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A
Special Day of each Week
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Observant
Jews are known for their observance of the Sabbath.
The Sabbath or Shabbat
is first recorded in Genesis
2:2 and 3,
“By the seventh day God had finished the
work he had been doing: so on the seventh day he rested
from all his work. Then God
blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because
on it he rested from all the work of creating that
he had done.”
It
should be noted that most of the modern world reckons
time by a seven-day unit known as a week. The
Hebrew |
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word
for“week”
is derived from the Hebrew
word for “seven.”
The Jews do not give names to the days of the week except
the seventh day is known as the “Sabbath.”
The other days of the week are known as “the first
day,” “the second day,” etc. until arriving
at the seventh day. The Jews, in obeying the biblical command,
set apart this day as special.
In the Genesis passage it is stated that God made the seventh
day “holy.” To be holy means to be set apart
or separated unto the Lord. For observant Jews
and some Christians who continue to observe the Sabbath
it is a day of rest with no
work being done from sunset on Friday until sunset on Saturday. |
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Note
the command as it was given by God to Moses,
“Then
the LORD said to Moses, ‘Say
to the Israelites, You must observe my Sabbaths.
This will be a sign between me and you for the generations
to come, so you may know that I am the LORD, who makes
you holy.
Observe
the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who
desecrates it is to be put to death; those who do
any work on that day must be cut off from their people.
For six days work is to be done, but the seventh day
is a day of Sabbath rest, celebrating it for the generations
to come as a lasting covenant. It
will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever,
for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the
earth, and on the seventh day he abstained from work
and rested.” (Exodus
31:12-17) |
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Exodus 20:8-11 we read a slight
variation of this command,
“Remember
the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you
shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is
a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you
shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son
or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals,
nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days
the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all
that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore
the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
In
giving instructions to Moses regarding the Feasts of the
Lord we read,
“The
LORD said to Moses. Speak to the Israelites
and say to them: These are my appointed festivals,
the appointed festivals of the LORD, which you are to proclaim
as sacred assemblies.
There
are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a
day of sabbath rest, a day
of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever
you live, it is a sabbath to the LORD.” (Leviticus
23:1-3.)
Under the First Covenant (Old Testament)
not only the Jews were required to observe the weekly
Sabbath but those Gentiles who came into belief were also
exhorted thusly,
“This
is what the LORD says: ‘Maintain justice and do what
is right, for my [God] salvation is close at hand and my
righteousness will soon be
revealed. Blessed are those [Jews and believing Gentiles]
who do this – who hold it fast, those who keep the
Sabbath without desecrating it, and keep their hands from
doing any evil.’ Let no foreigners [non-Jews/Gentiles]
who have bound themselves to the LORD say, ‘The LORD
will surely exclude me from his people [the Jews].’
And let no eunuch complain, ‘I am only a dry tree.’
To
the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases
me and hold fast to my covenant – to them I will give
within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better
than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting
name that will endure forever. And foreigners [non-Jews
– Gentiles] who bind themselves to the LORD to minister
to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants,
all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who
hold fast to my covenant – these I will bring to my
holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their
burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.’
The Sovereign LORD declares – he who gathers the exiles
of Israel; I will gather still others to them besides those
already gathered.” (Isaiah
56:1-8)
In Ezekiel 20 we read,
“Also
I gave them my Sabbaths as a sign
between us, so they would know that I the LORD made them
holy.” (Ezek. 20:12)
As with the believing body of believers that make up the
Church of our Lord, the children of
Israel are a holy or separated people unto God. Yet,
the children of Israel in days of old and even today continue
to break the Sabbath. Note how Ezekiel put it,
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the people of Israel rebelled
against me [GOD] in the wilderness. They did
not follow my decrees but rejected my laws –
through which people will live if they obey them –
and they utterly desecrated
my Sabbaths. . .I [GOD] swore to them in the
wilderness that I would not bring them into the land
[Israel] I had given them – a land flowing with
milk and honey, the most beautiful of all lands –
because they rejected my laws and did not follow my
decrees and desecrated my Sabbaths. For their hearts
were devoted to their idols. Yet I looked on them
with pity and did not destroy them or put an end to
them in the wilderness. I said to their children in
the wilderness, ‘Do not follow the statutes
of your parents or keep their laws or defile yourselves
with their idols. I am the LORD your God; follow my
decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Keep my Sabbaths
holy, that they may be a sign between us. Then you
will know that I am the LORD your God.’”
