Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 20:8

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

8. Remember ] ‘Think of it always, so as never to forget it, as a day to be distinguished from ordinary days, and held sacred: remember, as Exo 13:3 ’ (Di.). Deu 5:12 substitutes the more ordinary ‘Observe.’

sabbath ] Heb. shabbth. The derivation is uncertain. As a Hebrew, word, it would naturally be connected with shbath, to desist, cease, see Isa 14:4; Isa 24:8; with from, Gen 2:2-3: where the sabbath is thought of, either with ‘from work’ understood, or as a ‘denominative,’ to ‘keep sabbath,’ Exo 16:30; Exo 23:12 a, Exo 31:17, Exo 34:21, Lev 25:34-35 and suggest the idea of cessation from work. The verb shbath denotes ‘rest,’ not in the positive sense of relaxation or refreshment (which is na, see v. 11, Exo 23:12 b), but in the negative sense of cessation from work or activity: but it is at least possible that the word ‘sabbath’ is of Babylonian origin (p. 198), though of uncertain etymology (see DB. iv. 319a; note also, on the etym., the reserve expressed by Zimmern, ZDMG. 1904, p. 202). Even, however, though this should be its origin, the word might well have been connected by the Hebrews with the Heb. shbath, and regarded by them as suggesting the idea of cessation. See further, on the Bab. and Heb. ‘sabbath,’ KAT. 3 [177] 592 4.

[177] Die Keilinschriften und das A T., 1903, by H. Zimmern (pp. 345 653) and H. Winckler (pp. 1 342).

keep holy ] elsewhere rendered hallow, as v. 11 end, Gen 2:3 a, Jer 17:12 al. Comp. Isa 58:13 (‘my holy day’).

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8 11. The fourth commandment. The observance of the Sabbath.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Exo 20:8-11

Remember the Sabbath Day.

The Fourth Commandment

I. The first word of the Fourth Commandment reminds us that the Sabbath Day was already established among the Israelites when the law was delivered on Sinai. That law created nothing. It preserved and enforced what God had already taught His people to observe by another method than that of formal decrees.

II. In this Commandment work is enjoined, just as much as rest is enjoined. Mans sin has turned work into a curse. God has redeemed and restored work into a blessing by uniting it again to the rest with which, in His Divine original order, it was associated.

III. God rests; therefore he would have man rest. God works; therefore He would have man work. Man cannot rest truly unless he remembers his relation to God, who rests.

IV. It is not wonderful that the Jews after the Captivity, as they had been schooled by a long discipline into an understanding of the meaning of the Second Commandment, so had learnt also to appreciate in some degree the worth of the Fourth. Nehemiah speaks frequently and with great emphasis of the Sabbath as a gift of God which their fathers had lightly esteemed, and which the new generation was bound most fondly to cherish. His words and acts were abused by the Jews who lived between his age and that of our Lords nativity, and when Christ came, the Sabbath itself, all its human graciousness, all its Divine reasonableness, were becoming each day more obscured.

V. Jesus, as the Mediator, declared Himself to be the Lord of the Sabbath, and proved Himself to be so by turning what the Jews made a curse into a blessing. He asserted the true glory of the Sabbath Day in asserting the mystery of His own relation to God and to His creatures. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.)

The Jewish Sabbath

1. The Jewish Sabbath was founded on a definite Divine command.

2. The particular day which was to be kept as a Sabbath was authoritatively determined.

3. The purpose of the day was expressly defined.

4. The manner in which the Sabbath was to be kept was very distinctly stated.

5. The sanction which defended the law of the Sabbath was most severe. The only similarity between the Lords Day and the Jewish Sabbath is that both recur once a week, and that both are religious festivals. To the idea of the Jewish Sabbath rest was essential, worship was an accident; to the idea of the Christian Sunday worship is essential, rest an accident. The observance of Sunday as a religious institution is a question of privilege, not of duty. (R. W. Dale, D. D.)

The Sabbath Day

I. The design of the Sabbath.

1. A day of rest from physical toil.

2. A day of holy employment. Keep it holy. (See also Deu 5:12, Isa 58:13-14). It is to be a day of rest, but not a day of idleness.

II. What is the practical religious value of the Sabbath?

1. It is a perpetual reminder of spiritual things.

2. It is a great conservative of good, and a powerful barrier against evil.

III. The duty and privilege of keeping this day.

1. It is a duty we owe to God. He made the Sabbath. He commands us to keep it.

2. It is a duty we owe to ourselves. As a day of rest it is essential to the highest condition of physical health. As a day of holy meditation and worship, it is essential to our spiritual education and growth.

3. It is a duty we owe to our fellow-men. You cannot violate the Sabbath without influencing your brother to do the same. (George Brooks.)

The Fourth Commandment

This Commandment holds a remarkable position in the Decalogue. It lies between those which touch our duty to God and those which touch our duty to man. It belongs to both branches of the Decalogue. Its position tells us that a breach of the Sabbath is a direct insult to God, and is also a direct injury to man, weakening the power of a day which is eminently a blessing to the human race. This remarkable position of the Sabbath Commandment is proof incontrovertible of its binding character for all men in all time. There are two expressions in the command itself which testify to this universality of application.

1. Remember the Sabbath Day. It is no new institution which you are now to learn about for the first, but it is an old observance, not Israelitish, but human, Noachic, and Adamic, which you, Gods Israel, are to remember, that you may sustain it in its purity, just as you are to sustain a true and spiritual worship as against idolatry.

2. The other expression which proves the universality of its application (in addition to its very position in the Decalogue) is the reason given for the Divine order–because in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore Jehovah blessed the Sabbath Day and hallowed it. The reason began at the creation, and therefore the observance began at the creation.

I. What is the idea of the Sabbath? It had its origin in Gods resting on that day.

II. What is its proper observance? God has given it His own holy name–The Sabbath of the Lord thy God, and the Holy Spirit calls it the Lords Day, in the New Testament. This fact shows us that its rightful observance must have regard to our right relation to God. The soul must be turned Godward. (H. Crosby, D.D.)

The Sabbath cheerful and holy

Let us always make the Sabbath a cheerful day, as Phariseeism does not, and let us always make it a holy day, as worldliness does not. (H. Crosby, D. D.)

Sunday and suicide

There is no one thing that kills, exhausts, or sends to the lunatic asylum more of the active and strong men of this country (United States) than the breach of the Fourth Commandment.

1. He kept no Sunday. You may safely write that epitaph over hundreds of graves that will be dug this year for ambitious, prosperous, influential men, cut off in the midst of the race of life. There are suicides in scores where no apparent cause exists for what the newspapers call the rash act. The man was doing well; his business was prospering; his family relations were pleasant and affectionate.

2. No law of God is arbitrary. It is for mans good that God has established all His statutes. Clear as that truth is about them all, it is especially clear about the day of rest.

3. As a matter of fact, there is no rest, no relaxation, so utter as that offered by a well-kept Sunday. There is perfect rest and quiet for the body, and, to the worker with his hands, that may be the main point. But there is far more than this. The mind is called away from all its cares and all its common vulgar interests. The man is called to rise out of the changing into the unchanging, out of the temporary into the eternal, out of the low into the infinitely lofty, out of the strife into the deep calm of the eternal peace.

4. It is the neglect of this provision of God that is the root-cause of the deaths and suicides from overwork, which shock us almost daily in the current items of news.

5. We are not placing this thing on the highest motive, because the highest motive is powerless to touch the transgressors. We only say the transgression does not pay. And by working on Sunday we do not mean only the formal going to the office or counting-room. We mean the carrying a mans business about with him on that day; the taking it home and poisoning the fireside with it; the taking it to church and poisoning the church with it. (Bp. H. M. Thompson.)

The manner of keeping the Sabbath

I. Let us first take the negative view.

1. We are forbidden to do any work upon the Sabbath.

2. We are forbidden to make the Sabbath a day of pleasure (Isa 58:13-14).

3. The Sabbath is not to be a day of sloth.

II. Notice the positive duties implied in keeping the Sabbath holy.

1. Portions of the Sabbath should be devoted to public religious worship.

2. Portions of the Sabbath are due to special private devotion.

3. Portions of the Sabbath should be devoted to religious reading.

4. A portion of the Sabbath is very properly adjudged to Sunday-school work.

5. What remains of the Sabbath, deducting the time for necessary temporal cares, should be devoted to family religion. (H. Winslow.)

The Fourth Commandment

I. Duties enjoined.

1. The duty of work. This is mans normal condition.

(1) For the soils sake. Natures capacities are latent as well as vast, and need the quickening, unfolding, marshalling power of a tireless, and skilful labour.

(2) For mans own sake. He who does not use his faculties is as though he had none. Indolence and barbarism go hand in hand.

(3) For Gods sake. Stewardship.

2. The duty of rest. The seventh day is to be a day of rest for the body, jaded with the toils of the week: a day of rest for the mind, jaded with the cares of the week: a day of rest for the heart, jaded with the griefs of the week.

3. The duty of worship. Keep it holy. The Sabbath, if I may so say, is Gods weekly toll on mankind, the periodical tribute which He demands in token of human fealty.

II. Reason assigned.

1. Cessation of creative process.

2. The Creators resting. Holy, blessed, festal contemplation.

3. The Creators sanctification of the seventh day.

III. Christs doctrine of the sabbath (see Mar 2:23-28.)

1. Man himself is the basis of the Sabbath.

(1) He needs it–for his secular nature, alike bodily and mental;

(2) for his religious nature.

(3) What man needs, God has appointed.

2. Man is greater than the Sabbath. It is to be used as a means, not as an end. Man is more sacred than ordinances.

IV. True method of keeping the Sabbath. It is to be kept in such a way as will unfold man heavenward the most thoroughly, totally, symmetrically. The Sabbath being made for man, he must use it religiously; for the faculty of worship is mans chief definition. But full unfolding of mans spiritual nature is possible only in the sphere of edification–that is, society building. The Sabbath summons man to conjugate life in a new mood and tense; but still in the active voice. And here the Son of Man is our teacher and blessed model. No one truly keeps the Sabbath unless he keeps it as the Divine Man kept it: and He went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil. Indeed, I cannot conceive how a young man can unfold himself more thoroughly or symmetrically than by devoting himself vigorously to study during the week, and then setting apart Sunday as a day of restful worship, first praising God in His sanctuary, and then praising Him in works of mercy, visiting the sick, comforting the sorrowful, teaching the ignorant, reclaiming the outcast.

V. Change of day. Saturday was the Sabbath of nature, Sunday is the Sabbath of grace; Saturday the Sabbath of a rejected, executed, entombed Jesus, Sunday the Sabbath of a risen, exalted, triumphant Christ; Saturday Creators day, Sunday Redeemers day.

VI. Lastly: Jesus Christ Himself is our Sabbath, alike its origin, its meaning, and its end. In fact, the final cause of the Sabbath is to sabbatize each day and make all life sacramental. And Jesus Christ being our true Sabbath, Jesus Christ is also our true rest, even the spirits everlasting Eden. (G. D. Boardman.)

The Sabbath

I. Its perpetual obligation.

1. Its early Divine institution.

2. The uninterrupted observance of this day.

3. Though the day be changed under the Christian dispensation, the obligation of it remains unaltered.

4. God has eminently honoured and signally blessed this day in every age of time. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.

II. The manner of its observance.

1. This requires, first, that we should diligently prepare for its approach.

2. We must carefully watch against the profanation of it.

3. There is required by this command an entire cessation from secular and worldly occupations.

4. The observation of the Sabbath requires the religious appropriation and occupation of all its hours.

5. We should guard against the two extremes, of excessive rigour on the one hand, and of excessive relaxation on the other hand, in our regard to this sacred institution. (G. Clayton.)

The Sabbath under the law of Moses

I. The endeavour to displace the Fourth Commandment is an open invasion of the first principles both of faith and obedience. For everything conspires to cast an importance around the Ten Commandments peculiar to themselves. As the First command fixes the object of worship, and the Second the means, and the Third the reverential manner, so the Fourth determines the time.

