Fallow Ground

Fallow ground is land that has not been broken, or has been left so long that it has set hard. A crust has formed across the top, roots have grown through the crust, and weeds have taken over. Breaking it up is the hardest work of the farming year, and none of that work shows when it is done.

Hosea is speaking to people who were already busy farming: "Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies." Nobody in that charge is lazy. It is a busy farm growing the wrong crop. Just before today's verse, God pictures Israel as a young cow that enjoys her work: "Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught, and loveth to tread out the corn." Treading out the corn was the pleasant end of farming, walking round the threshing floor and eating as you went. What comes next for Ephraim is a yoke on her neck and a field to plough.

The command divides into what is your part and what never was. "Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground." That much is yours. Then comes God's part: "for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you." You can break the crust, but nobody can order the rain. About a century later, Jeremiah gave the same command to the southern kingdom of Judah: "Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns." So ground can go hard more than once, in more than one generation.

The only date the verse gives is on your side: "it is time to seek the LORD." It sets no date for the rain, and we should not invent one. What it does promise is that He will come, and that what He sends is righteousness, falling like rain on ground that has been opened up for it. The crust is yours to break, and it can be broken. Start there, and leave the rain to Him.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 153 is Excellent Lovingkindness (Psalm 36:7).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two