An excerpt from Shemitta: For the Land Is Mine, by Mark Edward Vande Pol
| Gen 1:28 | Every living thing multiplies; humans are accountable to increase the productivity of every living system |
| Gen 2:5-7 | Humans cause disturbance to bring forth plant life. |
| Gen 2:15 | Our purpose is to dress and keep the entire Garden. |
| Gen 3:17-18 | Cursed is the ground for our sake; thistles, thorns, and hard labor are for disobedience. |
| Gen 4:11-12 | Agro-urban conquest of pastoral peoples was both destructive to soil fertility & perilous to the resulting agro-industrial nations. |
| Lev 23:42-43 | Everyone is to muster every year in Jerusalem to live together in portable shelter for a week. |
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Ex 23:10-11 & Lev 25:5-6 |
Every seventh year, release and abandon producing lands and head for the hills. |
| Lev 26:10 | Consume the prior triple portion that year, restock with part of the new triple portion. Always keep a year’s worth of food stored in the field and another at home. |
| Lev 25:20-2 | Keep two years worth of food, always eat the old store. |
| Lev 25:6-7 | Supplement stores by foraging for fresh produce. |
| Lev 25:10-13 | Every fifty years, go home and live off your land. |
| Lev 25:23 | Keep the land in the family; it belongs to Him. |
| Lev 25:24-28 | You can not sell accountability for land; keep working it. |
| Lev 25:31 | Rural communities are inseparable from the land. |
| Lev 25:36-37 | Make loans to your brethren but charge no interest. |
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Deut 15:1-11 31:11, Ex 21:2 |
On the year of release, forgive all debts, terminate all labor contracts, and hear these instructions on Sukkot. |
| The Sabbath for the Land, wildland foraging, permanent title, debt-forgiveness, termed labor contracts, and Sukkot, are not just to fallow fields, honor the tribes of Israel, help the poor, and remember living in tents. Their purpose is to ensure a hardy, prosperous, free, and independent people, tending the land and transmitting that knowledge from generation to generation, truly a light to the nations. |
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