II. But we proceed to show, that even when the ceremonial usages were in their greatest vigour, the Sabbath appeared high and distinct above them. For first, after the record of the promulgation of the Decalogue, three chapters of judicial statutes follow; but in the midst of these, the people are reminded of the essential importance of the Sabbath, in a manner quite distinct and peculiar. Again, after six chapters more concerning the tabernacle and its various services and sacrifices, the whole communication of the forty days abode on the mount is concluded with a re-inculcation of the Sabbathrest, in a manner the most solemn and affecting.

III. But proceed we to show that, in the latter ages of the Jewish Church, the weekly Sabbath was insisted upon by the prophets as of essential moral obligation, and as destined to form a part of the gospel dispensation.

IV. Let us then turn from these discussions to some practical points which may affect our hearts.

1. Let us learn to give to the holy day of rest that prominency in our esteem which Moses was instructed to give it in his dispensation.

2. And to this end, let us imbibe the spirit of love and delight in the worship of God, which the Psalms and Prophets display.

3. But add to these motives the awful indignation of Almighty God against the contempt of His name and His day. (D. Wilson, M. A.)

The pearl of days

The Sabbath was spoken of as the Prince and Sovereign of Days by a good man, long ago. It might be called the King of days. I wish I could get you to love it, so that, instead of it being a dull, wearisome day, and as coming after Saturday, just like passing out of bright sunshine into a dark night–or out of a palace into a prison, it should be wearied for, all the week round, and received with songs of welcome when it comes. The Sabbath comes to us as a holy visitant–as a messenger of love. It bears its message in its very name–Rest.

I. Reasons for observing the Sabbath.

1. We have Gods command. This of itself should be enough for us.

2. We have Gods example. He does Himself what He bids us do.

3. God claims it as His own day. Here is His own direction–Not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words, on My holy day.

4. God is pleased and honoured by the keeping of it.

5. It is a memorial of a completed creation work and of Christs resurrection. In an ironmongers shop in a country town in Scotland, the shopkeeper sat at his desk at the window. A young apprentice in the cellar below had stuck the candle which he carried in a barrel of gunpowder; the gunpowder exploded, the shop window was blown out, and the good man who sat in it was carried in the current of air to the top of the street, and there landed safely on his feet, while the apprentice was blown to pieces. It was such a wonderful deliverance that the ironmonger observed the day as a day of prayer and thanksgiving to the end of his life. Is it difficult to understand how he should have done so? And shall we not gladly commemorate our deliverance–our emancipation–the announcement that the sinners salvation was complete, by the rising of Jesus from the dead? Shall we ever suffer ourselves to be deprived of a day that has such happy and hallowed associations?

Sabbath-breaking is a sin

This Commandment is more than the setting forth of a need of our nature, more than advice for our own good. It is a command of God. Breaking the Sabbath is therefore more than an error, more than a mistake. It is a sin.

1. It is a sin because it contemns the authority of God, and that is the essence of all sin.

2. It is a sin further against the love of God. As a father invites his children home to a family gathering because he loves to have them in his presence, so God would have us, His children, come to Him on the Sabbath day because He loves us.

3. It is a sin further against our higher nature. God calls us to remember our spiritual nature and to guard against degrading ourselves to mere sensual beings. (F. S. Schenck.)

Some blessings of the rest day

Here, as everywhere, in keeping Gods commandments there is great reward. There is great blessedness that comes from keeping the rest day holy–to the one keeping it so, and to his fellow-men.

I. Consider the blessings to our fellow-men.

1. The holy or religious observance of the day bestows the rest day upon mankind. The unbelieving world may rail against God and His Church, but while it does so it is receiving from Him through the Church the rich gift of the only rest day it has from grinding labour.

2. The religious observance of the day also preaches a powerful though silent sermon to the non-church-goer, telling him he is a man, not a beast of burden; that there is a God whom he should worship; that there is an eternal life beyond this fleeting one for which he should prepare.

3. The religious observance of the day does much also to educate the conscience of a community.

4. The religious observance of the day further secures the continuance and progress of Christianity in the world. The procession of secular days bears rich material gifts to man. The Holy day spreads heavens glories over the earth.

II. The religious observance of the day brings also rich blessing to the one so observing it.

1. Communion with God, to refresh and strengthen the soul.

2. A clear view of our heavenly home, the eternal holy rest from all this worlds toil and care. (F. S. Schenck.)

Reasons for observing the Sabbath

I. The first consideration which I shall suggest is, that if the Sabbath is abolished, the Christian religion will be abolished with it. The question whether this day is to be observed or desecrated, is just a question of life and death in regard to Christianity. In former generations, attempts were made to destroy the gospel by the sword and the fagot; but all such attempts were foiled. Imperial power attempted to crush it; but imperial power found its arm too weak to contend with God. Argument and sophistry were then employed; ridicule lent its aid, and contempt pointed the finger of scorn; but all was in vain. Christianity survived all these, and rose with augmented power and more resplendent beauty–and would do so to the end of time. But there is one weapon which the enemy has employed to destroy Christianity, and to drive it from the world, which has never been employed but with signal success. It is the attempt to corrupt the Christian Sabbath; to make it a day of festivity; to cause Christians to feel that its sacred and rigid obligation has ceased; to induce them on that day to mingle in the scenes of pleasure, or the exciting plans of ambition. The Book of Sports, did more to destroy Christianity than all the ten persecutions of the Roman Emperors; and the views of the second Charles and his court about the Lords-day, tended more to drive religion from the British nation than all the fires that were enkindled by Mary.

II. The second reason why this subject demands now the special attention of Christians is, that if the Sabbath is not regarded as holy time, it will be regarded as pastime; if not a day sacred to devotion, it will be a day of recreation, of pleasure, of licentiousness. The Sabbath is not essentially an arbitrary appointment, for it is required in the very nature of the animal economy that there should be periodical seasons of relaxation. We must have periodical rest in all the functions of our nature. Buonaparte once passed three entire days and nights without sleep, but he could no longer contend against a great law of nature, and sank to sleep on his horse. There is not a muscle in the animal economy that does not demand rest after effort, that will not have it. If it is not granted voluntarily, it will be taken. In demanding, therefore, that the animal and mental economy should be allowed a day of periodical repose, God has acted in accordance with a great law of nature.

III. A third reason why this subject demands the attention of Christians in a special manner now is, that there is a state of things in this land that is tending to obliterate the Sabbath altogether. The Sabbath has more enemies in this land than the Lords Supper, than baptism, than the Bible, than all the other institutions of religion put together. At the same time it is more difficult to meet the enemy here than anywhere else–for we come in conflict not with argument, but with interest, and pleasure, and the love of indulgence, and of gain. (A. Barnes, D. D.)

The holy day

The old principles of Mosaism, I contend, are doing duty still under higher forces in the new life in Christ. They are not abolished, only transformed. The idea of circumcision has been elevated and spiritualized into membership of the body of Christ with baptism as the sign and seal; and the whole sacrificial system has been transfigured into the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving in the Holy Communion, etc. It seems, therefore, natural to expect that so prominent and important a part of the law as the principle of devoting time to God would reappear also in a higher but yet definite form as these parts have done, that is, in fact, in the form of the Lords Day. There are two considerations which strongly support this expectation.

1. There is in the Commandment more than a Jewish ordinance. It expresses a physical law–a law of nature–and it does so most precisely. How all this suggests the beneficence of Jehovah!

2. The second suggestive consideration is the real purpose of the Sabbath as given to the slave-nation. That purpose was beneficent, from every point of view. Do you not see that in a time when men as men had no rights, this law brought a right of rest to the most helpless and defenceless? Do you not see that it imposed a check upon the greed and rapacious selfishness which is natural to those who have their fellow-creatures under their power? Without this law where would the poor slaves have been? (W. Senior, B. A.)

Reason for change of day

Now there is a grand reason for changing of the Jewish Sabbath to the Lords Day, because this puts us in mind of the mystery of our redemption by Christ. Great was the work of creation, but greater was the work of redemption. As it was said, the glory of the second temple was greater than the glory of the first temple; so the glory of the redemption was greater than the glory of the creation. Great wisdom was seen in curiously making us, but more miraculous wisdom in saving us. Great power was seen in bringing us out of nothing, but greater power in helping us when we were worse than nothing. It cost more to redeem us than to create us. In the creation there was but speaking a word; in the redeeming us, there was shedding of blood. In the creation God gave us ourselves; in the redemption He gave us Himself. By creation, we have a life in Adam; by redemption, we have a life in Christ. By creation, we had a right to an earthly paradise; by redemption, we have a title to an heavenly kingdom. So that well Christ might change the seventh day of the week into the first, because this day puts us in mind of our redemption, which is a more glorious work than the creation. (T. Watson.)

Honouring the Sabbath

Dr. Edward W. Hitchcock says: While he was minister of the American Chapel in Paris, General Grant was invited by the President of the Republic of France to occupy the grand stand at Le Grand Prix, the great day of the races, which comes on Sunday. Such an invitation from the chief magistrate of a great nation is an honour which is almost a command. But General Grant, replying in a note to the President, said in substance, It is not in accordance with the custom of my countrymen, or with the spirit of my religion, to spend Sunday in this way. I beg that you will permit me to decline the honour. Instead of accepting the invitation, he attended public worship at the American Chapel.

Sabbath breakers reproved

The late Dr. Lockhart of the College Church, Glasgow, when travelling in England, was sojourning at an inn when the Sabbath came round. On entering the public-room, and about to set out for church, he found two gentlemen preparing for a game of chess. He addressed them in words to this affect, Gentlemen, have you locked up your portmanteaus carefully? No! What! are there thieves in this house? I do not say that, replied the doctor, only I was thinking that if the waiter comes in and finds you making free with the Fourth Commandment, he may think of making free with the Eighth. The gentlemen said there was something in that, and so laid aside their game.

Benefit of keeping the Sabbath

In the Life of Frank Buckland, the eminent naturalist, who devoted himself so thoroughly to the scientific and practical study of the river and sea fisheries of Great Britain, there is the following testimony to the value of Sunday rest:–March, 1866. I am now working from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and then a bit in the evening–fourteen hours a day; but, thank God, it does not hurt me. I should, however, collapse if it were not for Sunday. The machinery has time to get cool, the mill-wheel ceases to patter the water, the mill-head is ponded up, and the superfluous water let off by an easy, quiet current, which leads to things above.

Result of a weekly rest

Tell me, said a gentleman, addressing a clean, tidy cabman, how is it that some of the men on the stand look so smart on a Monday morning–they have clean shirts, and are much happier-looking than the other men; and their horses are sprightlier, too. What is the cause of the contrast? Oh, they are six-day men, sir. They have green plates; their cabs dont run on Sundays; both men and horses have now a weekly rest. Thats the reason why they are not jaded like the others, sir.

Sabbath kept under difficulties

The Mayflower, a name now immortal, had crossed the ocean. It had borne its hundred passengers over the vast deep, and after a perilous voyage had reached the bleak shores of New England, in the beginning of winter. The spot which was to furnish a home and a burial-place was now to be selected. The shallop was unshipped, but needed repairs, and sixteen weary days elapsed before it was ready for service. Amidst ice and snow it was then sent out, with some half-a-dozen pilgrims, to find a suitable place where to land. The spray of the sea, says the historian, froze on them, and made their clothes like coats of iron. Five days they wandered about, searching in vain for a suitable landing-place. A storm came on, the snow and the rain fell, the sea swelled, the rudder broke, the mast and the sail fell overboard. In this storm and cold, without a tent, a house, or the shelter of a rock, the Christian Sabbath approached, the day which they regarded as holy unto God, a day on which they were not to do any work. What should be done? As the evening before the Sabbath drew on, they pushed over the surf, entered a fair sound, sheltered themselves under the lee of a rise of land, kindled a fire, and on that little island they spent the day in the solemn worship of their Maker. On the next day their feet touched the rock, now sacred as the place of the landing of the pilgrims. Nothing more strikingly marks the character of this people than this act, and I do not know that I could refer to a better illustration, even in their history, showing that theirs was the religion of principle, and that this religion made them what they were. (A. Barnes.)

