Exodus 35

Exodus chapter 35 continues with Sabbath regulations. Notice that it says, in verses 2-3, “For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death. Do not light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day.”

Did you notice that the commandment not only says that you must not work on the Sabbath, but it also says, “for six days, work is to be done?” It isn’t just a commandment to not work one day a week but appears to command that we do work six days. And if you do work on the seventh day, the penalty is death.

I wonder if Sabbatarians of today who insist on not working on the Sabbath, also insist that work be done on the other six days. And how do they deal with the penalty for profaning the Sabbath? Here’s another example of how those who insist on keeping the Law are inconsistent. James 2:10 tells us that “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it." It’s a package deal, you can’t pick and choose which commandments you want to obey.

Let’s go back to the week of creation to look at the first passage that Sabbatarians use to support their view that observing the Seventh Day Sabbath was commanded of all mankind from the very beginning, not just of the Israelites from the time of Moses.

Genesis 2:2-3, “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so, on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”

Who rested? God. Was He tired? No. When He rested from all his work, did that mean he was off duty all day? If so, who’s minding the shop? If Adam called out to him, would he respond? God wasn’t exhausted after a week of creating the universe and he wasn’t off duty. When he rested, it meant that he had completed this project and stopped working on it.

Before we go onto the next part of the verse, where He blessed the seventh day and made it holy, we should learn a couple of new words, exegesis and eisegesis. Exegesis (EX as in exit) is when you interpret a passage by drawing out of it what the author intended. It’s trying to determine what the author wanted it to mean.

Eisegesis, on the other hand, reads into the text what the reader wants it to mean. Eisegesis is using the Bible like a drunk person uses a lamppost, for support rather than illumination. Having an opinion, then looking for passages to support your opinion is eisegesis.

From the passage in Genesis 2:1-3, is there anything there that commands or describes MAN observing a day of rest? Did God command Adam to rest on the seventh day? Adam isn’t even mentioned. To claim that the observance of the seventh day Sabbath goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden is reading into the passage what isn’t there. It’s an example of eisegesis rather than exegesis.

As you read through the book of Genesis, are there any commandments for the patriarchs to observe the Sabbath? Did Noah observe the Sabbath? Did Abraham or Isaac observe the Sabbath? No.

Who were the first people commanded to observe the Sabbath? It wasn’t until Moses mediated the Old Covenant between God and the Israelites (not the Bolivians, Koreans or Norwegians) that you find the commandment to observe the Sabbath.

Why were the Israelites the first and only people to be commanded to observe the Sabbath? In Deut. 5:15 we are told why, “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.”

The Sabbath was a memory aide, a reminder of their time enslaved by the Egyptians and that it was the one true God who delivered them from slavery and Egypt. It relates to the promises of Exodus 6:6-8, where God promised to bring the Israelites out of Egypt, free them from slavery, redeem them, and bring them to the land he promised their ancestors.

So, then, what does it mean in Genesis 2:3 when it says that God “blessed the seventh day and made it holy”? What does it mean that God “made it holy.” When something is holy it means it is dedicated to God. Sanctification is the process by which something is made holy. In most churches there is that larger room with pews and a pulpit that is called the sanctuary. It has been especially designed, furnished and set aside for one purpose, worship. You can’t play basketball in there or serve a potluck supper.

When God sanctified the seventh day, my understanding is that He identified the day and set aside this day for a special purpose, for some time in the future. Imagine this: A bride to be picked out her wedding gown. She has it fitted and then sets it aside for a very special purpose and she will wear it sometime in the future. Just as she sanctified the dress for use later-on, perhaps God sanctified a day for later use. That’s the best explanation that I could come up. How do you explain it?

The Sabbath was given to one group of people, the Israelites, to help them to remember that they were once slaves in Egypt. The sabbath was never a sign between God and all men, but “It is a sign between me (God) and the children of Israel" (Exodus 31:17).

Now let’s take a look at the regulations governing the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2, “for six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a day of sabbath rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it is to be put to death. Do not light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day.”

Let’s look at other passages to see how these commandments were applied.

It’s a day of rest. All work by all people had to cease on the Sabbath. Even minor tasks, such as "gathering wood" (Numbers 15:32-36) was prohibited. Nehemiah said that they were not to buy or sell on the Sabbath. Neh. 13:15, “In those days I saw people in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in grain and loading it on donkeys, together with wine, grapes, figs and all other kinds of loads. And they were bringing all this into Jerusalem on the Sabbath. Therefore, I warned them against selling food on that day.”

Jeremiah criticized the Israelites for carrying ANY LOAD as they come through the gates of Jerusalem. Jer. 17:27, “But if you do not obey me to keep the Sabbath day holy by not carrying any load as you come through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle an unquenchable fire in the gates of Jerusalem that will consume her fortresses.”

You can pass a law, which can be quite vague, then you need regulations to define more precisely what the law means. How do you define a load? Have you seen the size of the purses some women carry? Are they a “load”? How about a notebook computer? Can we carry a smartphone? At what point does an item become a “load” and become prohibited on the Sabbath?

