Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 20:9
Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work:
9. work ] more precisely, business, the word regularly used of the ‘work’ or ‘business’ forbidden on the sabbath (Exo 31:14-15, Jer 17:22; Jer 17:24 al.: cf. Gen 2:2), or other sacred day (Exo 12:16).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
9, 10. Explanation how the sabbath is to be kept holy.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 9. Six days shalt thou labour] Therefore he who idles away time on any of the six days, is as guilty before God as he who works on the Sabbath. No work should be done on the Sabbath that can be done on the preceding days, or can be deferred to the succeeding ones. Works of absolute necessity and mercy are alone excepted. He who works by his servants or cattle is equally guilty as if he worked himself. Hiring out horses, &c., for pleasure or business, going on journeys, paying worldly visits, or taking jaunts on the Lord’s day, are breaches of this law. The whole of it should be devoted to the rest of the body and the improvement of the mind. God says he has hallowed it – he has made it sacred and set it apart for the above purposes. It is therefore the most proper day for public religious worship.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
This may be either,
1. A command to employ those days in our worldly occasions, yet so as God and religion be not neglected on those days, as many scriptures teach us. Or,
2. A permission to do so; which I prefer,
1. Because so it is a proper argument to enforce the observation of the sabbath: q.d. Grudge not me one day, when I allow you six for it.
2. Because the command of diligence in our callings would seem improperly placed here, as being of a quite different nature, and belonging to the second table, and being provided for in a distinct command, as we shall see.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
Six days shalt thou labour,…. This is not to be taken for a precept, but a permission; not as a command enjoining men to work and labour with their hands, to provide for themselves and families things useful and necessary, and honest in the sight of God; but as a grant and allowance of so many days to employ themselves in, for their own profit and advantage, and that of their families; the Lord only reserving one day out of seven for his service, which ought to be looked upon as a singular favour, that he required no more of their time for his use, and the rest they might spend as they pleased, so that they did not indulge themselves in sin. It is required indeed of all men to labour in some sort and way or another, with their heads or with their hands; though all are not obliged to labour in the same way, or to the same degree, for he that will not work ought not to eat; but this law is not an injunction of that kind, only a toleration of labour on the six days of the week, if proper and necessary, when it is forbidden on the seventh:
and do all thy work, which is incumbent on a man, he is called unto, and is necessary to be done for the good of him and his family; particularly care should be taken, that all should be done on the six days that could possibly be done, and nothing left to be done on the seventh.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(9) Six days shalt thou labour.The form is certainly imperative; and it has been held that the fourth commandment is not limited to a mere enactment respecting one day, but prescribes the due distribution of a week, and enforces the six days work as much as the seventh days rest (Garden in Smiths Dictionary of the Bible, vol. iii., p. 1068). But the work on the six days is really rather assumed as what will be than required as what must be; and the intention of the clause is prohibitory rather than mandatorythou shalt not work more than six days out of the seven.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
9. Six days shalt thou labour Here is a positive commandment, as explicit as that which enjoins the sabbath rest . No man is at liberty, before God, to spend his days in idleness and inactivity, and the healthfulness and full vigour of the physical constitution depend as much upon bodily activity as does the soundness of the religious life demand a weekly day of rest .
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Exo 20:9-10. Six days shalt thou labour, &c. See note on Gen 2:3. The plain meaning of these verses is, that men should dedicate six days of the week to the common and ordinary business of life; but should wholly abstain from such business on the seventh day, and consecrate it to the nobler employment of serving and honouring the great GOD their Creator. Our Saviour has clearly determined, that the precept is not to be understood so rigidly as to prevent men from performing the ever-acceptable works of mercy and charity on this day; Mar 2:27. Luk 6:1-5; Luk 13:15-16. The prohibition, thus excepted, was to extend to the whole of every family; nay, even to the cattle, according to that amiable principle of humanity which characterises the true religion. See Pro 12:10. Nor was the stranger to be exceptednor thy stranger within thy gates; including all strangers of whatever rank or sort who sojourned among the Jews. See Neh 13:16-22 whence it is very plain, that strangers of every degree were obliged to an observance of the sabbath.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Exo 20:9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
Ver. 9. Six days shalt thou labour. ] God hath reserved but one day in seven, as he reserved the tree of knowledge of good and evil; Gen 2:2-3 yet wretched men must needs clip the Lord’s coin. In many places God’s Sabbaths are made the voider and dunghill for all refuse businesses. The Sabbath of the Lord, the sanctified day of his rest, saith one, is shamelessly troubled and disquieted. The world is now grown perfectly profane, saith another, and can play on the Lord’s day without concern. a See Trapp (for summary of Law) on “ Exo 20:17 “
a Bishop King, On John, lect. vii.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
labour. The Hebrew accent (zarka) marks this word for emphasis: implying that the fourth Commandment is twofold, and no seventh-day rest can be really enjoyed without, or apart from, the six days of labour.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Exo 23:12, Luk 13:14
Reciprocal: Exo 16:26 – General Exo 31:15 – Six days Exo 34:21 – Six Exo 35:2 – Six days Eze 46:1 – six working Mat 12:2 – Behold