Grief at profanation of the Sabbath

Truly it should be a matter of grief to us to see so much Sabbath profanation. When one of Darius eunuchs saw Alexander setting his feet on a rich table of Darius, he fell a-weeping; Alexander asked him why he wept? He said it was to see the table which his master so highly esteemed to be now made a footstool. So we may weep to see the Sabbath, which God so highly esteems, and has so honoured and blessed, made a footstool, and trampled upon by the feet of sinners. (T. Watson.)

Heaven seen on the Sabbath

A gentleman was once directing the attention of his friend to the objects of interest visible from his observatory. Just beyond the river, he said, is a city which on the Sabbath Day can be distinctly seen. Why, asked the friend, can it be better seen on the Sabbath than on other days? Because, was the reply, on other days the smoke from its chimneys settles about the city and hides it from sight; but on the Sabbath, when the factories are still and the smoke is gone, the city, with its glittering spires, is clearly seen. So on the Sabbath, when the smoke and dust of earth and its cares have settled away, through the clear transparent air can be distinctly seen the City of God and the pathway leading thither. (P. B. Davis.)

Bible law recognized

A motion was once made in the House of Commons for raising and embodying the militia, and, for the purpose of saving time, to exercise them on the Sabbath. When the resolution was about to pass, an old gentleman stood up, and said, Mr. Speaker, I have one objection to make to this; I believe in an old book called the Bible. The members looked at one another, and the motion was dropped.

The Sabbath appointed by God

The Governor Turnusrupis once asked Rabbi Akiba, What is this day you call the Sabbath, more than any other day? The Rabbi responded, What art thou, more than any other person? I am superior to others, he replied, because the Emperor has appointed me governor over them. Then said Akiba, The Lord our God, who is greater than your Emperor, has appointed the Sabbath day to be holier than the other days. (Talmud.)

Honouring the Sabbath

When King George III. was repairing his palace at Kew, one of the workmen, a pious man, was particularly noticed by His Majesty, and he often held conversations with him upon serious subjects. One Monday morning the king went as usual to watch the progress of the work, and not seeing this man in his customary place, inquired the reason of his absence. He was answered evasively, and for some time the other workmen avoided telling His Majesty the truth; at last, however, upon being more strictly interrogated, they acknowledged that, not having been able to complete a particular job on the Saturday night, they had returned to finish it on the following morning. This man alone had refused to comply, because he considered it a violation of the Christian Sabbath; anal in consequence of what they called his obstinacy, he had been dismissed entirely from his employment. Call him back immediately, exclaimed the good King; the man who refused doing his ordinary work on the Lords Day is the man for me. Let him be sent for. The man was accordingly replaced, and the King ever after showed him particular favour.

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT

Against profanation of the Sabbath, and

idleness on the other days of the week.

Verse 8. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.] See what has been already said on this precept, Ge 2:2, and elsewhere. See Clarke on Ge 2:2. As this was the most ancient institution, God calls them to remember it; as if he had said, Do not forget that when I had finished my creation I instituted the Sabbath, and remember why I did so, and for what purposes. The word shabbath signifies rest or cessation from labour; and the sanctification of the seventh day is commanded, as having something representative in it; and so indeed it has, for it typifies the rest which remains for the people of God, and in this light it evidently appears to have been understood by the apostle, Heb. iv. Because this commandment has not been particularly mentioned in the New Testament as a moral precept binding on all, therefore some have presumptuously inferred that there is no Sabbath under the Christian dispensation. The truth is, the Sabbath is considered as a type: all types are of full force till the thing signified by them takes place; but the thing signified by the Sabbath is that rest in glory which remains for the people of God, therefore the moral obligation of the Sabbath must continue till time be swallowed up in eternity.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

This word remember is here very emphatical; and,

1. It reminds us of a former delivery of the substance of this command, to wit, Gen 2:3.

2. It insinuates the great necessity of consideration and preparation for the sabbath before it comes,

3. It shows the singular importance of this command, which is therefore placed in the heart and centre of the rest, to show that the religious observation of this is the best way to secure our obedience to all the rest, and that the neglect of this will bring in the violation of all the other, as common experience shows.

To keep it holy, i.e. to use it holily, by a careful abstinence from servile works or worldly business, and by a diligent employing of the day in holy thoughts, words, and exercises, in the worship of God in public and private, and the celebration of his works, and the furthering of our own and others sanctification and salvation. See Isa 58:13.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

8. Remember the sabbath dayimplyingit was already known, and recognized as a season of sacred rest. Thefirst four commandments [Ex20:3-11] comprise our duties to Godthe other six [Ex20:12-17] our duties to our fellow men; and as interpreted byChrist, they reach to the government of the heart as well as the lip(Mt 5:17). “If a man dothem he shall live in them” [Lev 18:5;Neh 9:29]. But, ah! what an iffor frail and fallen man. Whoever rests his hope upon the law standsdebtor to it all; and in this view every one would be without hopewere not “the LORD OURRIGHTEOUSNESS”[Jer 23:6; Jer 33:16](Joh 1:17).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. By abstaining from all servile work and business, and from all pleasures and recreations lawful on other days, and by spending it in religious exercises, both internal and external. This the Israelites are bid to “remember”, by observing it in such a manner, because this command had been given them before at the first time the manna was rained about their tents,

Ex 16:23 and because it was a command of positive institution, and not a part of the law of nature, and therefore more liable to be forgotten and neglected; for, as a Jewish writer e observes, all the laws of the decalogue are according to the dictates of nature, the law and light of reason, and knowledge of men, excepting this: wherefore no other has this word “remember” prefixed to it; there being somewhat in the light of every man’s reason and conscience to direct and engage him in some measure to the observation of them. In what day of the week this sabbath was to be kept next follows; for all to the end of the eleventh verse belongs to this command, which is the fourth.

e Aben Ezra.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Fourth Word, “ Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy, ” presupposes an acquaintance with the Sabbath, as the expression “remember” is sufficient to show, but not that the Sabbath had been kept before this. From the history of the creation that had been handed down, Israel must have known, that after God had created the world in six days He rested the seventh day, and by His resting sanctified the day (Gen 2:3). But hitherto there had been no commandment given to man to sanctify the day. This was given for the first time to Israel at Sinai, after preparation had been made for it by the fact that the manna did not fall on the seventh day of the week (Exo 16:22). Here therefore the mode of sanctifying it was established for the first time. The seventh day was to be (a festival-keeper, see Exo 16:23), i.e., a day of rest belonging to the Lord, and to be consecrated to Him by the fact that no work was performed upon it. The command not to do any ( ) work applied to both man and beast without exception. Those who were to rest are divided into two classes by the omission of the cop. before (Exo 20:10): viz., first, free Israelites (“thou”) and their children (“ thy son and thy daughter ”); and secondly, their slaves ( man-servant and maid-servant), and cattle (beasts of draught and burden), and their strangers, i.e., foreign labourers who had settled among the Israelites. “ Within thy gates ” is equivalent to in the cities, towns, and villages of thy land, not in thy houses (cf. Deu 5:14; Deu 14:21, etc.). (a gate) is only applied to the entrances to towns, or large enclosed courts and palaces, never to the entrances into ordinary houses, huts, and tents. work (cf. Gen 2:2), as distinguished from labour, is not so much a term denoting a lighter kind of labour, as a general and comprehensive term applied to the performance of any task, whether easy or severe. is the execution of a definite task, whether in field labour (Psa 104:23) and mechanical employment (Exo 39:32) on the one hand, or priestly service and the duties connected with worship on the other (Exo 12:25-26; Num 4:47). On the Sabbath (and also on the day of atonement, Lev 23:28, Lev 23:31) every occupation was to rest; on the other feast-days only laborious occupations ( , Lev 23:7.), i.e., such occupations as came under the denomination of labour, business, or industrial employment. Consequently, not only were ploughing and reaping (Exo 34:21), pressing wine and carrying goods (Neh 13:15), bearing burdens (Jer 17:21), carrying on trade (Amo 8:5), and holding markets (Neh 13:15.) prohibited, but collecting manna (Exo 16:26.), gathering wood (Num 15:32.), and kindling fire for the purpose of boiling or baking (Exo 35:3). The intention of this resting from every occupation on the Sabbath is evident from the foundation upon which the commandment is based in Exo 20:11, viz., that at the creation of the heaven and the earth Jehovah rested on the seventh day, and therefore blessed the Sabbath-day and hallowed it. This does not imply, however, that “Israel was to follow the Lord by keeping the Sabbath, and, in imitation of His example, to be active where the Lord was active, and rest where the Lord rested; to copy the Lord in accordance with the lofty aim of man, who was created in His likeness, and make the pulsation of the divine life in a certain sense his own” ( Schultz). For although a parallel is drawn, between the creation of the world by God in six days and His resting upon the seventh day on the one hand, and the labour of man for six days and his resting upon the seventh on the other; the reason for the keeping of the Sabbath is not to be found in this parallel, but in the fact that God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because He rested upon it. The significance of the Sabbath, therefore, is to be found in God’s blessing and sanctifying the seventh day of the week at the creation, i.e., in the fact, that after the work of creation was finished on the seventh day, God blessed and hallowed the created world, filling it with the powers of peace and good belonging to His own blessed rest, and raising it to a participation in the pure light of His holy nature (see Gen 2:3). For this reason His people Israel were to keep the Sabbath now, not for the purpose of imitating what God had done, and enjoying the blessing of God by thus following God Himself, but that on this day they also might rest from their work; and that all the more, because their work was no longer the work appointed to man at the first, when he was created in the likeness of God, work which did not interrupt his blessedness in God (Gen 2:15), but that hard labour in the sweat of his brow to which he had been condemned in consequence of the fall. In order therefore that His people might rest from toil so oppressive to both body and soul, and be refreshed, God prescribed the keeping of the Sabbath, that they might thus possess a day for the repose and elevation of their spirits, and a foretaste of the blessedness into which the people of God are at last to enter, the blessedness of the eternal (Heb 4:10), the (Rev 14:13). See my Archaeologie, 77).

But instead of this objective ground for the sabbatical festival, which furnished the true idea of the Sabbath, when Moses recapitulated the decalogue, he adduced only the subjective aspect of rest or refreshing (Deu 5:14-15), reminding the people, just as in Exo 23:12, of their bondage in Egypt and their deliverance from it by the strong arm of Jehovah, and then adding, “therefore (that thou mightest remember this deliverance from bondage) Jehovah commanded thee to keep the Sabbath-day.” This is not at variance with the reason given in the present verse, but simply gives prominence to a subjective aspect, which was peculiarly adapted to warm the hearts of the people towards the observance of the Sabbath, and to render the Sabbath rest dear to the people, since it served to keep the Israelites constantly in mind of the rest which Jehovah had procured for them from the slave labour of Egypt. For resting from every work is the basis of the observance of the Sabbath; but this observance is an institution peculiar to the Old Testament, and not to be met with in any other nation, though there are many among whom the division of weeks occurs. The observance of the Sabbath, by being adopted into the decalogue, was made the foundation of all the festal times and observances of the Israelites, as they all culminated in the Sabbath rest. At the same time, as an , an ingredient in the Sinaitic law, it belonged to the “shadow of (good) things to come” (Col 2:17, cf. Heb 10:1), which was to be done away when the “body” in Christ had come. Christ is Lord of the Sabbath (Mat 12:8), and after the completion of His work, He also rested on the Sabbath. But He rose again on the Sunday; and through His resurrection, which is the pledge to the world of the fruits of His redeeming work, He has made this day the (Lord’s day) for His Church, to be observed by it till the Captain of its salvation shall return, and having finished the judgment upon all His foes to the very last shall lead it to the rest of that eternal Sabbath, which God prepared for the whole creation through His own resting after the completion of the heaven and the earth.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

Verses 8-11:

This fourth “Word” implies Israel’s previous knowledge and observance of the Sabbath. Prior to the giving of the Law, Sabbath observance appears to have been voluntary. But the giving of the Law made it mandatory, and violation of it was a capital offense, Nu 15:32-36.