“Do not light a fire in any of your dwellings?” I assume it means that no cooking. Cooking was a lot of work back then, before processed foods and microwave ovens. Does this prohibition mean you can’t light a fire to keep warm? Some Jews won’t drive a car with an internal combustion engine on the Sabbath because of the small fires created by the spark plugs. Some elevators in Israel are programmed to stop at each floor so that the rider doesn’t have to “work” by pressing the button. So, I guess walking into the building is not work, but pushing a button is.

What about doctors and nurses, police officers and firefighters? Do they work on the Sabbath, or do they abandon their patients and allow crime to flourish on the Sabbath? If you dialed 911 for emergency assistance, do you get a recording saying, “This is the Sabbath. Please call back after sunset.”

If the Israelites were to rest, how do you define rest? Can you go for a walk? If so, how long can you walk? If you can go for a long walk, can you play golf? Can you go swimming? Can you hike?

What about non-Israelites who live in Israel? The covenant wasn’t made with the Bolivians and Koreans. Can they carry loads, light fires and work? What if you’re an Israelite and a Gentile lives next door. Can you go over to their house to eat a hot meal and keep warm if your fire goes out and you can’t relight it?

Your servants and animals had to rest, also. That means you can’t go for a donkey ride on the Sabbath. What does your cat do on the Sabbath? It doesn’t do any work all week. Cats just sits in the sun, eat and groom themselves. Instead of observing the seventh day Sabbath they observe seven days of Sabbaths.

When God gave the Mosaic Law to the Israelites, He gave them to the nation as a whole, not individuals. The whole nation was to observe these laws. That would make it easier for individual to obey if everyone else was doing the same thing.

In the U.S. there were what we called Blue Laws. In many states most businesses were closed on Sunday. U.S. Supreme Court held Blue Laws as constitutional, citing guaranteeing the free exercise of religion or "to prevent secular and commercial interests from hampering freedom of worship and from exploiting workers." That’s right. If you want to exploit workers, you can only do it the other six days of the week.

My parents owned a hardware store in Massachusetts where they had Blue Laws. Since we lived in a house next door to the store, customers would come to the house on Sunday, usually with a plumbing problem and ask my dad to open the store for him. My Dad would go into the back door of the store, without turning on any lights he would help the customer out with his plumbing emergency.

Most blue laws have been repealed in the United States, although some states ban the sale of alcoholic beverages on Sundays with the idea that people should be in church on Sunday morning, or at least not drinking. And many states ban selling cars on Sundays. Why would they single out selling cars on Sunday? Maybe they didn’t want people to get drunk, then buy a car.

The repeal of the Blue Laws did lead to a decrease in church attendance, reducing church income and an increase in alcohol and drug use among the religious. So, I guess there was some benefit to the Blue Laws.

The penalty for breaking the Sabbath was death. Exodus 35:2 says, “Whoever does any work on it must be put to death.” If the penalty was death, I’d want some more details on exactly what was allowed and what was prohibited.

The written law doesn’t give many specifics with regards to how they were to apply the Law. This is when the Oral Law come in to play. It represents those laws, statutes, and legal interpretations that were not recorded in the Five Books of Moses, but according to Jewish tradition, was passed down orally in an unbroken chain from generation to generation until its contents were finally committed to writing, in what is called the Talmud, following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.

According to the Talmud, you can do work if it prevents serious illness or death. So, if you are a police officer, fire fighter or nurse, you still work on the Sabbath. The idea comes from the interpretation of Lev.18:5, which says, “Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord.” They were to “live by them,” not die by them. In other words, saving a life is more important than observing a ceremonial law such as observing the Sabbath.

Better still, I believe, is to recognize that this ceremonial law was given only to the Israelites and that whole covenant was done away with. But most Christian denominations hold the view of first day Sabbatarianism, which teaches that the Lord's Day (Sunday) is the Christian Sabbath. The term “Christian Sabbath” makes little more sense to me than the idea of a “kosher porkchop.” Scripture is clear that the Sabbath was the seventh day of the week, not the first day.

The early church did not observe the Sabbath, though Jewish Christians had some difficulty giving up their Sabbath observance. Some wanted the Gentiles to observe it, also. This issue was settled in Acts 15. The Apostle Paul said that one day is as good as another (Rom. 14:5-6) and the early church met on the first day of the week (Acts 20:6,7; I Cor 16:2).

The only “Sabbath” Christians should observe is found in Heb. 4:3,11, “Now we who have believed enter that rest. . . Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.”

The “rest” spoken of here is not the seventh day Sabbath rest from work, but the peace and confidence of salvation. It is a spiritual rest, based on the finished work of Christ. That promise remains in place for those who are willing to accept it.

Paul understood that there were different views on which day Christians should meet, as well as what foods were appropriate to eat. Rom. 4:5-6, “One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.” Paul didn’t demand uniformity of belief, but he did want to avoid divisions.

Col. 2:16, “Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.”

Whatever day you choose to worship with other Christians, be sure to “encourage one another to love and good deeds” (Heb. 10:23-25). And please, stop arguing over the Sabbath commandment.

The rest of this chapter, through Exodus 39:43, repeats what has already been given in earlier chapters of Exodus.