Jesus and the Pharisees had the most in common of all the Sects of the day. If that was true, why then were they so hostile to each other?
Here is one example of why they differed so vehemently. Can you think of others?
First, ask yourself where did the Pharisees originate from? Where were they, in what time period, what was happening at their birth? Then consider the following. SOS the passages.
The Land’s Sabbath and the Exile
These passages of Scripture connects God’s command through Moses, the warnings of Jeremiah, and the later interpretation seen among the Pharisees — showing how the exile was seen as the land’s rest for neglected Sabbaths.
1. Leviticus 26:33–35 — The Warning through Moses
“I will scatter you among the nations … Then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest and enjoy its sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your sabbaths when you dwelt in it.” (Leviticus 26:33–35)
In the covenant given through Moses, Israel was commanded to let the land rest every seventh year. Failure to do this was not merely agricultural neglect — it was disobedience against God’s order. Through Moses, God warned that if the people ignored these Sabbaths, the land itself would eventually rest — by force — through exile.
2. Jeremiah 25 and 29 — The Prophecy of Seventy Years
Centuries later, Jeremiah prophesied that Judah would serve the king of Babylon for seventy years. This period reflected roughly seventy missed Sabbath years, or about 490 years of neglect. God’s timing showed both justice and mercy — justice for disobedience, but mercy in setting a defined limit for restoration.
3. 2 Chronicles 36:20–21 — Fulfillment of the Prophecy
“And those who escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon… to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.” (2 Chronicles 36:20–21)
This passage records the fulfillment of what God had spoken through Moses and Jeremiah. The exile itself became the means by which the land ‘caught up’ on its missed Sabbaths.
4. Later Reflection — The Pharisees’ Response
By the time of the Pharisees, the Jewish people had drawn a sharp lesson from the exile. They became determined that such national judgment should never happen again. Their strict observance of the Sabbath and the Law was, in part, a reaction to the memory that neglecting God’s commands — including the Sabbath rest of the land — had led to exile.
Thus, the connection between Moses’ covenant, Jeremiah’s warning, and the Pharisees’ later rigor reveals a long thread of cause and consequence — a call to faithfulness and balance, so that obedience would spring from love rather than fear.
Now read the passages of Jesus and the Sabbath again. SOS them with the next level. What do you think the real problem was?
What other areas of conflict were there? What do you think their root cause was?
Comments