The Shemitah Year/Cycle of 2021-2022 & The Rise of the Revived Ottoman Empire

Hello, friends. I'm Chadwick Harvey and this is Faithful Performance, where we explore the testimony of the biblical prophets and how they perfectly correlate with the current events of today. Thank you for joining us. In this episode, we're going to discover the Shemitah year of 2021 and 2022 and how it correlates to the possible rise of the revived Ottoman Empire.

If you're not familiar with the Shemitah year, it is found in Leviticus 25. It is the seven-year cycle that the Lord uses with many prophecies and understandings. It is on the biblical calendar, and it is important to understand that it begins on the civil calendar on the Feast of Trumpets — Rosh Hashanah. This is when Adam opened his eyes and was crowned as God's king, beginning God's prophetic timeline. The Shemitah year begins on the Feast of Trumpets and also culminates on the Feast of Trumpets. It is called the Shemitah cycle, or the seven-year cycle. The seventh year in particular is the Shemitah year, and that seventh year is very important, as we will see in the prophecies and in what we are about to discover regarding the rise of the Ottoman Empire.

It is important, as we look at Leviticus 25, to get the foundation of the Shemitah cycle and to see how it affected Israel and how it will affect other nations in the Prophet Jeremiah and beyond. Leviticus 25:1–7 says: "The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, 'Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to the Lord. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather its fruit, but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the Lord. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. What grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine, for it is a year of rest for the land.'"

This is the foundation of the Shemitah cycle, and it should have been a great blessing to Israel. It mirrors the creation pattern: God worked six days and rested on the seventh, and He commanded the children of Israel at Mount Sinai to work six days and rest on the seventh. Now He extended that same pattern to the years — six years of work and rest on the seventh. But it was also intended for the land itself to keep a sabbath to the Lord. God made a promise to the land through the Abrahamic covenant, found in Genesis 13:15 and 17, and He made a promise to the children of Israel as well. Just as the land enjoys its rest on the weekly Sabbath, God wanted the land to enjoy a full year of rest.

Moving forward in Leviticus 25:18–21, we see both a warning and the provisions the Lord makes for the seventh year: "So you shall observe my statutes and keep my judgments and perform them, and you will dwell in the land safely. Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell there safely. And if you say, 'What shall we eat in the seventh year, since we shall not sow nor gather in our produce?' then I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, and it will bring forth produce enough for three years." This is extraordinary. In the sixth year, God would give them a triple harvest. The number three represents divine perfection — it was meant to be perfect for them, providing enough for the seventh year, the eighth year, and the ninth year. It should have been a tremendous blessing to work six years and then rest for a full year, for the rest of their lives. But we will see how their disobedience set in motion the Shemitah cycle by which nations would begin to fall on the seven-year cycle.

Leviticus 26:31–35 contains the warning that accompanies the Shemitah. The Lord warns that if they did not follow His commandments, He would lay their cities waste and bring their sanctuaries to desolation, scatter them among the nations, and draw the sword after them: "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 rest, for the time it did not rest on your sabbaths when you dwelt in it." This is a strict warning through the Torah, through the Mosaic covenant. The Mosaic covenant was conditional: if they obeyed, they would remain in the land; if they disobeyed, He would exile that generation and raise up a new one to inherit the Abrahamic covenant. The Abrahamic covenant, by contrast, was unconditional, unilateral, and irrevocable — an everlasting promise that will be ultimately fulfilled when the Messiah returns at His second coming. The Mosaic covenant operated on an if-then basis, and because God had made a promise to the land that it would enjoy its sabbath, failure to observe the Shemitah cycle would bring exile and judgment.

The Shemitah cycle was also about release — the release of debts. Deuteronomy 15:1–2 tells us: "At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release of debts. And this is the form of the release: every creditor who has lent anything to his neighbor shall release it; he shall not require it of his neighbor or his brother, because it is called the Lord's release." The Lord was keeping Israel humble and free from greed, keeping everything in order according to His plan. Shemitah means the falling, the shaking, the release. If a nation was disobedient, this cycle would bring collapse and shaking. This understanding is essential as we move forward to see how empires have risen and fallen on this seven-year cycle.

Now we turn to the Prophet Jeremiah to tie all of this together. We first want to see how the Shemitah cycle collapsed Israel, and then we will see how it began affecting the nations — leading ultimately to our discussion of the Ottoman Empire. Jeremiah 1:4–5 and 9–10 says: "Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.' Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me: 'Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.'" This is crucial: Jeremiah was ordained by God to be a prophet not just to Israel, but to the nations. In his book he delivers oracles of judgment to nations that will be fulfilled at the end of the age. This means we can take a prophetic understanding of the behavior of any nation — whether America, the Ottoman Empire, or any other — and recognize that the same judgments will come upon any nation displaying the same patterns. Our Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and He treats all nations equally in matters of morality and obedience.

In Jeremiah 25:8–11, Jeremiah prophesies the destruction of Jerusalem, and we see clearly how the Shemitah cycle drove this judgment: "Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: 'Because you have not heard My words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,' says the Lord, 'and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land, against its inhabitants, and against these nations all around, and will utterly destroy them and make them an astonishment, a hissing, and perpetual desolations. Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp. And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.'"

The Lord had sent Jeremiah to warn the people and call them to repentance, as He had sent other prophets as well. But they refused. The kings refused — Zedekiah refused. The people refused. They went to false prophets instead of heeding Jeremiah. When the Lord's grace and mercy finally reached their limit, He declared that they would be captives for seventy years, exiled from the land. Consider the significance of that number: seventy is seven times ten. Seven represents spiritual perfection, and ten represents divine perfection of order. Seventy years — and as we will see in the next passage, this falls precisely on the Shemitah cycle.

Jeremiah 25:12–14 continues: "Then it will come to pass, when the seventy years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity," says the Lord, "and I will make it a perpetual desolation."