God’s work of creation is the basis of the Sabbath law. The principle of one day out of seven for rest, was established in the dawn of history, Ge 2:1-3. It is true that today God’s people are not under the mandatory provisions of the Sabbath law, see Col 2:14-17. However, God has never nullified the principle of the Sabbath, which requires one day of the week devoted to prayer, worship, and rest.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

Exo 20:8

. Remember the Sabbath-day. The object of this Commandment is that believers should exercise themselves in the worship of God; for we know how prone men are to fall into indifference, unless they have some props to lean on or some stimulants to arouse them in maintaining their care and zeal for religion. Under the Second Commandment we have already indeed made some remarks on the outward profession of piety, and under the First also brief mention has been made of some festivals, inasmuch as in the passover and the offering of the first-fruits the people devoted themselves to God, as if by a solemn repetition of the covenant. Many also of the ceremonies which we have explained had an affinity to the Sabbath. Yet it is not without good cause that God has appointed a special place to the Sabbath as well as to the other festivals; and although there is a connection between the observance of the Sabbath and the tabernacle with its sacrifices, and the priesthood itself, still it was advisedly done that the festivals should be separately appointed, that by their aid the people might be the more encouraged to maintain the unity of the faith and to preserve the harmony of the Church. Meanwhile, the mutual connection between the sanctuary and the Sabbath is evident from what has been already said. God indeed would have it to be a notable symbol of distinction between the Jews and heathen nations. Whence, too, the devil, in order to asperse pure and holy religion with infamy, has often traduced the Jewish Sabbath through froward tongues. But the better to shew what there is peculiar in this Commandment, and what is its difference from the First, we must remember the spiritual substance of the type; for not only did God prescribe certain days for the holding of assemblies, in which the people might give attention to sacrifices, prayers, and the celebration of His praise; but He placed before their eyes as the perfection of sanctity that they should all cease from their works. Surely God has no delight in idleness and sloth, and therefore there was no importance in the simple cessation of the labors of their hands and feet; nay, it would have been a childish superstition to rest with no other view than to occupy their repose in the service of God. (329) Wherefore, lest we should make any mistake in the meaning of this Commandment, it is well to remember its analogy and conformity with the thing it signifies; i.e., that the Jews might know that their lives could not be approved by God unless, by ceasing from their own works, they should divest themselves of their reason, counsels, and all the feelings and affections of the flesh. For they were not forbidden without exception from the performance of every work, since they were required both to circumcise their children, and to bring the victims into the court, and to offer them in sacrifice on that day; but they were only called away from their own works, that, as if dead to themselves and to the world, they might wholly devote themselves to God. Wherefore, since God declares elsewhere by Moses, and again by Ezekiel, that the Sabbath is a sign between Him and the Jews that He sanctifies them, (Eze 31:13; Eze 20:12,) we must see what is the sum of this sanctification, viz., the death of the flesh, when men deny themselves and renounce their earthly nature, so that they may be ruled and guided by the Spirit of God.

Although this is sufficiently plain, still it will be worth while to confirm it by further statements. And first of all, that this was a ceremonial precept, Paul clearly teaches, calling it a shadow of these things, the body of which is only Christ. (Col 2:17.) But if the outward rest was nothing but a ceremony, the substance of which must be sought in Christ, it now remains to be considered how Christ actually exhibited what was then prefigured; and this the same Apostle declares, when he states that “our old man is crucified with Christ,” and that we are buried with Him, that His resurrection may be to us newness of life. (Rom 6:4.) It is to be gathered without doubt from many passages, that the keeping of the Sabbath was a serious matter, since God inculcates no other commandment more frequently, nor more strictly requires obedience to any; and again, when He complains that He is despised, and that the Jews have fallen into extreme ungodliness, He simply says that His “Sabbaths are polluted,” as if religion principally consisted in their observance. (Jer 17:24; Eze 20:21.) Moreover, if there had not been some peculiar excellency in the Sabbath, (330) it might have appeared to be an act of atrocious injustice to command a man to be put to death for cutting wood upon it. (Num 15:32.) Wherefore it must be concluded that the substance of the Sabbath, which Paul declares to be in Christ, must have been no ordinary good thing. Nor does its excellency require much eulogium, since spiritual rest is nothing else than the truly desirable and blessed death of man, which contains in it the life of God, even as Paul glories that he is as it were dead, because Christ liveth in him. (Gal 2:20.) The Apostle in the epistle to the Hebrews argues more subtilely, that true rest is brought to us by the Gospel, and that it is rejected by unbelievers, (Heb 4:3😉 for although he mixes up some allegorical matter with it, he still retains the genuine reason of the Commandment, viz., that we should rest from our works “even as God from His.” (Heb 4:10.) On this ground Isaiah, when he reproves the hypocrites for insisting only on the external ceremony of rest, accuses them of “finding their own pleasure” on the Sabbath, (Isa 58:13😉 as much as to say, that the legitimate use of the Sabbath must be supposed to be self-renunciation, since he is in fact accounted to cease from his works who is not led by his own will nor indulges his own wishes, but who suffers himself to be directed by the Spirit of God. And this emptying out of self must proceed so far that the Sabbath is violated even by good works, so long as we regard them as our own; for rightly does Augustin remark in the last chapter of the 22d book, De Civitate Dei, (331) — “ For even our good works themselves, since they are understood to be rather His than ours, are thus imputed to us for the attaining of that Sabbath, when we are still and see that He is God; (332) for, if we attribute them to ourselves, they will be servile, whereas we are told as to the Sabbath, Thou shalt not do any servile work in it.”

Next it is asked, why God rather assigned every seventh day to the Sabbath rather than the sixth or tenth. Because the number seven often represents perfection in Scripture, some have thought that believers were thus reminded that they must strive after perfect holiness with all their might, and not devote themselves to God by halves only. Others elicit a different meaning from it, although not a contrary one, that believers were taught that although they might be sanctified and laboring in all sincerity to cease from their own life, still some remainders of the flesh would continue in them, and therefore that through the whole course of their life they must aspire to that holiness which no mortal attains. I do not, however, doubt but that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, that He might give a manifestation of the perfect excellency of His works, and thus, proposing Himself as the model for our imitation, He signifies that He calls His own people to the true goal of felicity. Although a promise is included in this Commandment, yet will we observe upon it separately, and as if by the way. He promises indeed that as He blessed the seventh day and set it apart, so He will bless believers to sanctify them. But the main point is the command, and the recital of the blessing is equivalent to an exhortation to obedience, since otherwise it would be inappropriately placed here amongst the Commandments of the Law. When I said that the ordinance of rest was a type of a spiritual and far higher mystery, and hence that this Commandment must be accounted ceremonial, I must not be supposed to mean that it had no other different objects also. And certainly God took the seventh day for His own and hallowed it, when the creation of the world was finished, that He might keep His servants altogether free from every care, for the consideration of the beauty, excellence, and fitness of His works. There is indeed no moment which should be allowed to pass in which we are not attentive to the consideration of the wisdom, power, goodness, and justice of God in His admirable creation and government of the world; but, since our minds are fickle, and apt therefore to be forgetful or distracted, God, in His indulgence providing against our infirmities, separates one day from the rest, and commands that it should be free from all earthly business and cares, so that nothing may stand in the way of that holy occupation. On this ground He did not merely wish that people should rest at home, but that they should meet in the sanctuary, there to engage themselves in prayer and sacrifices, and to make progress in religious knowledge through the interpretation of the Law. In this respect we have an equal necessity for the Sabbath with the ancient people, so that on one day we may be free, and thus the better prepared to learn and to testify our faith. A third object of the Sabbath is also stated by Moses, but an accidental one as it were, viz., that it may be a day of relaxation for servants. Since this pertains to the rule of charity, it has not properly any place in the First Table, and is therefore added by Moses as an extrinsic advantage, as will be seen a little further on.

8. Remember the Sabbath-day. The word keep is used in Deuteronomy with the same meaning. Hence we infer that it is no trifling matter here in question, since God enforces the sanctity of the Sabbath by these two words, and exhorts the Jews to its scrupulous observance, thus condemning carelessness about it as a transgression. Moreover, when He says, “Six days shalt thou labor,” He indirectly reproves their ingratitude, if it should be irksome and disagreeable to them, to devote one day out of the seven to God, when He in His generosity gives up six to themselves. For he does not, as some have foolishly thought, make a demand here for six days’ labor; but by His very kindness entices them to obedience, since He only claims a seventh part (of their time) for Himself — as if He had said, Since you cannot be instant in seeking me with all your affection and attention, at any rate give up to me some little undistracted time. Therefore, He says, “all thy work,” whereby He signifies that they have plenty of time, exclusive of the Sabbath, for all their business.

(329) “ Sans autre regard que servir a Dieu en se reposant.” — Fr.

(330) “ S’il n’y eust eu quelque mystere excellent, et singulier;” if there had not been some excellent and peculiar mystery, etc. — Fr.

(331) The heading of this 30 chapter is, — “Of the Eternal Felicity of the City of God, and the Perpetual Sabbath.”

(332) Psa 46:10, “ Vacate, et videte quoniam ego sum Deus.” — V. “Be still, and know that I am God.” — A. V.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL NOTES.

Exo. 20:8. Before Me.] That is, in presence of Me: suggesting that the Divine presence in Israel would greatly aggravate the sin of idolatryunder the circumstances, the worship of idols would be an affront committed to Jehovahs face. The expression may admonish us that a due sense of the Divine presence is the great safeguard against idolatry.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Exo. 20:8-11

THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT

It is not the original institution of the Sabbath which is here referred to. The Jews are simply reminded of an institution which is actually in existence. This is clearly implied in the word Remember. To remember a thing, it is necessary that we should have some previous knowledge of it. We are, therefore, carried back to the original institution of the Sabbath (Gen. 2:2-3).

Some say Moses was speaking anticipatively in this passage. They contend that the Sabbath was not instituted until the law-was given on Sinai. It was peculiarly a Jewish institution; consequently it came to an end with the Jewish dispensation, and is, therefore, no longer binding. That this view is utterly false is evident from the following considerations:

1. The language of the textRemember. This implies some familiarity with the Sabbath on the part of the persons addressed.
2. It is recorded in sacred history that the Sabbath was regarded as a Divine institution, and observed as a day of peculiar sacredness before the law was given (Exo. 16:22-28).

3. This is a precept of the MORAL LAW. Moral duties can never be temporary. Nor can the application of a moral law be restricted to any particular nation. Dispensations may change or pass away, but man remains a moral being in all ages and countries; and those laws which relate to his moral nature must ever abide in full force. If the Fourth Commandment is not binding upon us, neither are the rest.

I. The design of the Sabbath. Two ideas are invariably associated with this dayrest and sanctity. It is intended to serve two great purposes:

1. A day of rest from physical toil. On this day God rested (Gen. 2:2; Exo. 31:17). So man is to rest. On this day there should be a general cessation from labour. Ordinary work must be laid aside, and only that which is necessary performed. This provision applies to the animals which serve man (Exo. 23:12; Deu. 5:14). Is not this day of rest a wise and benevolent appointment? We greatly undervalue it. What would be our condition without a Sabbath? Every workshop, business mart, and commercial exchange open. Hand at it. Brain at it. Pen at it. One monotonous round of work, with no break in the weary march. Can we conceive of anything more dreary? How would this no Sabbath tell upon the physical constitution? Let facts give the answer. How is the Sabbath observed as a day of rest? In some departments of activity it is difficult to distinguish it from other daysspecially true of places of refreshment, public conveyances, &c. The following statistics throw a flood of light on the question:100,000 men are employed on Sundays on our railways; another 100,000 on rivers, steamboats, and canals; 250,000 in public-houses and beer-shops; 24,000 in connection with cabs, omnibuses, and tramways in London alone, and 20,000 in the Post-office.

