Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

The Sabbath

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Sabbath

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 120

Dictation Name: RR171BM120

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Let us worship God. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before his presence with singing. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him and bless His name, for the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting and His truth endureth to all generations. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee that thou, whose dwelling place is in the heaven of heavens, hast by thy grace chosen to dwell with us, to live in our midst, in our hearts, to work in and through us that which is pleasing in thy sight. Teach us so to walk day by day that, ever mindful of thy presence, we may serve thee in holiness, knowledge, righteousness and dominion. Bless us to this purpose in Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture is Exodus 35:1-3. Our subject: The Sabbath. Exodus 35:1-3. “And Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together, and said unto them, These are the words which the Lord hath commanded, that ye should do them. Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death. Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the Sabbath day.”

There is a long history of controversy over these verses, and much conflict over their interpretation. A.H. McNeal observed this is the most stringent form of Sabbath law in the Old Testament. Our Lord, as the giver and interpreter of the word says of the Sabbath, according to Mark 2:23-28, “And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the Sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the Sabbath day that which is not lawful? And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him? How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him? And he said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath: therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” Now churchmen have sometimes seen our Lord’s words as nullifying Exodus 35:1-3. This is a false interpretation. Instead, we must insist on a common meaning. The old saying is very true: “A text without a context is a pretext.”

When our Lord speaks of the matter, the disciples had been criticized because they were plucking the grain as they passed by on a Sabbath day. Being hungry, they were separating the grain from the stalk and chaff by rubbing their palms together on the grain and then chewing it. The Pharisees saw this as a violation of the Sabbath. It was milling. Our Lord reminds them of the incident wherein Abiathar gave the holy bread to David and to his hungry men, in spite of the law limiting its consumption to the priests. The purpose of the Sabbath, our Lord says, is to serve man under God, not to place man under subjection to time. He, the Son of man, is Lord over the Sabbath, and therefore, the Sabbath serves the purposes of his kingdom for his followers.

In Exodus 35:1-3, we have a covenant renewed, and work is going to be resumed on the tabernacle. These verses continue the warnings of Exodus 34:1-28 which had a special reference to the sin of Israel as, the sins rather, as they culminated to this point, from the departure from Egypt to Sinai in the golden calf incident. The Sabbath law had been given in detail before this. Why then this renewed stress, plus the ruling concerning fires on the Sabbath? The reference is to Exodus 16:23. Manna gathered on the day before the Sabbath was to be prepared then for two days and thus, no preparation was to take place on the Sabbath. There shall be no work on the Sabbath. “Whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death.” But, there is an important aspect to this, one which the commentators have not dealt with, even though they are knowledgeable to an extent I am not. It is indifference basically, because it’s a very plain and obvious fact.

The word translated here as “work,” and also translated as “work” in the Ten Commandments of Exodus 20:9-10, means, in Hebrew, not manual labor. It does not require law to keep somebody from digging a ditch on the Sabbath. Nobody has a delight, for example, to going out and cleaning out a sewer on the Sabbath. There was no need to have a law that was that specific. Nobody wanted to do the unpleasant chores, or cleaning out the manure from the shed or barn on the Sabbath. No. The Hebrew word translated as “work” refers to the duty of a highly placed person, a deputy, a prophet, priest, or teacher, an angel, a king or a minister, a messenger or an ambassador. It does not refer to servile work. It has reference to gainful, profitable work which advances a godly cause or realm. It refers to what men like to think of as a good work. Something for a noble cause.

Now this gives a very important perspective on the Sabbath. It is precisely when we think we are most noble in our Sabbath work that we most violate it. Works of necessity are legitimate on the Sabbath. Our Lord says in Luke 14:4 that such things as the rescue of an ass or an ox fallen into a pit is valid on the Lord’s Day. Such activity cannot be classified as work in a sense of Exodus 20:9-10 and Exodus 35:2. The noble works, whether physical work or planning, trespass on God’s providential government. We are not gods. The government of things is not on our shoulders, and it is a sin for us to assume that the world and its advancement, that good needs an extra effort from us on the Lord’s Day. It is the sin of presumption, a particularly serious offense.

But in our time, presumption has become the common attribute of old and young of all races and classes. The law is plain. Six days shall work be done. Such work is legitimate and is the exercise of godly responsibility. To extend it to the seventh is to assume that God can neither care for us, nor for the world, nor advance His cause, without our assistance. Psalm 127:2 refers to this. In James Moffett’s rendering, it reads, “Vain it is to rise up early for your work and keep at work so late, gaining your bread with anxious toil. God’s gifts come to His loved ones as they sleep.”

