Jeremiah Chapter 34 – Setting Free Through Rest

It was not until in Jeremiah 34 that I realized how strongly God felt when the Israelites failed to liberate their fellow brothers and sisters. In Ex 21.2 and Deut 15.12, God commanded the Israelites to set their fellow Israelites free in the seventh year, if they came to them and served for six years as bond-servants. But there was no mentioning of what would happen if they failed to do so. In Jeremiah 34, God makes it crystal clear that failure to set free is great profanity with severe consequences:

Therefore thus says the Lord: You have not obeyed Me in proclaiming liberty, everyone to his brother and everyone to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim liberty to you, says the Lord – to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine! And I will deliver you to trouble among all the kingdoms of the earth (Jer 34: 17). 

Not only will those who did not set others free suffer unrest while living, they will also suffer unsightly and unthinkable ends (Jer 34:17-21). 

God’s severe response in chapter 34 made me wonder about His feelings towards the Jubilee that had never been realized in history (Levi 25), despite it being God’s ultimate utopic vision for the human race. Every seventh day of the week is the sabbath, a day of solemn rest. Every seventh year is the sabbatical year in which human beings and the land are to rest fully. Every seven times seventh year is the Jubilee, the 50^th year, in which there is proclamation of liberty throughout the land. People are to reunite with their families. Land, houses, and people are to be redeemed. The act of setting free is God’s assertion of his sovereignty and refusal for His creation to be commodified.  Of course, all these small and big breaks that God has made solemn all point towards His provision of ultimate eternal rest. 

It’s not difficult to understand why the Israelites failed to realise Jubilee, for very obvious economic reasons. That’s why King Zedekiah, after proclaiming the liberation of slaves recanted and re-subjugated them. (Here, I am also reminded of the American Civil War 1861-1865. Fought between the north and the south that eventually led to the termination of slavery). Going by today’s capitalist logic, not being productive for one whole year is financial suicide.

Yet God knows better, human beings are no machinery. They need rest and be rewarded for their labor in order to sustain their labor. The ecosystem also has a tipping point. Non-stop development will eventually deplete natural resources, leading to a total collapse of the ecosystem. Rest is the way towards liberation and sustainability. Through rest, we respect the rhythms by which the creation has been sustained. By setting free, we proclaim God’s absolute sovereignty and acknowledge our beings as mere mortals. In our daily interaction with people and the environment, we rest through setting free, we set free through resting. 

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