2. A day of holy employment. Mark the injunction: Keep it holy. (See also Deu. 5:12; Isa. 58:13-14). It is to be a day of rest, but not a day of idleness. The time taken from secular employments must be devoted to holy pursuits.

II. What is the practical religious value of the Sabbath?

1. It is a perpetual reminder of spiritual things. It makes men think of God, keeps eternity before then. &c.

2. It is a great conservative of good, and a powerful barrier against evil. As things are now, the moral condition of the country is dreadful. What would it be if we had no Sabbath? Some advocate the opening of museums, picture-galleries, &c. To this I offer most resolute and unqualified opposition. I do so for three reasons:

(1.) The opening of such places is quite unnecessary. As an age of books. Books are plentiful and cheap. Working men get good wages, and can afford to buy them. They work short hours, and so have time to read them. They have frequent holidays, and may visit museums, &c., without encroaching on the Lords day.

(2.) It would entail labour upon others. It is unjust to compel one portion of the community to work on Sunday merely to gratify the whims and tastes of another portion.

(3.) The purpose served by these institutions is not a spiritual one, and is, therefore, unsuited to the character of this holy day. They instruct and elevate the mind, but do not purify the moral nature.

III. The duty and privilege of keeping this day. As a duty, it is binding upon us in a threefold sense.

1. It is a duty we owe to God. He made the Sabbath. He commands us to keep it.

2. It is a duty we owe to ourselves. As a day of rest it is essential to the highest condition of physical health. As a day of holy meditation and worship, it is essential to our spiritual education and growth.

3. It is a duty we owe to our fellow-men. You cannot violate the Sabbath without influencing your brother to do the same. Perhaps you directly compel him to labour for your pleasure. A privilege. It is a great privilege to be permitted to rest from exhausting toil. It is a still greater privilege to be able to devote an entire day to the interests of the soul. A Sabbath rightly spent is a foretaste of heaven; it exalts us into intimate communion with God, and elevates the whole tone of our life.George Brooks.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Exo. 20:8-11. As a social institution, the Sunday imposes upon us an obligation to keep it as free as possible from ordinary work; but as a religious institution it does not so much impose obligation as offer privilege. The great question we have to ask, in relation to any possible infraction of its religious sanctions is not, Shall I by doing this break a law? but, Shall I by this miss a blessing? Every thing will fall into its right place, and every question will receive its true answer, if we once seize the true idea of the day. It is a day to rejoice in; a day not of bondage, but of freedom; not of gloom, but of gladness; a day in which we declare that we are not merely merchants, mechanics, shopkeepers, and lawyers, but menchildren of God and heirs of immortality; a day in which we assert our position as the rulers and lords of the material universe, and refuse to be in thraldom to it, and in which we claim to be the citizens of an invisible and Divine commonwealth. It perpetuates the memory not of our rescue from slavery in Egypt, but of a still nobler redemption. It bears witness to the resurrection of Christ; and to our resurrection with Himit is an Easter Day in every week. It reminds us, not of the completion of the Old Creation, but of the commencement of the New; in which at last the sins and sorrows which have marred and desolated the fair beauty of this world shall be known no more; but in which the glory of God shall be mans inheritance, because in the life of man the life of God shall be perfectly manifested; and in this weekly rest, which has not been imposed upon us by any external law, but demanded and won by an inward spiritual instinct, we anticipate the blessedness of the new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness shall dwellthe everlasting Sabbath of the regenerated and glorified sons of God.R. W. Dale.

ILLUSTRATIONS

BY
THE REV. WILLIAM ADAMSON

Sabbath-Symbolism! Exo. 20:8. The Sabbath is coeval with Paradise. Both date their existence from the first week of time, and both bear the impress of an unfallen world. There is meet harmony between the two. Hence they stand together on the same page of the Bible, and are linked inseparably together in our recollections of mans primeval condition. As we cast our eyes backwards, they are seen shining like twin stars in the morning sky of the world, giving promise of a refulgent day. Venerable, beneficent, and holy, the Sabbath is the link between the Paradise which has passed away and the Paradise which is yet to come.

Where that innumerable throng
Of saints and angels mingle song;
Where, wrought with hands, no temples rise,
For God Himself their place supplies;
Nor priests are needed in the abode
Where the whole hosts are priests to God;
Think what a Sabbath there shall be,
The Sabbath of eternity!Grinfield.

Sabbath-Slaughter! Exo. 20:8. One morning, a happy cheerful Christian was on his way to the house of God. He was a singular man, prone to do things which others called eccentric; but his readiness of thought often proved of great service. As he walked joyfully along the way to the sanctuary, he encountered a man driving a heavily-loaded waggon through the town. No sooner had be encountered the cart than he suddenly stopped, turned around, and, lifting up both hands in horror, he exclaimed, as he grazed under the waggon. Oh! you have gone right over the child. The driver was frightened, brought up his horses with a jerk, and then looked down with pallid face under the wheels. He expected to find a little mangled body, but he observed nothing. Perplexed, he looked to the man who had so strangely arrested his attention, and anxiously exclaimed, What have I gone over? The fourth of Gods ten offspring. Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy.

Day fixed by God for intercourse with dust,
To raise our thoughts and purify our powers,
Periods appointed to renew our trust;
A gleam of glory after six days showers!Barton.

Sabbath-Steadfastness! Exo. 20:8.

(1) Recently, the Queens bandmaster required the members to attend rehearsal on Sunday, on account of some special performances before Her Majesty. Two Germans refused to desecrate the Lords Day, and were dismissed by the master without the knowledge of the Queen. The Bishop of London heard of the incident and reported it to Her Majesty, who, on the day of performance, inquired for the absentees. The bandmaster acknowledged the dismissal, whereupon the Queen ordered their instant restoration, declaring that none in her service should suffer for remembering the Lords day to keep it holy.

(2) In New York, an esteemed clerk was required by the manager of the bank to attend next day (Sunday), and help to make up the back work. As a Christian he could not comply. The president threatened him with dismissal, but to no purpose. He steadily refused to forget the Sabbath day, and was dismissed. Some time after, when a new branch was opened, the president was asked to recommend a thoroughly trustworthy manager. He at once nominated the clerk whom he had dismissed, and the nomination was sanctioned. He felt the force of sterling Christian principle displayed in so praiseworthy a manner.

Let us say to the world, should it tempt us to wander,

As Abraham said to his men on the plain,

Theres the mountain of prayer, I am going up yonder,

And tarry yon here till I seek you again.

Edmeston.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

(8) Remember the sabbath day.It is pertinent to remark that this command is introduced differently from any other by the word remember. But we cannot, therefore, conclude that the Sabbath was a primitive institution, which the Israelites were bound to have held in perpetual remembrance, since the reference may be merely to the injunction recently given in connection with the gathering of the manna. (Exo. 16:23). The Sabbath had certainly been at that time solemnly instituted, if no earlier. (See Note on. Exo. 16:25.)

To keep it holy.It had been already noted that the rest of the Sabbath was to be a holy rest (Exo. 16:23); but it is not quite clear what was intended by this. For the most part, the Law insists on abstinence from labour as the main element of Sabbath observance (Exo. 16:23-30; Exo. 20:9-11; Exo. 23:12; Exo. 34:21; Exo. 35:2-3; Deu. 5:12-15, &c.); and it can scarcely be said to prescribe anything positive with respect to the religious employment of the day. That the morning and evening sacrifice were to be doubled might indeed suggest to a religiously-minded Israelite that hisown religious exercises and devotions should also be augmented; but the Law made no such requirement. His attendance at the morning and evening sacrifice was not required nor expected. No provision was made for his receiving religious teaching on the day; no special offerings were required from him upon it. The day became one of languid bodily ease, relaxation, and luxury to the bulk of the later Jews (Augustin. Enarr. in Psalms 91); but probably there were always some whom natural piety taught that, in the absence of their ordinary employments, it was intended they should devote themselves to prayer and communion with Godto meditation on high and holy themes, such as His mercies in past time, His character, attributes, revelations of Himself, government of the world, dealings with men and nations. Thus only could the day be really kept holy, with a positive, and not a mere negative, holiness.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT, Exo 20:8-11.

8. Remember the sabbath day The word remember here cannot properly be pressed to mean the recalling it to mind, as if something old, and, for that reason, liable to be forgotten . It cannot be fairly adduced as a proof that the Sabbath was observed by the patriarchs . It means rather: Be ever mindful to observe the day . In the parallel in Deuteronomy (Exo 20:12) we find the word keep employed instead of remember . So in Exo 13:3, Moses says to the people: “Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt.” Nevertheless, the word may well have suggested that the Sabbath was an ancient institution and worthy to be remembered, and this is specifically brought forward in Exo 20:11. See also note on Exo 16:23. As the word sabbath means rest, so the main idea associated with it in the Scriptures is that of cessation from ordinary labour. See further on Exo 20:10.

Keep it holy That is, treat it as sacred, hallow it. This is the positive side of the commandment, whereas the negative comes out more clearly in Exo 20:10. The Israelites were wont to sanctify the Sabbath day by offering double offerings, (Num 28:9-10,) and by renewal of the twelve cakes of show-bread in the tabernacle . Lev 24:5-9. It would appear from 2Ki 4:23, that at a later time the people were accustomed to resort to the prophets on the Sabbath to obtain instruction.

The adaptation of such a day of rest and devotion to cultivate the spiritual nature is evident.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Exo 20:8. Remember the sabbath-day, &c. Remember the day of rest, to keep it holy] “Let that day still, as usual, be considered as a day set apart and sanctified to my service;” (Jer 21:14.) and that in such manner as follows; Exo 20:9-10 and for the reason given, Exo 20:11. The manner in which this commandment is introduced seems plainly to shew, that this was no new commandment; though one, certainly, of so high importance to religion, so just and reasonable in itself, that it well deserved to be placed in the first rank of the duties which men owe to GOD. It is also observable, that the reason assigned (Exo 20:11.) for this law of the sabbath is not peculiar to the Jews, but appropriated to all mankind, who are equally concerned to commemorate the work of creation, and to adore the Almighty Creator. We have before delivered it as our opinion, that the sabbath, instituted from the very birth of the world, continued to be regularly observed by the people of GOD; see the notes on Gen 2:3 and Exo 16:23. We must not however dissemble, that some commentators understand the word remember in a different sense; observing, that the other commandments, carrying their own reason along with them, are delivered in a peremptory stile; but this, being a positive institution, is introduced with a remember: but, in answer to this, we might ask, whether the commandment to honour that GOD who has given us all our time, with some part of it, does not carry its own reason with it, as much as the prohibition of making any images or pictures to represent the Deity? It is very evident, when Moses repeats the law, Deuteronomy 5 and adds a new reason for the Israelites’ observation of the sabbath; that he considers the keeping of the sabbath as a matter already well known and allowed; and certainly, in a moral view, no institution can be conceived more useful and humane, more advantageous to man, and more beneficial to all the true interests of religion. Houbigant observes, that “the word rendered remember is perfectly just here, because the sabbath had been from a long period held sacred, as many learned men remark. And we justly collect from the 11th verse (where we read that the Lord blessed the sabbath-day, and sanctified it) that the sabbath had been held sacred from the very infancy of the world.”

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

These verses contain the fourth commandment. This is among the earliest precepts of God. Gen 2:3 . And how much more ought its observance to be endeared to us, since the resurrection of the Lord Jesus! Mat 28:1 ; Luk 24:1 . I detain the Reader just to add, how highly the due observance of this holy day is esteemed of God, may be seen, Isa 58:13-14 . How sweet the thought of the everlasting sabbath above! Heb 4:9 ; Rev 4:11Rev 4:11 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

XVI

THE DECALOGUE FOURTH COMMANDMENT

Exo 20:8-11 ; Deu 5:12-15

We now study the Fourth Commandment. I take up the questions in their order.