With respect to Exodus 35:3, we have seen that the reference is to Exodus 16:23, in part. Manna was provided by God’s grace. Israel was to prepare their Sabbath manna on the previous day. These words were addressed to peoples recently delivered from bondage and slave labor. They were irresponsible and distrustful of God. The Sabbath law concluded that section of Exodus, which ended at Exodus 31:12-17. Since the Sabbath is a sign of the covenant and a celebration of it, because the covenant is now renewed, this law is restated.

But why the mention of no fire found no where else in the Bible. There is not even an indirect reference to it elsewhere. Well, work on the tabernacle was about to be resumed. This would, at once, involved goldsmiths and other metallic workers. Such work would be noble work, precisely the kind of labor banned on the Sabbath by the law. The good cause could not validate such fires on the Sabbath. The people had sinned greatly in the golden calf episode. As Ellison observed, there would have been a real danger of the ignoring of the Sabbath laws. The people showed their zeal in trying to undo the sin they had committed. Whether we build a tabernacle or a cathedral, we must do it in God’s way and in terms of His law. Our thinking and planning cannot take priority over God’s work. James McGregor comments on this text and his comment of many years ago is very good. He said, and I quote, “The priests in their offices afterwards profaned the Sabbath and were blameless, for the common work of their office was necessary for the due observance of the Lord’s Day, but there is no such plea of necessity or mercy for doing common work at the building of the tabernacle. Wherefore, let not men be carried away by the enthusiasm of the work, and a violation of God’s law of holy resting, as if the better day, the better deed. Instead of thus robbing God, men are to give what is, in a sense, their own, and so the process of preparation for the building resolves itself into contribution of the means of building, which often cools enthusiasm remarkable.” The work God requires of men on the Sabbath is giving.

The words concerning the Sabbath is verse 2 are very literal. “On the Sabbath day, there shall be to you an holiness.” In order to sanctify all their days, on this day, the covenant believer enters into God’s holiness. He steps outside of himself to rest in the Lord. He takes hands off his own being, his own planning, his work at its noblest, to commit it to God, and he submits his mind to the correction and guidance of God’s word. Thus, apart from the ministry of worship, no work is permitted on the Sabbath. According to Rylaarsdam, the provision “six days shall work be done,” concentrates on the construction or work on the Sabbath. Another scholar, Galling, has seen it as saying, For all the work you have planning, you shall kindle no fire on the Sabbath day.” In other words, the fires having reference to the metal work especially. There is another aspect of this verse to which Kasuto called attention. Metal work in Antiquity was very important. It was one of the key vocations. It was surrounded by religious premises and rules.

In Baal worship, for example, a fire was kindled for six days for metal work and the work was done on the seventh, when the silver and gold plating for the walls of Baal’s palace or temple were made. But this was not all. Fire was regarded by the pagans as sacred. On pagan festival days, a fire was lit in homes honoring the day and the gods. Kasuto says, and I quote, “In Mesopotamia, a special festival was dedicated to fire, and in one of the texts referring to this festival it is stated, the people of the place shall make a fire in their dwelling places.” And God says, “Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations or dwelling places upon the Sabbath day, a direct contradiction to the pagan law.

Well, the implications of verse 3 are therefore, enormous. Accommodation to pagan practices for any reason whatsoever are clearly forbidden by this law. It goes far beyond just the Sabbath. Various names are given to such accommodations which are practiced by all the churches in our time. For example, one term is “bridge building.” When John Lofton criticized this practice in the Chalcedon report, the response came in in the way of anonymous hate mail. Another term is “contextualization.” Well, this was dealt also with in the Chalcedon report by Tim Vaughn, regarding the so-called translation of the Lamb of God as the pig of God. Again, this raised the hackles of some. Instead of raising the thinking and language of pagans, the level of scripture, such people insistently lower the Bible by mistranslation to the level of the pagans. This kind of accommodation exists with reference to practices and many other things. The end result finally is to oppose converting pagans to Christ in favor of fraternal co-existence, and this is now being advocated.

As a result, verse 3 forbids us to do anything which brings about a significant coincidence between biblical and pagan practices. Verse 2, the literal reading is that the seventh day shall be to us holiness. We step outside of ourselves into God, and we carry that which we gain on that day throughout the week. It is a day and a time that separates us from a fallen world. It gives us a perspective on time, and it strengthens us by resting in the Lord, to live all week in terms of that rest and holiness. The Sabbath is a day against accommodationism, against bridge building, contextualization, or any other doctrine of compromise. Let us pray.

