“For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: ‘Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.’” (Jeremiah 4:3–4, ESV)
As a youth, my grandmother purchased property in the countryside on which she had a house built. There she decided to make a good-sized garden on her 3-acre property. I thought it would be a great project for us. The only problem was that the ground needed to be prepared for planting and growing a crop. The soil was full of weeds, stumps, and rocks. It was hard. The only tools we had to do the work of preparing the soil were, shovels, hoes, axes, and hand cultivators. Well, the work of clearing the land and breaking up the fallow ground was very hard. I remember the callouses and the muscle aches. Yet all the hard work was worth the effort. For without the breaking up of the land, it would not be good for planting seed that would bear much fruit.
In this passage, the Lord is telling Judah, the Southern Kingdom, that they must break up the “fallow ground,” referring to cultivating the hard ground so that it would be fruitful. This metaphor refers to the problem of Judah’s hardened heart towards God. We see this in the next phrase where the Lord stated, “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts.”
The metaphors of breaking up the fallow ground and circumcising the foreskin of the heart were to prompt Judah to change their course. This exhortation presented the nation’s major problem and the act necessary to avoid the chastisement of the Lord. Their problem was spiritual hardness as see in their spiritual apostasy which was born in the heart. The act of softening this hardness meant repentance.
Breaking up fallow ground is hard but an essential work. Any person who has prepared uncultivated land by hand understands this. Yet unless the ground is properly prepared any scattering of seed will be fruitless. God had chosen Israel to be a nation that would bear the fruit of His righteousness in a sin fallen world. However, over time they became a hardened and fruitless nation. Due to their apostasy, lawlessness, and idolatry, the only fruit they bore was that of worthless weeds good only for the fire. They needed to break up the fallow ground and become fruitful. They needed to repent.
Repentance for those entrenched in ungodliness is often a difficult thing. It can be hard work. The reason is that the sinful nature of man understands not the wonder and beauty of God’s righteousness. For the unbeliever the only hope is salvation and the subsequent power of the Spirit to break up this fallow ground.
For the believer, the Spirit’s power is present with new divine power, but the old nature is still present and opposing this work. The solution is that of yielding to the Spirit by seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness with a whole heart. It means readjusting one’s priorities from the flesh to that of the Spirit. It is then that the process of breaking up the fallow ground progresses and makes the life fruitful for the kingdom of God.
Renewing the Heart 