1. What is the relation of the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Commandment?

Ans. In the First Commandment we are commanded to worship Jehovah and none other; in the Second Commandments we are commanded to worship directly and not through intervention of anything; in the Third we are commanded to worship Jehovah sincerely, not falsely; and in the Fourth Commandment we are directed to worship Jehovah, as to time, in the regular period set apart. The four enjoin worship, direct, sincere, and when.

2. Repeat the Fourth Commandment.

Ans. 1 quote three accounts. In Exo 20:8-11 , it reads: “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is a sabbath unto Jehovah thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore Jehovah blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Deu 5:12-15 , where Moses recapitulates: “Observe the sabbath day, to keep it holy, as Jehovah thy God commanded thee. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is a sabbath unto Jehovah thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and Jehovah thy God brought thee out thence by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore Jehovah thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.” The other account is in Exo 16:22-26 , preceding both of these others; “And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one: and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. And he said unto them, This is that which Jehovah hath spoken, To-morrow is a solemn rest, a holy sabbath unto Jehovah: bake that which ye will bake, and boil that which ye will boil; and all that remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning. And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade: and it did not become foul, neither was there any worm therein. And Moses said, Eat that to-day; for to-day is a sabbath unto Jehovah; to-day ye shall not find it in the field. Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day is the sabbath, in it there shall be none.”

In these three scriptures the sabbath is connected with the creation, with the manna and with the deliverance from Egypt.

3. Considering subsequent legislation and history, give an analysis of the Fourth Commandment, and explain and give an answer to each item of the analysis.

Ans. This ends the questions, but this third question has twenty-four subquestions in it, and each is a big one. We will give the analysis and then discuss it: (1) Its name; (2) Its authority; (3) Its sanctity; (4) Its duties; (5) Its reasons; (6) Its commemorations; (7) Its anticipations; (8) Its time; (9) Its signification; (10) Its cycle; (II) Its festivals and offerings; (12) Its exceptions; (13) Its rewards for observance; (14) Its penalties for nonobservance; (15) Its preparation; (10) Its profanations (notable cases of weekly sabbaths) ; (17) Its remarkable judgment case of land sabbaths; (18) Its song; (19) Its cessation in prophecy; (20) Its abrogation in fact; (21) Its Christian successor; (22) Its successor the argument for, scriptural and historical; (23) Its enemies today; (24) Its final antitype. That is the analysis; and it takes into account subsequent sabbatic legislation and subsequent sabbatic history. We take:

4. Its name and meaning?

Ans. “Sabbath,” which is merely an English translation of the Hebrew word sabbaton and that means “rest,” a period of rest.

5. Its authority?

Ans. Jehovah appointed it, preceded both by example and by precept.

6. Its sanctity?

Ans. Jehovah blessed and hallowed it. Its holy nature comes from God’s blessing and hallowing. Therefore in many of the scriptures the name of it is the “holy sabbath.”

7. Its duties?

Ans. These are (a) to work six days. It is impossible for me to magnify the dignity of labor. It is a great misconception to hold that work comes from sin; it preceded sin. When God made man and gave him his commission, he gave him a working commission, viz.: to subdue the earth; when he put Adam in the garden before sin he told him to dress the garden and to keep it, keep it in trust. So that labor is one of the things that comes from the other side of the fall of man; that is the first duty work. It drives a spear through the heart of the lazy man; it drives the nonworker away from the table. Paul said, “If a man won’t work, neither shall he eat.” (b) The second duty is rest on the seventh day. Labor on that day was to be suspended; it is suspended for you, your wife, your sons, your daughters, your servants, and your cattle. There is a reason for this which we will consider under the next head. The (c) third reason is for religious instruction. God commanded Moses that on each one of the cycle of sabbaths when they got over into the Promised Land, the whole nation should come together, men, women, and children, and that they should be instructed in all the teachings of God’s Word. (d) The next thing is worship, which is a different kind of rest; a cessation from physical labor gives rest to the body, worshiping God gives rest to the soul. No man has soul rest that does not worship God. Another (e) duty is that of offerings. I have not time to discuss these; you will find in Numbers and particularly in Leviticus the offerings that are to be made on the sabbath day, and on the whole cycle of sabbaths; there they are specified. So that you now see what are its duties: work, rest, instruction, worship, and offerings.

8. What are its reasons?

Ans. It could not be a moral law unless there was a reason underlying it. (a) On account of its relation to God. Man is related to God; he is God created, and after redemption be is God’s redeemed one. Now it is essential that the man should always be sensible of that highest relation, that paramount relation. But if there be no particular time when that relation is to be considered, that man is a wreck. Whenever you find a man that has no sabbath, you find a man that has no sensibility of his relation to God. (b) In relation to the man upon whom the commandment rests. In the nature of the physical man, inherently, there is a necessity for periods of rest. That this relation is inherent is evident from the testimony of people who are not considered themselves witnesses for religion. They say of it: “If the mind just keeps right on, work, work, work, and does not stop, that man will snap, break.” It is not only true of the mind, but it is true also of the body; it is not only true of the body, but it is true of the ax with which you cut down a tree. Take a steam engine and engineers will tell you that the engine which is run every day, and is not laid off, will not last. Even a steam engine calls for a sabbath day. The reason, I say, is inherent in the man, and means a different relation, which is highest of all relations, the paramount relation that man should be kept close to God. Suppose that he never gets more than six days from him, you can always call that fellow back; but where he gets a year away, or twenty years away, then it is very hard to ever get him back. Another reason is, (c) toward his fellow men is a relation; we are related to our fellow men. For instance, if I own a factory and employ my fellow men to work in that factory, I have no right to take advantage of their necessity and make them work on Sunday. The laborer must rest; the slave must rest; and God says, “Remember that you were under taskmasters in Egypt; that then you knew no sabbath, and how hard that made your bondage. Now let the thought of your fellow man come into your mind when you remember this day; that servant needs rest; that ox which you are working to the wagon, and that horse that you are ploughing with six days needs a rest.” So that the reasons of the sabbath arise from relations to God, to man, and are inherent in our fellow man and in the lower creatures, (d) Included in the idea of our fellow man comes the social idea, or relation to society, since man is made a social being. Now, if society becomes so corrupt that it rots, then it becomes a stench to heaven; this is true wherever there is no sabbath. The whole body politic becomes corrupt. In his Colonial history, Bancroft describes a certain community in Vermont. It is the most remarkable historical testimony I ever read. He says that a visit to the community would impress forever any man that was susceptible to impression as to the observance of the sabbath; the godliness of the community, the respect that the children have for their parents; the absence of jails, the needlessness of sheriffs; a little paradise, (e) As I have shown, we sustain a relation to lower creatures.

9. Its commemorations?

Ans. From the three scriptures I read, you will notice (a) God’s rest after the creation of the world, Gen 2:2 ; (b) God’s giving of the manna, which was to be the food of his people, Exo 16:25-31 ; (c) God’s deliverance of his people from bondage, Deu 5:15 . These three stupendous thoughts of the past would rise up like mountain peaks whenever they took a retrospective glance. God wrote that “in six days he created the heavens and the earth, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day.” When his people were in bondage he gave them freedom. He delivered them. When they were in the wilderness and hungry he gave them bread, bread from heaven, a miracle that lasted forty years.

10. Its anticipation?

Ans. It not only commemorates past events, but it looks forward to a great event, viz.: Rest in the Promised Land. On their pilgrimage and in the wilderness they looked back at the creation and the deliverance, and anticipated the end of their pilgrimage, where, in the Promised Land, they should have rest and peace.

11. Its time?

Ans. The seventh day: hebdomos. The seventh day does not necessarily mean the sabbath: sabbaton means sabbath. Hebdomos was the time, the seventh day.

12. Of what is it a sign, or what does it signify?

Ans. In Exo 31:13 ; Exo 31:16-17 , and Eze 20:12 ; Eze 20:20 , the sign is brought out very clearly. “This sabbath shows the covenant between you and me, as a sign to you that you are with Jehovah under covenant relations.” The seventh day sabbath was the God-appointed sign of the national covenant with Jehovah.

13. Its cycle?

Ans. There were seventh day sabbaths, or weekly sabbaths; lunar, or monthly sabbaths; annual sabbaths, i.e., sabbaths that came only once a year, e.g., the Passover, Pentecost, and the Tabernacle sabbath; the land sabbaths, or the seventh year sabbaths. Every seventh year the land must rest. They were not to put a plow in it all during that time; if anything was produced voluntarily they took that, and they took that seventh year, which would have been devoted to business, and came up to Jerusalem and spent it there entirely, with all the men, women, and children; and if they were afraid to leave their homes from the most distant parts of the territory of the Promised Land, then they were to remember that as they left, Jehovah would be its guard, and solemnly assured them that if they in faith left that field uncultivated and went up to spend an entire year in a great big Bible study, that he would keep the enemies off and the wolf of starvation from their door. But the cycle is not complete yet. There was the fiftieth year sabbath, called the Jubilee:

Blow ye the trumpet, blow:

The Jubilee has come. When seven times seven years have passed away, and you have given God a seventh of the week, and the thirtieth of the month, and a part of the year, and the seventh year; when you come to the end of the forty-ninth year, which is a land year, the whole land must give another year, called Jubilee year; and the object of that Jubilee is to hedge against alienation of title to property, restoration of bond-servants to freedom, to prevent land monopolies. You could not sell a piece of land, you could only give a lease on it, till the end of the forty-ninth year; and if you were within six months of the Jubilee, you could not lease it for more than six months. But when the Jubilee comes, it reverts back to the original owner. What a pity the politicians could not look at this thing in avoiding the land laws! What a tremendous gang of greedy men, that according to Isaiah, sins against God, by adding land to land, house to house, until there is no room for the people. What then is the cycle? Weekly sabbaths, monthly sabbaths, annual sabbaths, the land sabbath, or every seventh year, and the Jubilee, or fiftieth year sabbath. That is the cycle.

14. What are its festivals and offerings?

Ans. In connection with the sabbath there was a feast, the weekly festival; it means a time for a feast; there was a weekly feast, a monthly feast, three annual feasts, lasting quite a while, e.g., the Passover feast. They had the Passover day and then had the Passover feast, which lasted a week; and they had the Pentecost proper, followed by the Feast of Pentecost. All these things you learn in Leviticus, but we will come to that later.

15. What are its exceptions?

Ans. The law says that on the seventh day thou shalt do no work, neither thyself, thy children, thy servants, nor thy beasts. Is that law absolute, or has it exceptions? Among the exceptions are certainly the following, which are referred to repeatedly by our Lord and discussed in the subsequent legislation. We take up first the sheep and the ox. It is the sabbath day. You are to do no work; and you hear a sheep bleating or an ox bellowing, and you go out and find the ox or the sheep in a ditch. There is a commandment: “Thou shalt do no work,” forbidding you to take that poor suffering sheep out of the ditch. But in mercy and kindness to animals you take him out. Next you bring your old plowhorse up on Saturday night and hitch him in the stall; it is a quarter of a mile to the tank and it is Sunday. “Water my horse today? No, I must do no work on the sabbath day.” Jesus says, “You go, take that horse and water it on the sabbath day.” That is a necessity to him; the other was a mercy. Next, “thou shalt do no work.” Shall not the priest that offers the sacrifices work in getting these sacrifices ready? Yes; that does not alter it. Jesus said, “Do you not see that the priests work on the sabbath day?” which is the hardest workday the preacher has; he is working as he ministers to God’s people. We take up another case: The law of circumcision says that on the eighth day this child shall be circumcised. So if that comes on the sabbath day, you circumcise it. Another exception is the sabbath day’s journey. The camp of Israel is afterward described as being in such a position that the farthest tribe, if you measure from the center where the tabernacle stood to the most distant corner, it amounted to as much as about one-eighth of a mile; that is a sabbath day’s journey. In other words, you may travel from your place to your appointment, your sabbath day’s journey may be 100 miles, but don’t you go on business on Sunday. So that we have found quite a number of exceptions touching mercy and necessity and the performance of duties otherwise required like circumcision and the work of the priests.

