Here, then, we have the special feature of the Lord's land. He would have it to enjoy a sabbatic year, and in that year there was to be the evidence of the rich profusion with which He would bless those who held as tenants under Him. Happy, highly privileged tenantry! What an honor to hold immediately under Jehovah! No rent! no taxes! no burdens! Well might it be said, "Happy is the people that is in such a case; yea, happy is the nation whose God is Jehovah." We know, alas! that Israel failed to take full possession of that wealthy land of which Jehovah made them a present. He had given it _all_; He had given it _forever_. They took but _a part_, and that _for a time_. Still, there it is. The property is there, though the tenants are ejected for the present. "The land shall not be sold _forever_: for _the land is Mine_; for ye are strangers and sojourners _with Me_." What does this mean, but that Canaan belongs specially to Jehovah, and that He will hold it through the tribes of Israel? True, "the earth is the Lord's," but that is quite another thing. It is plain that He has been pleased, for His own unsearchable purposes, to take special possession of the land of Canaan, and to submit that land to a peculiar line of treatment, to mark it off from all other lands, by calling it His own, and to distinguish it by judgments and ordinances and periodical solemnities, the mere contemplation of which enlightens the understanding and affects the heart. Where, throughout all the earth, do we read of a land enjoying a year of unbroken repose--a year of richest abundance? The rationalist may ask, How can these things be? the skeptic may doubt if they could be; but faith finds a satisfying answer from the lips of Jehovah--"And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase: then I will command My blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store." (Ver. 20-22.) Nature might say, What shall we do for _our sowing_? God's answer is, "I will command _My blessing_." God's "blessing" is better far than man's "sowing." He was not going to let them starve in His sabbatic year. They were to feed upon the fruits of His blessing, while they celebrated His year of rest--a year which pointed forward to that eternal Sabbath that remains for the people of God.