rabbi named Yeshua or Jesus, whose life would irrevocably change the history of the world.
And behind it all was the mystery of the Shemitah. In other words, this obscure, little known, ancient mystery has already affected the entire planet and those who live on it in ways too vast to measure.
But could there be more to it? Could the mystery of the Shemitah still be at work—moving, impacting, and altering the course of world history—even in the modern world, even in our day?
If so, what form would it take on? How would the Shemitah manifest in the modern world? For the answer, another key is needed.
Chapter 6
THIRD KEY: The PROPHETIC MANIFESTATION
What If the Mystery Was Still in Effect?
ACCORDING TO THE Book of 2 Chronicles, the mystery of the Shemitah was operating behind one of the most pivotal events in world history, the destruction of the kingdom in 586 BC. But what if the mystery was still in effect? Or what if it was to manifest again in the modern world? What if it was operating right now, still touching, affecting, determining, or altering the course of human history in modern times? What would that look like?
The Shemitah’s Economic Connection
In modern economies a very small percentage of people work the land, gather in harvests, or tend vineyards. So how could the Shemitah break the barrier to operate in the modern world? What happens if we look at the effects and consequences of the Shemitah in purely technical and general terms?
The result is not only relevant but also surprisingly applicable to our day: the effect and repercussions of the Shemitah extend into the nation’s financial realm, economic realm, and the realms of labor, employment, production, consumption, and trade.
Though most modern economies are not centered on agriculture but are industrial or postindustrial, all of these attributes still apply. Thus if the Shemitah was to manifest in modern times, it would affect a nation’s financial realm, its economic realm, and its realms of labor, employment, production, consumption, and trade.
Economic Collapse
Over the course of the Shemitah the nation’s production is severely decreased. For a modern nation to witness a severe decreasing of its production would point to an economic downturn or recession, an economic collapse, or a depression. During such times demand dries up, corporations downsize, factories cut back on output, and businesses close their doors.
During the Shemitah the nation’s labor is greatly reduced or comes to a cessation. In the case of a modern nation this would translate to massive unemployment. All of these, again, are characteristics of an economic recession or depression.
During the Shemitah the buying and selling of the land’s produce are restricted and the fruits of labor are abandoned. Here we have yet another characteristic of economic recessions and collapses. Demand dries up. Consumption plunges. Commerce dwindles. Consumers cut back on their spending. Merchandise sits untouched in stores and warehouses, and international trade suffers massive declines. The fruits and products of the nation’s industry and services are abandoned.
Financial Collapse
On its climactic day, Elul 29, the force of the Shemitah causes credit to be canceled and debt to be wiped away. The nation’s financial accounts are transformed, nullified, and wiped clean.
The description again points us to an economic implosion and, more specifically, to a financial collapse. Such collapses produce corporate failures, bank failures, foreclosures, and bankruptcies. Debt and credit are nullified. And in financial crises involving stock market crashes, financial accounts are transformed, nullified, and wiped clean. Billions of dollars are wiped away in a matter of hours or minutes.
The effects and consequences of the Shemitah consistently point in the direction of a specific event—an economic and financial collapse. This resemblance of the Shemitah to an economic implosion has been noted even by the rabbis.
The Shemitah: Observances and Cataclysms
On one hand, we have the Shemitah as a biblically ordained occurrence, a religious event, a Sabbath rest, and a blessing, carried out through the voluntary observance of God’s people. On the other hand, we have the destruction of a kingdom—an event that comes about through a multitude of causes entirely from having nothing to do with a voluntarily religious observance. How can the two be connected? The Bible itself establishes the connection in Leviticus 26, when it speaks of a military invasion of such magnitude that it reduces entire cities to ruins and the land to a depopulated devastation—and yet it speaks of
the land’s desolation as a fulfillment of the Shemitah.
The Shemitah in Modern Translation
So regardless of the means by which it comes, the ultimate result is the same. It is the effect of the Shemitah that manifests, whether through the voluntary observance of God’s people or by a calamitous event. The sowers and reapers of ancient Israel were to voluntarily cease from working for the duration of the Shemitah; in the modern world, economic downturns and implosions force people from employment and labor. The means are different—but the end result is the same.
In the ancient Shemitah, the voluntary abandoning of fields and groves meant that the land’s yield and productivity plummeted; in the modern world, the plummeting of production and yield are caused by economic collapses. In the ancient Shemitah, the people were not to buy, sell, or partake in the fruit of the land; in the modern world, economic collapses cause the plunging of consumption and trade. And in the ancient Shemitah, the people were to wipe clean their financial accounts by canceling out debt and credit; in the modern world, financial collapses cause credit to fail, debts to go unpaid, and financial accounts to be wiped out.
Sowing and Reaping in the Modern World
It is striking to note to how many agricultural terms connected with the Shemitah are also linked to the economic and financial realms. Financial investment is called “sowing.” The funding given to launch a financial enterprise is called “seed money.” The starting of a new enterprise is called “planting.” When a financial investment produces returns, those returns are called the “yield.” This yield is part of its coming to “fruition.” One then “reaps” the yield.
The connection is just as strong in the ancient Hebrew. In one of the ordinances of the Shemitah it is written:
And if you say, “What shall we eat in the seventh year, since we shall not sow nor gather in our produce?”
—LEVITICUS 25:20,
emphasis added
Behind the English word produce is the Hebrew tebuah. Tebuah can be translated as “fruit” and “produce,” but also as “gain,” “income,” and “revenue.”
