ויקרא, פרק כ״ו, פסוק ל״ה

The earth demands its lost rest. Ignoring the Sabbatical and Jubilee years is not merely an isolated mistake; it deeply damages the foundations of society and ultimately amounts to a full rebellion against God [פירושי רד״צ הופמן]. Because the people refuse to let the land rest peacefully, the earth reclaims its debt through complete emptiness and desolation [חזקוני, פירושי רד״צ הופמן].

This forced break is a harsh and cruel rest. A normal Sabbatical year is defined by holiness and peaceful relief from labor. In contrast, this rest occurs simply because the cities lie in ruins and the exiled people are no longer there to work the soil [ביאור שטיינזלץ]. Furthermore, this imposed rest is far more extreme than a standard Sabbatical. Usually, the unworked land still sprouts natural, wild growth. During this period of desolation, however, the earth will be scorched and unable to grow even a blade of grass [העמק דבר].

The primary approach among commentators is that this period of forced rest directly corresponds to the seventy years of the Babylonian exile. These years of exile were decreed as an exact repayment for the seventy Sabbatical and Jubilee years the Israelites ignored while living in their land [רש״י, רשב״ם, בכור שור, אבן עזרא, ביאור יש״ר]. While the Israelites lived in the land for eight hundred and fifty years, the specific era in which they angered God by abandoning these laws lasted four hundred and thirty years. This period consisted of three hundred and ninety years of sin by the Ten Tribes, followed by forty years of sin by the Kingdom of Judah. Within that exact timeframe, exactly seventy Sabbatical and Jubilee years were violated [רש״י, ברכת אשר על התורה].

Yet, within this strict accounting lies an act of divine compassion. Even if the people had violated slightly fewer than seventy Sabbatical years in practice, God decreed a full seventy years of exile out of kindness. By bringing the exile upon them early, He prevented their sins from accumulating further and ultimately saved them from complete destruction [שפתי חכמים].