Leviticus 19:23-25 prescribes what we are to do with newly planted fruit trees. This law, which is still valid today, states:
“When you come into the land, and HAVE PLANTED all kinds of trees for food, then you shall count their fruit as uncircumcised (or: unclean). Three years it shall be as uncircumcised to you. It shall not be eaten. But in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy, a praise to the LORD. And in the fifth year you may eat its fruit, that it may yield to you its increase: I am the LORD your God.”
These verses prohibit the consumption of fruit from a NEWLY PLANTED fruit tree for the first three years. The Ryrie Study Bible explains: “When they came to Canaan, they were not to eat fruit from the [newly planted] fruit trees [for a certain number of years].” To abstain from eating the fruit from the newly planted fruit trees for the first three years allows the trees to become established, and what little fruit may be produced during the first three years of a new tree, should be allowed to fall to the ground and to serve as manure or fertilizer. The passage refers to the AGE of the tree — not to the number of years it has borne fruit. We are to begin counting, when the tree is planted or rooted, or when it comes up.
Continue reading "How are we to treat our fruit trees during the first five years, and during the Sabbath year, at which time the land is to rest?"