Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; But in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest unto the land, a Sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. That which growth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land.
Jeremiah 25:11-12 and Daniel 9:2 both speak of the seventy-year Babylonian captivity but when this same seventy-year period is mentioned in connection with the Sabbath, the familiar pattern of six (in this case sixty) and one (in this case ten) appears once again:
To fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years (II Chronicles 36:21).
Throughout Scripture, the pattern of six-and-one parallels decades, years, or days interchangeably with the different stages of God’s creative activity and rest. The duration of time within those patterns is irrelevant; the pattern itself being the focus. Therefore, the word “days” as used by Moses in his explanatory (parenthetical) statements recorded in Exodus 20:11 and 31:17, could have been used simply to illustrate the pattern of six-and-one as an aid in teaching the children of Israel.