16. Its rewards for observance?

Ans. These are scattered over the Bible. We have some beautiful accounts of these rewards in Isa 46:2 ; Isa 46:4-7 , where it talks about the poor outlaw and the stranger; if he shall at heart enter into God’s covenant, shall keep God’s sabbaths, he goes on to tell then of the rewards that God shall give him; that if in his heart he desires to honor God by keeping that day for him; if he follows, if he shall observe that day, then God blesses him. As an old proverb has it: “A Sabbath well spent brings a week of content.”

17. Its penalty for nonobservance?

Ans. For nonobservance of the week day sabbath the penalty was death or other judgments.

18. The preparation of the sabbath?

Ans. A man cannot keep a day holy without making preparation for it. Suppose that fellow that went out to get sticks to make a little fire had gathered his sticks the day before. Now, whatever you can do the day before, you must; just think that the sabbath is coming tomorrow; therefore the gathering today of twice as much manna as they did on the ordinary day. Prepare your work.

19. Its profanations?

Ans. The book of Numbers tells us of a man who went out to gather sticks on the sabbath day and he was stoned to death for labor on the sabbath day. In Neh 10 we have an account of those who bought and sold on the sabbath day. They were expelled from the covenant, and excommunication was inflicted upon those guilty; and so was the penalty for the cycle of sabbaths like the lunar sabbaths and the annual sabbaths: “The soul that will not come up to the Passover shall be cut off from his people,” excommunicated.

20. Its judgment in case of land sabbaths?

Ans. Now we come to consider the penalty for the nonobservance of the land sabbath, which is recorded in 2Ch 36:21 . Jeremiah made a prophecy because for 490 years during the period of the monarchy they had disregarded this law. He says, “You have not given the sabbaths to the land; therefore you shall go into captivity for seventy years, and the land shall have its sabbath.” Amo 8 brings out a penalty on those who profane God’s sabbath, who draw a long breath and say, “Oh, when will this Sunday pass away? I want to get to business. I am tired of all this religious instruction; I want to go fishing, hunting, etc.”

21. Its song?

Ans. Psa 92:1-15 . This psalm was written expressly for the sabbath day.

22. Its cessation in prophecy?

Ans. The cessation of the whole cycle in prophecy is found in Hos 2:11 , yea, a dozen prophecies are made that the entire sabbatic cycle shall cease. God says, “I will cause to cease,” and mentions the weekly, lunar, and annual sabbaths, saying, “they shall cease.”

23. Its abrogation in fact?

Ans. You find proof of the abrogation of the Mosaic sabbaths in the letter to the Colossians (Col 2:14 ), where Paul says that all of them, and exactly those mentioned in Hosea weekly, lunar) annual they are all nailed to the cross of Christ, and taken out of the way. That is the abrogation.

24. Its Christian successor?

Ans. The first day of the week, or the Lord’s Day, not the hebdomadal, seventh day of the week.

25. What is the argument for its successor?

Ans. It is both scriptural and historical. Those of you who will read the last sermon in the author’s first volume of sermons will find my argument at length, but I will give the substance of it very rapidly. Jehovah says Jehovah of the Old Testament that he is Lord of the sabbath; that the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath. The sabbath was made for man as man and not for the Jew alone. The sabbath given on Mount Sinai was part of the national covenant with the Israelite nation, to one people, but long before Moses was the sabbath of the creation and rest; not long before Sinai the manna fell; long before Abraham was called, the fall came. God gave man, the first man, a sabbaton; the seventh day commemorated that; the seventh day commemorated the manna; the seventh day commemorated the deliverance from Egypt. Now Jesus is Lord of the sabbath. He does not change the sabbath; but he changes the day of the sabbath, which is substantially: Jesus is the antitype. Joshua was to give them rest; Joshua did not give them rest. Jesus gives them the rest. God created the world; the seventh day sabbath commemorated that. Jesus redeemed the world; the first day of the week commemorates that. As we learn from Heb 4 , Jesus also rested from his work, as God did from his. Therefore there remaineth a keeping of the sabbath to the child of God. Secondly, when Jesus had abrogated, nailed to his cross, the Mosaic sabbath, and rested, from that day instantly they began to observe another day. Five times we read that “on the first day of the week” he appeared to his disciples and in all of these to at least seventy people; on that day the Spirit came; on that day the disciples assembled break bread, to pray, to keep the Lord’s Supper, as you learn from Act 2 , on that day, according to the habit and custom of the churches, Paul gave commandment that collections should be taken; on that day, in banishment of the Lord’s Day, John was in the Spirit. The citations from history you will find in that volume of sermons.

26. Its enemies today?

Ans. The enemies today are indeed very formidable; they have allied themselves with so many things that are good. It is a good thing to have a stock show, a fair, but it is bad to have an open door on Sunday and things exhibited that are indecent to the eye and to the moral life, as horse racing and gambling. Such are the oppositions. I have not time to go into the discussion of the battles with these enemies.

27. What is its final antitype?

Ans. Let us labor to enter into that rest, not the promised land on earth with its metes and boundaries, but the Promised Land in heaven, where is no war and all is rest forever. Oh, land of rest, for thee I sigh, When will the moment come When I shall lay my armour by, And rest with Christ at home?

ADDED QUESTIONS Is it right for a man living five miles out of town to drive to church on Sunday with a horse used all the week?

Ans. We must consider two things: (a) Man greater than the beast; man must go to church. Can he and his family walk ten miles, or five and back, regularly? Some would have to stay at home. (b) I have never read of a horse dying while taking a family to church. They generally carry feed, tie him to a shady tree, water him, and drive him slowly back. You might have brought a question harder than this, viz.: The railroad matter. It is a law to excuse railroad employees or clerks working in the postoffice on Sunday. But I would not, as a Christian, enter any business that left me no Sunday privileges, no alternation. Employers regarding their fellow men should have done on Sunday only such work as concerns public necessity.

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Exo 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Ver. 8. Remember the Sabbath day. ] He saith not, The seventh day from the creation, but the day of religious rest; such is now our Christian Sabbath, called a “Sabbath day” by our Saviour, Mat 24:20 who is “Lord of this Sabbath,” called therefore the Lord’s day, Rev 1:10 as one of our sacraments is called “the Lord’s supper,” 1Co 11:20 and “the table of the Lord,” 1Co 10:21 because instituted by him. Pope Sylvester presumed to alter the Christian Sabbath, decreeing that Thursday should be kept through the whole year; because on that day Christ ascended, and on that instituted the blessed sacrament of his body and blood. a And generally Papists press the sanctification of the Sabbath as a mere human institution in religious worship; an ordinance of the Church; and do in their celebration more solemnly observe the festivals of the saints, than the Lord’s Sabbaths, making it as Bacchus’s orgies, &c., that, according to what their practice is, it may more fitly be styled, Dies daemoniacus quam Dominicus, the devil’s day than God’s.

To keep it holy. ] Let every one of us keep the Sabbath spiritually, saith Ignatius, – , – rejoicing in the meditation of Christ’s law, more than in the rest of our bodies. The ox and ass must rest; we must consecrate a rest: as God on the seventh day rested not from his works of preservation. Joh 5:17 See Trapp (for summary of Law) on “ Exo 20:17 “

a Hospin, De Fest. Christ.

b Epist. 3, ad Magnesian.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Remember. Because already hallowed, and com mand given. See App-15, and notes on Gen 8:5, Gen 8:10, Gen 8:12, Gen 8:14. The Babylonians had a seventh-day rest, doubtless from Gen 2:2-3 not this from Babylonians. Note the Structure of this longest Commandment:

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Exo 16:23-30, Exo 31:13, Exo 31:14, Gen 2:3, Lev 19:3, Lev 23:3, Isa 56:4-6

Reciprocal: Exo 13:3 – Remember Exo 23:12 – Six days Lev 23:38 – the sabbaths Num 15:32 – they found a man Num 28:9 – General Deu 5:12 – General Neh 9:14 – madest Neh 13:15 – treading wine Isa 58:13 – turn Jer 17:22 – neither do Eze 20:12 – I gave Amo 8:5 – and the Luk 23:56 – rested Joh 5:10 – it is not

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

THE DAY OF REST AND WORSHIP

The Sabbath Day.

Exo 20:8

I. The first word of the Fourth Commandment reminds us that the Sabbath Day was already established among the Israelites when the law was delivered on Sinai. That law created nothing. It preserved and enforced what God had already taught His people to observe by another method than that of formal decrees.

II. In this Commandment work is enjoined, just as much as rest is enjoined. Mans sin has turned work into a curse. God has redeemed and restored work into a blessing by uniting it again to the rest with which, in His Divine original order, it was associated.

III. God rests; therefore He would have man rest. God works; therefore He would have man work. Man cannot rest truly unless he remembers his relation to God, who rests.

IV. It is not wonderful that the Jews after the Captivity, as they had been schooled by a long discipline into an understanding of the meaning of the Second Commandment, so had learnt also to appreciate in some degree the worth of the Fourth. Nehemiah speaks frequently and with great emphasis of the Sabbath as a gift of God which their fathers had lightly esteemed, and which the new generation was bound most fondly to cherish. His words and acts were abused by the Jews who lived between his age and that of our Lords nativity, and when Christ came, the Sabbath itself, all its human graciousness, all its Divine reasonableness, were becoming each day more obscured.

V. Jesus, as the Mediator, declared Himself to be the Lord of the Sabbath, and proved Himself to be so by turning what the Jews made a curse into a blessing. He asserted the true glory of the Sabbath Day in asserting the mystery of His own relation to God and to His creatures.

Rev. F. D. Maurice.

Illustration

(1) The observance of the Sabbath is the one piece of ritual, or form of worship, in the Decalogue. It is founded in Exodus on the divine rest from creation, while in the version of the Decalogue in Deuteronomy 5 it is based on kindliness to servants, accentuated by the remembrance of Israels servitude in Egypt. Both reasons point to the fact that the Sabbath was instituted primarily as a day of rest from worldly toil, while the place of the Commandment among the religious duties points to the no less important fact that the Sabbath rest is used for its highest purpose when it is welcomed as giving opportunity for devout meditation, united worship, and gracious ministries of beneficence. The machine of the body needs a seventh-day rest, and the spirit no less needs a seventh day on which it may be recreated, calmed, and stimulated by communion with God and the vision of the invisible.

(2) In the East some attend early morning service in their respective churches, and, having done their duty in this respect, pass the rest of the day, like any other aied (feast day), in visiting and promenading, etc. Butchers and small tradesmen find it their most profitable day for business, but mechanics and labourers, if lazily inclined (as is usually the case) maintain their right to rest. However, not principle, but inclination, guides them in this respect, for some are willing to work on the Sabbath if you will employ them.

