"For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard. "Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed. "Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips.
Exodus 23:10-13
The principle underlying the fourth commandment is now applied in what is known as the institution of the Sabbatical year (see also Leviticus 25:1-7). Every seventh year the land was to lie fallow, and no cultivation was to be done, nor sowing nor reaping. This merciful provision was meant to make provision for the poor, who might gather all in the fields that grew of itself, and to save the soil from exhaustion and keep it fertile as a land flowing with milk and honey. In an age when rotation of crops was unknown, this remarkable legislation seems to have anticipated the principles of modern agriculture by many centuries. The Sabbath principle is seen here to be necessary and good for the poor, for slaves, for strangers, for animals, and even for the soil itself; if it is therefore so basic to the welfare of man and nature alike, it can hardly be regarded as a mere Jewish ceremonial ordinance to be abrogated, neglected or despised with impunity. It is perhaps not without significance that our age, which has seen the most widespread neglect and secularisation of the Lord's Day, has become known as the age of anxiety, with something like 60% of all hospital beds in Britain occupied by patients with psychological rather than physical disorder and disease. George Philip, in a Note on this passage, quotes a story told of native carriers 'who would go so far in one day's journey and then refuse to go another inch. They said they had to stop to let their spirits catch up with them.' We could hardly doubt that this represents a crying need in our time.