Our Father, thy word is truth, and thy word summons us to enter into thy holiness, to carry it throughout the week so that all our time is filled with thy glory, with thy presence, with thy knowledge, justice, and thy dominion. Teach us, O Lord, to rest in thee, and to make all our days manifest thy holiness. In Christ’s name. Amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] Like the work day, like the work day in biblical times was, I take it, much longer than it is now, or what we consider a work day {?}

[Rushdoony] That’s a good question, a very important question, because there is a great deal of mythology about the work day. In the last century, with the Industrial Revolution, the work day tended to be twelve and fourteen hours, seven days a week for many. A good many railroaders worked three hundred and sixty-four, three hundred and sixty-five days a year routinely, and that’s why one of the first unions to develop was among railroad workers. Before that, there were hard, long work weeks in the two or more centuries preceding it, but if we get back into the Medieval era, the work week was very, very short, in terms of hours. During certain seasons, it could be very long, but when you consider fifty-two Sundays in a year, and a hundred or more saints days, that meant people did not work for more than a hundred and fifty days in a year, and they did very well. Now, it was similar to that in the Bible. They had not only the three great festivals, which included observance, in some instances, for eight days, but they had the new moons, they had the sabbaths, and so on. The difference between work time then and now was in the faithfulness to the laws of debt. If you must not go into debt for more than six years, and every year, on the seventh year all debts are cancelled, that makes a difference. There’s no long-term debt.

In this country, if you bought property, the notes were, almost until World War 2, and to World War 2 in many areas, five years only. One-fourth down. Well, this meant that there was no long-term debt. It meant, therefore, that you were not working endlessly to pay the taxpayer or the bank. It meant, therefore, your work was not geared to producing to pay the bank or the federal government, but to provide you with a good livelihood. That’s the difference between the family farm of the pre-war era when ten and fifteen acres, especially before World War 1 and extending almost to World War 2, provided a man with his income. The farmer didn’t pay an income tax. His property tax was five and ten dollars a year, so the work week was different. Now, we have a much longer working time because we don’t have the days off. We don’t have saints festivals, the Sabbath is not a Sabbath for many, and there is no rest because the tax collector and the bank are there always, then they want their money. So, we have paganized our work days. In the pagan world, the thing that marked every society was the oppressiveness of the tax collector and debt. So, that men worked from sun up to sun down, and could never keep ahead. Now, that paganism came in, to a degree, with the Industrial Revolution, and our urban centers saw a great deal of that paganization, but the rural area maintained the old Christian context, and so you had a much lower working week, and the difference was dramatic. Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] Should there be any connection between verse 3 and instruction in Exodus 16 that the Israelites were not to prepare their food, at least bake or boil the manna on the Sabbath day? Was that normally done on Saturday?

[Rushdoony] Yes, there are some texts which speak, use a word which will indicate manually. But by and large, the assumption is, except with regard to the manna which was a direct violation of God’s word, people were not going to be that anxious to go out and do heavy, physical work. The stress was on noble work. Don’t think that you are being faithful to the commandment, God says, if you do something for a noble cause. Giving, worship, therefore, the ministry, or the priesthood, and works of necessity alone are permitted on the Sabbath, and that’s it. Yes?

[Audience] I guess that would preclude going door to door, going door to door evangelism, evangelism {?} things like that, planning for religious conferences.

[Rushdoony] Yes it would. Planning is prohibited, so it applies not only to physical but to mental work, and the emphasis here, as in the Ten Commandments, is on noble work, important work, work which we would think, “Well, this is not a violation of the Sabbath, I’m doing something very fine here, so certainly the Lord approves.”

[Audience] Doesn’t mean that unimportant work is okay.

[Rushdoony] What?

[Audience] That doesn’t mean that unimportant work is okay on the Sabbath.

[Rushdoony] No, no, no, but God focuses on this here. Ye shall, “six days shall work be done,” but then, “whosoever doeth work therein.” The noble work is the one which He focuses, in particular, on, as a particular violation. The work of God, the work of advancing this or that noble cause, in particular, God says is forbidden. Don’t act as though nothing good’s going to be done unless we do it on the Lord’s Day. Any other questions or comments? Well, if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank thee that thy word is the word of truth, and it speaks to our needs, that it gives us guidance day by day, overrules our ways, and teaches us how to conform to thee. Guide us in faithfulness, and make us joyful in thy word. In Christ’s name, Amen.

End of tape.