(Ezekiel 20:13, 15b-20) |
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Jews this sign or day that
God gave to them, and some Christians
believe God gave to us as well, is
not a day of drudgery rather we are told by the prophet
Isaiah,
“If
you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing
as you please on my holy day, if you call
the Sabbath a delight and the LORD’S holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not
going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking
idle words, then you will find your joy in the LORD, and
I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the
land. . .” (Isaiah 58:13-14)
In the Jewish home the Sabbath
is a day of rest from the labors
and routine of the work week. We are being told by medical
people that our bodies need a regular
resting period. Keeping one day in seven makes sense for
one’s mental, physical and spiritual health.
To the Jews of old on this special day of the week no
firewood was to be collected (Numbers 15:32-36),
no fires kindled (Exodus 35:3) and travel
was restricted (Exodus 16:29). With the passing of
time the rabbis added burden upon burden in their legalistic
commands to the Sabbath observance. We note that under the
New Covenant this legalism came under attack by Yeshua (Jesus),
“At
that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath.
His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of
grain and eat them. When the Pharisees[1] saw this, they
said to him, ‘Look! Your disciples are doing what
is unlawful on the Sabbath.’ He answered, ‘Haven’t
you read what David did when he and his companions were
hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions
ate the consecrated bread – which was not lawful for
them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you
read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the
temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell
you that one greater than the temple is here. If you had
known what these words mean, ‘I
desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not
have condemned the innocent. For the
Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.’
Going
on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and
a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason
to accuse Jesus, they asked him, ‘Is
it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?’ He [Jesus]
said to them, ‘If any of you has a sheep and it
falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold
of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a human
being than a sheep! Therefore it
is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.’
Then
he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’
So he stretched it out and it was completely restored,
just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out
and plotted how they might kill Jesus.”
(Matthew 12:1-14)
It never ceases to amaze me how religious
folk can become so completely wrapped up in their
legalism that they forsake the
very essence of what faith is all about. The
Sabbath was intended to be now only a day of rest
but also a day filled with joy,
peace and service, yet religion
made it that which God had not intended it to be.
Note what Jesus said regarding this matter,
“The
Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath.
So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
(Mark 2:27-28)
Are we who live under the New Covenant
obligated to keep the seventh day Sabbath? Or is the first
day of the week a new Sabbath for Christians? I
believe that every follower of Jesus Christ must make
that determination as to the Sabbath observance whichever
day is set aside. The apostle Paul wrote,
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“Therefore
do not let anyone judge you
by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious
festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.
These are a shadow
of the things that were to come; the reality, however,
is found in Christ.” (Colossians
2:16-17)
The New Testament does not
order us to observe any day.
In Jesus we are free
from the old legalism
with which many had come to observe the Sabbath.
Some Christians apply a legalistic Sabbath observance
to Sunday, claiming it is the Sabbath. These folk
have lost the joy of
the Jewish Sabbath but have
retained the legalism of the religionists.
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Whether
one observes one day or another is not the question. Those
Christians who choose to celebrate the
seventh-day Sabbath or any of the other Biblical
Feasts are not sinning nor negating the grace of God in
the sense of putting themselves under the Law providing
they are not seeking to be justified by works or
observances. Christians are free
to celebrate Sabbath in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ
if that is their conviction.
There is a Sabbath Rest that
is on the horizon; it is the thousand
year reign of Yeshua ha Massiach! See
the Book of Hebrews.
Without a personal relationship with God in and through
Jesus Christ any and all outward
observances are meaningless. So let’s
not get hung up on which day rather let us be sure
that our hearts are where they should be as disciples
of our Lord.
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[1]
The Pharisees were a sect within Judaism of ultra-orthodox
and very legalistic Jews. They would be the “fundamentalists”
of the ancient Jews. |
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