(3) You can judge a mans intellectual, moral, and spiritual attainments by the use he makes of his Sabbaths. If they bore him, it is as certain that he has not achieved true culture as is his being bored by literature and art. If he devotes them to idleness or pleasure, it is like letting a pianola stand closed, or using it to play rag-time music. I would be more ashamed not to know how to make my Sabbath days a supreme joy and blessing than not to know how to spend a thousand pounds to my own advantage. Men need to bathe their souls in their peace and quiet as they need to bathe their bodies in pure water. It takes time to be holy. Men can no more be holy without quiet hours of exposing themselves to the influence of the Divine Spirit than an apple can get mellow without weeks of hanging in the sun. You may be able to keep honest and industrious and faithful by being everlastingly on the hop, skip, and jump, but holy (calm, serene, tranquil, at rest in moral equilibrium) you will never be without your hours and days of meditation and worship. Men are not polished into holiness by being eternally rolled along the shore of the ocean of life, like pebbles. Dont try to keep Sunday holy, but your self.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

Exo 20:8-11. The fourth commandment concerns the time of worship; God is to be served and honoured daily; but one day in seven is to be particularly dedicated to his honour, and spent in his service. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy; in it thou shalt do no manner of work It is taken for granted, that the sabbath was instituted before. We read of Gods blessing and sanctifying a seventh day from the beginning, (Gen 2:3,) so that this was not the enacting of a new law, but the reviving of an old law. 1st, They are told what is the day they must observe, a seventh after six days labour; whether this was the seventh by computation from the first seventh, or from the day of their coming out of Egypt, or both, is not certain. 2d, How it must be observed; 1st, As a day of rest; they were to do no manner of work on this day, in their worldly business. 2d, As a holy day, set apart to the honour of the holy God, and to be spent in holy exercises. God, by his blessing it, had made it holy; they, by solemnly blessing him, must keep it holy, and not alienate it to any other purpose than that for which the difference between it and other days was instituted. 3d, Who must observe it? Thou, and thy son, and thy daughter The wife is not mentioned, because she is supposed to be one with the husband, and present with him; and if he sanctify the sabbath, it is taken for granted she will join with him; but the rest of the family is instanced in it; children and servants must keep it according to their age and capacity. In this, as in other instances of religion, it is expected that masters of families should take care, not only to serve the Lord themselves, but that their houses also should serve him. By the sanctification of the sabbath, the Jews declared they worshipped the God that made the world, and so distinguished themselves from all other nations, who worshipped gods which they themselves made. God has given us an example of rest after six days work; he rested on the seventh day Took a complacency in himself, and rejoiced in the work of his hand, to teach us on that day to take a complacency in him, and to give him the glory of his works.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

20:8 Remember the sabbath day, {g} to keep it holy.

(g) Which is by meditating the spiritual rest, by hearing God’s word, and resting from worldly labours.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

The fourth commandment 20:8-11

The Sabbath was the seventh day of the week, Saturday. This day was to be a day of rest for Israel because God ceased from His creation activity on the seventh day (Gen 2:3). God blessed it and made it holy (Exo 20:11) in that He made it different from the other days of the week for Israel.

This is the only one of the Ten Commandments not reiterated for the church in the New Testament. Traditionally the church has celebrated the first day of the week as a memorial to Jesus Christ’s resurrection, which event is the ground of our rest (Rom 4:25). [Note: See Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, "The Sabbath Controversy," Biblical Research Monthly 49:4 (July-August 1984):15-16; Gerhard Hasel, "The Sabbath in the Pentateuch," in The Sabbath in Scripture and History, pp. 21-43; and Merrill F. Unger, "The Significance of the Sabbath," Bibliotheca Sacra 123:489 (January 1966):53-59.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT.

Exo 20:8-11.

It cannot be denied that the commandment to honour the Sabbath day occupies a unique place among the ten. It is, at least apparently, a formal precept embedded in the heart of a moral code, and good men have thought very differently indeed about its obligation upon the Christian Church.

The great Continental reformers, Lutheran and Calvinistic alike, who subscribed the Confession of Augsburg, there affirmed that “Scripture hath abolished the Sabbath by teaching that all Mosaic ceremonies may be omitted since the gospel has been revealed” (II. vii. 28). The Scotch reformers, on the other hand, declared that God “in His Word, by a positive moral and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages, hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto Him” (Westminster Confess., XXI. vii.). They are even so bold as to declare that this day “from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week, and from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week”; but this proposition would be as hard to prove as the contrary assertion, still maintained by some obscure religionists, that the change of day, for however sufficient and sublime a reason, was beyond the capacity of the Church of Christ to enact.

Amid these conflicting opinions the doctrinal formularies of the Church of England are characteristically guarded and prudent; but her worshippers are bidden to seek mercy from the Lord for past violations of this law, and an inclination of heart to keep it in the future; and when the Ten have been recited, they pray that “all these Thy laws” may be written upon their hearts. There is no doubt, therefore, about the opinion of our own Reformers concerning the divine obligation of the commandment.

In examining the problem thus presented to us, our chief light must be that of Scripture itself. Is the Sabbath what the Lutheran confession called it, a mere “Mosaic ceremony,” or does it rest upon sanctions which began earlier and lasted longer than the precept to abstain from shell-fish, or to sanctify the firstborn of cattle?

Does its presence in the Decalogue disfigure that great code, as the intrusion of these other precepts would do? When we find a Gentile church reminded that the next precept to this “is the first commandment with promise” (Eph 6:2), can we suppose that the tables to which St. Paul appealed, and the promise which he cited at full length, were both cancelled; that in so far as a moral element existed in them, that portion of course survived their repeal, but the code itself was gone? If so, the temporal promise went with it, and its quotation by St. Paul is strange. Strange also, upon this supposition, was the stress which he habitually laid upon the law as a convicting power, and as being only repealed in the letter so far as it was fulfilled by the spontaneous instinct of love, which was the fulfilling of the law.

The position of the commandment among a number of moral and universal duties cannot but weigh heavily in its favour. It prompts us to ask whether our duty to God is purely negative, to be fulfilled by a policy of non-intervention, not worshipping idols, nor blaspheming. Something more was already intimated in the promise of mercy to them “that love Me.” For love is chiefly the source of active obedience: while fear is satisfied by the absence of provocation, love wants not only to abstain from evil but to do good. And how may it satisfy this instinct when its object is the eternal God, Who, if He were hungry, would not tell us? It finds the necessary outlet in worship, in adoring communion, in the exclusion for awhile of worldly cares, in the devotion of time and thought to Him. Now, the foundation upon which all the institutions of religion may be securely built, is the day of rest. Call it external, formal, unspiritual if you will; say that it is a carnal ordinance, and that he who keeps it in spirit is free from the obligation of the letter. But then, what about the eighth commandment? Are we absolved also from the precept “Thou shalt not steal,” because it too is concerned with external actions, because “this … thou shalt not steal … and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this one saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”? Do we say, the spirit has abolished the letter: love is the rescinding of the law? St. Paul said the very opposite: love is the fulfilling of the law, not its destruction; and thus he re-echoed the words of Jesus, “I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil.”

All men know that the formal regulations which defend property are relaxed as the ties of love and mutual understanding are made strong; that to enter unannounced is not a trespass, that the same action which will be prosecuted as a theft by a stranger, and resented as a liberty by an acquaintance, is welcomed as a graceful freedom, almost as an endearment, by a friend. And yet the commandment and the rights of property hold good: they are not compromised, but glorified, by being spiritualised. As it is between man and his brother, so should it be between us and our Divine Father. We have learned to know Him very differently from those who shuddered under Sinai: the whole law is not now written upon tables of stone, but upon fleshly tables of the heart. But among the precepts which are thus etherialised and yet established, why should not the fourth commandment retain its place? Why should it be supposed that it must vanish from the Decalogue, unless the gathering of sticks deserves stoning? The institution, and the ceremonial application of it to Jewish life, are entirely different things; just as respect for property is a fixed obligation, while the laws of succession vary.

Bearing this distinction in mind, we come to the question, Was the Sabbath an ordinance born of Mosaism, or not? Grant that the word “Remember,” if it stood alone, might conceivably express the emphasis of a new precept, and not the recapitulation of an existing one. Grant also that the mention in Genesis of the Divine rest might be made by anticipation, to be read with an eye to the institution which would be mentioned later. But what is to be made of the fact that on the seventh day manna was withheld from the camp, before they had arrived at Horeb, and therefore before the commandment had been written by the finger of God upon the stone? Was this also done by anticipation? Upon any supposition, it aimed at teaching the nation that the obligation of the day was not based upon the positive precept, but the precept embodied an older and more fundamental obligation.

How is the Sabbath spoken of in those prophecies which set least value upon the merely ceremonial law?

Isaiah speaks of mere ritual as slightly as St. Paul. To fast and afflict one’s soul is nothing, if in the day of fasting one smites with the fist and oppresses his labourers. To loose the bonds of wickedness, to free the oppressed, to share one’s bread with the hungry, this is the fast which God has chosen, and for him who fasts after this fashion the light shall break forth like sunrise, and his bones shall be strong, and he himself like an unfailing water-spring. Now, it is the same chapter which thus waives aside mere ceremonial in contempt, which lavishes the most ample promises on him who turns away his foot from the Sabbath, and calls the Sabbath a delight, and the holy of the Lord, honourable, and honours it (Isa 58:5-11, Isa 58:13-14).

There is no such promise in Jeremiah, for the observance of any merely ceremonial law, as that which bids the people to honour the Sabbath day, that there may enter into their gates kings and princes riding in chariots and upon horses, and that the city may remain for ever (Jer 17:24-25).

And Ezekiel declares that in the day when God made Himself known to His people in the land of Egypt, He gave them statutes and judgments and His sabbaths (Eze 20:11-12). Now, this phrase is a clear allusion to the word of God in Jeremiah, that “I spake not unto their fathers in the day when I brought them out of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices, but this thing I commanded them, saying, Hearken unto My voice,” etc. (Jer 7:23). And it sharply contrasts the sacredness of God’s abiding ordinances with the temporary institutions of the sanctuary. But it reckons the Sabbath among the former.

It is objected that our Lord Himself treated the Sabbath lightly, as a worn-out ordinance. But He was “a minister of the circumcision,” and always discussed the lawfulness of His Sabbath miracles as a Jew with Jews. Thus He argued that men, admittedly under the law, baked the shewbread, circumcised children, and even rescued cattle from jeopardy upon the seventh day. He appealed to the example of David, who met a sufficiently urgent necessity by eating the consecrated bread, “which was not lawful for him to eat” (Mat 12:4).

He did not hint that the law of the sabbath had disappeared, but insisted that it was meant to serve man and not to oppress him: that “the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath” (Mar 2:27).

Now, there is not in the life of Christ an assertion, so broad and strong as that the Sabbath was made for the human race, which can be narrowed down to a discussion of any merely local and temporary institution. He Who stood highest, and saw the widest horizons, declared that the Sabbath was intended for humanity, and not for a section or a sect of it. Not because He was the King of the Jews, but because He was the Son of Man, the ripe fruit and the leader of the world-wide race which it was given to bless, therefore He was also its Lord.

And in Him, so are we. Like all things present and things to come, it is our help, we are not its slaves.

There is something abject in the notion of a Christian freeman, who has been for a long week imprisoned in some gloomy and ill-ventilated workshop, whose lungs would be purified, and therefore his spirits uplifted, and therefore his reason and his affections invigorated, and therefore his worship rendered more fresh, warm and reasonable, by the breathing of a purer air, yet whose conception of a day of rest is so slavish that he dares not “rest” from the pollution of an infected atmosphere, and from the closeness of a London court, because he conceives it imperative to “rest” only from that bodily exercise, to enjoy which would be to him the most real and the most delightful repose of all.

But there are other things more abject still; and one of them is the miserable insincerity of the affluent and luxurious, using the exceptional case of him whose week-days are thus oppressed, to excuse their own wanton neglect of religious ordinances, accepting at the hands of Christianity the sacred holiday, but ignoring utterly the fact that the Lord sanctified and hallowed it, that it is to be called the holy of the Lord, and to be honoured, and that we are free from the letter of the precept only in so far as we rise to the spirit of it, in loving and true communion with the Father of spirits.

Another utterance of Jesus throws a strong light upon the nature and the limits of our obligation. “My Father worketh even until now, and I work” (Joh 5:17) is an appeal to the fact that in the long sabbath of God His world is not deserted; creation may be suspended, but the bounties of Providence go on; and therefore Christ also felt that His day of rest was not one of torpor, that in healing the impotent man upon the Sabbath He was but following the example of Him by whose rest the day was sanctified. All works of beneficent love, all that ministers to human recovery from anguish, and carries out the Divine purposes of grace for body or soul, rescue from danger, healing of disease, reformation of guilt, are sanctioned by this defence of Christ.

They need not plead that the commandment is abrogated, but that Jesus of Nazareth, of the seed of David, found nothing in such liberties inconsistent with the duties of a devout Hebrew.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary

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