Here, as before, we find the connection of the Shemitah to the economic realm. The Shemitah impacts a nation’s material blessings, that which makes up its prosperity, its productivity, and its sustenance. In modern nations that translates to the economic and financial realms. So if the Shemitah was to operate in the modern world, we would expect it to be especially linked to those same realms. And since the nature of the Shemitah is to bring about cessation, this would translate to an economic or financial collapse.
The Shemitah as a Prophetic Sign
But can the manifestation of the Shemitah go even further? Can it extend beyond the economic realm? Can it manifest in other forms of cessation, collapse, or even destruction? The answer is found in the account of 2 Chronicles concerning the calamity that fell upon the land in 586 BC. According to the account, the Babylonian invasion of the land, the burning of Jerusalem, the exile of the people from the land, are all a part of the manifesting of the Shemitah.
This presents a jarring fusion. On one hand is the Shemitah, a religious observance of rest, the Sabbath year. On the other hand is a national cataclysm that sets a city on fire and wipes away an entire kingdom. The one is all about release, the other—a nation taken by force into captivity and exile.
How do these two jarring realities go together? The answer is they don’t go together. They are one and the same. According to the account, that which fell upon the land of Israel in 586 BC was not just connected to the Shemitah—it was the Shemitah.
As long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath . . .
—2 CHRONICLES 36:21
The destruction was the Shemitah. All the unkept, unobserved, and unfulfilled Shemitahs from Israel’s past were now returning to find their fulfillment. The seventy years of judgment were the seventy unkept Shemitahs from Israel’s past. The Shemitah had returned in an altered form. It had transformed. It was now operating through conflict and war, political alliances, the deportation and exile of an entire people, and the countless variables of human actions, reactions, and interactions.
The Shemitah and the Two Empires
The Shemitah lay behind the march of Babylonian armies into the Promised Land, the burning of the Temple, the removal of the people from the land, and their years in exile. It operated on an epic scale, transcending the boundaries of ancient Israel and involving foreign peoples, nations, and empires.
In order for the land to rest and keep its missing Sabbaths, the Jewish people had to be removed from the land. In order for the Jewish people to be removed from the land, the Babylonian Empire had to ascend onto the world stage. In order for the Babylonian Empire to ascend, the Assyrian Empire had to fall.
Once the land kept its Sabbaths, the Babylonian captivity could come to an end. In order for that to happen, another empire had to rise—that of Persia. Thus the Babylonian Empire happens to rise at the time that the seventy years of the Shemitah must commence. Then when the seventy years of Shemitah are complete, it falls. It falls because the empire of Persia rises. Thus the Persian Empire happens to rise at the same time the Shemitahs draw to their end. The mystery of the Shemitah thus becomes global, affecting the course of nations beyond and far removed from Israel and causing the rise and fall of powers, kingdoms, and world empires.
The Shemitah as a Pattern
Does the mystery of the Shemitah always involve judgment? Not necessarily. Nor is it a simplistic equation whereby every manifestation can neatly be attributed to a particular sin. And as we have seen, the same manifestation can mean the fall of one power and the rise of another. The Shemitah forms an underlying pattern and dynamic that, given the right circumstances, will manifest in a specific way. Its manifestations may vary in form but will exhibit consistent characteristics, operate through a consistent dynamic, and produce consistent repercussions.
Given the circumstance of a nation or civilization, dedicated from its inception to the will of God but now in departure from that will, in defiance of His ways and at war with His sovereignty, as it was with ancient Israel, the Shemitah will increasingly, more intensely, and more severely manifest in the direction of judgment.
What Would Shemitah Look Like Today?
At the beginning of this chapter I posed a question as to what the mystery of the Shemitah would look like if it was operating in the modern world. To now answer that question, let us assemble the pieces of the puzzle.
The Overall Manifestation
• The Shemitah declares God’s sovereignty, dominion, and ownership over all things.
• It specifically touches the realm of a nation’s prosperity and sustenance.
• It manifests as the Sabbath year and is distinct from the six years preceding it.
• It bears witness that all blessings come from God.
• It humbles the pride of man.
• It lays bare man’s total dependence on God.
• It separates wealth and possessions from the owner.
• It wipes away that which has built up in the previous years.
• It levels imbalance and erases accounts.
• It causes cessation, pauses, interruptions, and endings.
• It reveals the link between the physical, material realm and the spiritual realm.
• It bear witness against materialism.
• It calls the nation to turn away from material pursuits and to the spiritual.
• It releases entanglements, attachments, and bondages.
• It brings about rest—Sabbath.
• It calls the nation back to God.
The Economic Manifestation
• The Shemitah carries a special connection and bears special consequence on a nation’s economic realm.
• Its effect and repercussions extend into the realms of labor, production, employment, revenue, consumption, trade, and finance.
• It causes production to cease or severel
y decrease.
• It causes labor to cease or be greatly reduced.
• It causes the private realm to increasingly yield to the public realm, and private ownership to be increasingly subject to public necessities.
• It causes buying and selling, the transactions of commerce, to be greatly curtailed.
• It builds up to its peak day, the Day of Remission, on Elul 29.
• It causes a nation’s financial accounts to be transformed, annulled, and wiped clean.
• It causes credit to be unpaid and debt released. Credit and debt are wiped away.
• It acts as an economic and financial leveler, wiping out that which has been allowed to build up in the preceding years, nullifying imbalance.
• It erases accounts and causes release and remission in the economic and financial realms.
The Prophetic Manifestation
The Shemitah is also a prophetic sign of national judgment . . .
• To a nation that has rejected the sovereignty of God, a nation that no longer sees itself as “under God.”
• To a nation that has driven God out of its culture.
• To a nation that has divorced its blessings from the hand of God.
• To a nation that pursues increase and prosperity above righteousness and over God.