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sabbath by the performance of work was punishable by death, and anyone who thus
transgressed the commandment was cut off from the people of God; he had broken the
covenant. The sabbath, moreover, was to be observed and kept as an age-abiding
covenant.
There are reasons for observing the sabbath attached to the various commands that we
should notice. The first passage is that which occurs in the ten commandments. The
reason given there for sabbath observance is that the Lord, after the six days' creation,
"rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it."
So long as Israel observed the sabbath day, they were a witness to the God of creation,
and the creation narrative of Gen. 1: and 2:
In Exod. 23: 12 the sabbath is enjoined so that ox, ass and servant may be
refreshed. The words are echoed in Exod. 31: 17:--
"For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested,
and was refreshed."
The word "refreshed" is naphas, and could almost be translated "had time to breathe".
We do not entertain the thought that the mighty Creator becomes weary with work, but it
is helpful to see how He stoops to the needs of the creatures made in His image.
Attached to the command to keep the sabbath is a reminder that Israel was once a
servant in the land of bondage, so that the institution of the day showed God's mercy to
Israel and His concern for others (Deut. 5: 12-15). Reverence for the sanctuary of God,
also, was associated with the sabbath (Lev. 23: 32). Though shrouded in type and
symbol, the sabbath, nevertheless, was an opportunity of experiencing and expressing
something of the grace of God:--
"If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day;
and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord; and shalt honour Him, not doing
thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words"
(Isa. 58: 13)
Both the true spirit of the sabbath, and the false representation of it, as it had become
by the tradition of the elders, are very vividly brought to view in the Gospels. When the
disciples plucked a few ears of corn, and rubbed them in their hands, they broke the
sabbath according to the tradition of the Pharisees. Of course reaping and threshing on
the sabbath were forbidden by the law, but these formalists taught that to pluck an ear of
corn was "reaping", and to rub it in the hand was "threshing", even as walking on grass
was a species of threshing!
The persecution of the Lord, and the crucifixion itself, may be traced to His attitude
toward the sabbath day:--
"Therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay Him because He had done
these things on the sabbath day" (John 5: 16).