The Jewish Sabbath
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days shalt thou
labour, and do all thy work: 10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord
thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter,
thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is
within thy gates: 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea,
and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed
the sabbath day, and hallowed it — Exodus 20:8-11
In many ways, the fourth commandment is a wonderful thing: it is meant to be benign, beneficial, and refreshing. It is God’s way of telling you - in short - to ‘take your rest.’ In the busy beehive world we live in, what a wonderful gift this is.
Yet, as we learned, the blessing of Sabbath was marred by man-made rules and regulations that made it more a burden than a blessing. Many interpretations, and home-cooked traditions distorted the Sabbath beyond recognition. When Jesus of Nazareth came to the scene with the true interpretation and practice, He was accused of Sabbath-breaking and His opponents were so bent out of shape by His conduct that they wanted to kill Him over the Sabbath.
Even until now, a few Christian groups have adopted the same legalistic mindset. They teach that unless you strictly keep the Sabbath on Saturday, you are in danger of hell-fire. Another demand, though slightly less dramatic, is that Saturday Sabbath-keeping, like religious circumcision for male infants, is not an ala carte, ‘pick and choose’ cafeteria-style proposition. It is a package deal: you are duty-bound to keep all the law of Moses, which is a flagrant violation of the liberty principles found in Galatians and other New Testament epistles.
What should our present day attitude towards the Sabbath be? How does it apply to Jews and Christians?
To The Jew First
A very important passage on Israel and the Sabbath is found in Exodus 31:12-17. Verse 16 it says ‘the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath … for a perpetual covenant.’ The next verse, 17, reiterates that it is a sign between God and the children of Israel for ever.
From this passage alone, we can infer that the Sabbath, as originally instituted at Sinai, was made for Israel. It is what marked them as God’s peculiar people. One of its key purposes was as a memorial to creation, where God ‘rested’ and was ‘refreshed.’
While there are various ideas and practices among the Jewish community regarding Sabbath, it is universally recognised as a ‘day off,’ ‘day of rest,’ ‘a time with family,’ a morning or evening at the synagogue, and the much loved Sabbath-meal that commences with candle-lighting. In most cases, it is doubtful that they view it as necessary for salvation; it is simply part of recognised Jewish practice, along with other commands of the Torah, which they have done for centuries.
Of course, in modern Israel, it is a national day off. As expressed before, it is amazing to see a bustling nation come to a grinding halt - seemingly suddenly - and remain that way for 24 hours. There is a lesson in this for us all.
In our next article, we
will see how the Christian should respond to the Sabbath.
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