I wonder how our land would be if we obeyed the command which God gave to give a year of Sabbath rest to it every seventh year when it would be neither sown nor harvested: "a year of rest it is to the land".

Surely we wouldn't need to pump in so much artificial feeding for the earth to continue producing for us. And surely if we lived off the produce we already had for two years there would not be so much waste, mountains of butter and wheat? Surely what we saved in costs and work we could use instead to distribute food around the world.

How precious is rest and how we ignore it and suffer the consequences. Our land has to be artificially fertilised every year with tons of fertiliser dug out of, raided from other areas of our earth and transported and sold in order to enable the land to cope with year after year of giving to the crops and fruit we grow.

It is a miracle at work to see how the earth feeds the plants and trees growing in it. The tiny shoots that first appear feeding on that earth are astonishing, a wonder that they come up without us being able to make that growth happen.

There is truth in the children's song: "Oats and beans and barley grow but not you nor I nor anyone knows how oats and beans and barley grow." Oh yes, we can describe scientifically what happens, we can give plants the conditions to grow, but what gives that life is only explicable as being the work of the Creator.

How precious is the earth and all that grown in it.

The land is seen as a faithful giving servant, enduring the polluting activities of those living on it and being polluted also.

It swallows the blood that is shed by people on the earth who murder and wound others. It is polluted by the activities of people on the land, by their idolatry and their sin against God's commands. It opened at God's command to swallow up those who rebelled against Moses, God's servant.

The land is precious to God and is to be loved and cherished and treated well. We need to have compassion on the land and look after it well, not demanding that it produce year after year without relief, as a woman producing a baby year after year must be worn down and exhausted by so much giving.

We should not pillage the earth, nor rip it up, nor take continually from it, neither from the deep resources nor those at the surface. We need to view the earth as animate not inanimate as full of life and ability having its own right to continue doing what it does so well producing food for us and for all that live on it. It is not ours to abuse and demand from. We must love the land.

And God saw all that He had made and it was very good.