Numbers: Faith, Law, and History

Sabbaths, Time, and Focus

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: Sabbaths, Time, and Focus

Genre:

Track: 53

Dictation Name: RR181AC53

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us worship God. The Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before Him. Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His holy hill, for the Lord our God is holy. Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in His sanctuary. Praise Him for His mighty acts. Praise Him according to His excellent greatness. Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee that, once again, as we gather together in thy name, we have the privilege of praising thee, of knowing that we are thy people and of knowing that thy purposes for us are altogether righteous and holy. Give us joy, therefore, in thee and in thy ways. Quietness of heart, in the time of adversity, strength for the tasks that we have to face, and in all things, the blessed assurance of thy presence. Grant us this in Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture is Numbers 28:9-15. Sabbaths, Time, and Focus. “And on the sabbath day two lambs of the first year without spot, and two tenth deals of flour for a meat offering, mingled with oil, and the drink offering thereof: this is the burnt offering of every sabbath, beside the continual burnt offering, and his drink offering. And in the beginnings of your months ye shall offer a burnt offering unto the Lord; two young bullocks, and one ram, seven lambs of the first year without spot; and three tenth deals of flour for a meat offering, mingled with oil, for one bullock; and two tenth deals of flour for a meat offering, mingled with oil, for one ram; and a several tenth deal of flour mingled with oil for a meat offering unto one lamb; for a burnt offering of a sweet savour, a sacrifice made by fire unto the Lord. And their drink offerings shall be half an hin of wine unto a bullock, and the third part of an hin unto a ram, and a fourth part of an hin unto a lamb: this is the burnt offering of every month throughout the months of the year. And one kid of the goats for a sin offering unto the Lord shall be offered, beside the continual burnt offering, and his drink offering.”

We come again to some familiar material, but restated in terms of a different and a public perspective. Burnt offerings are those wholly consumed on the altar, although at times such offerings are called whole burnt offerings since all such sacrifices were, in part, burnt offerings. Meat offerings we would call meal offerings. Two-tenth deals of flour, Mofat and others render as fourteen pints and three-tenth deals is twenty-one pints. Half a hin of wine, six pints.

Now, the offering cited here are of two kinds in so far as their purpose is concerned. First, there are the sabbath offerings of verses 9 and 10. Then second, in verses 13-15, we have the new moon offerings, on the first day of each month. We have a reference to this observance in Isaiah 1:13 where God condemns Judah for hypocritical and purely formal observances. In Amos 8:15, the prophet condemns the people because they can hardly wait for the new moon sabbaths to end to get back to their corrupt business. Amos says, “Here ye, that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, saying, “When will the new moon be gone that we may sell corn, and the sabbaths that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit.”

Now the purpose of these public sabbaths is to take man’s mind off himself, off his own concerns, and to center the minds of men on God, but Amos says the people spent their time fretting, and they viewed the sabbath as a restraint on their money-making rather than as a rest. In Hosea 2:11-13, God promises that He himself will put an end to their new moon sabbaths by bringing judgment upon them instead of rest, because they are an apostate people. Therefore, he will wipe them out and they will no longer have a problem.

In 1 Samuel 20:5 and following, it appears that the new moon sabbaths were times for family and clan meals together with retainers included. Ezekiel 46:3, 6, and 7 call for a revival of new moon sabbaths. In Isaiah 56:1-8, there is a remarkable reference to the observance to the sabbaths, a reference inclusive of the weekly, the monthly, and the seventh year sabbaths. “Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil. Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the Lord, speak, saying, The Lord hath utterly separated me from his people: neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off. Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people. The Lord God, which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him.

Well, what we have here is not modern sabbatarianism. It is tied to God’s covenant and therefore, His law. Its goal is the full observance of the sabbath; weekly, monthly, and every seventh year. It means freedom from long-term debt and for God-centered living. God promises great blessings to all who take hold, or hold fast to His covenant. In the words of Amos 8:4-5, we have a condemnation, a purely formal observance in obedience. Whereas, in Isaiah 56:1-8, God declares that He will bless those who obey His sabbaths in all their ways.

According to Walter Riggins, “A rabbinic treatise on Exodus 31:14 comments, ‘Furthermore, whoever keeps the sabbath testifies of Him at whose word the world came into being, that He created the world in six days and rested on the sabbath.’” We are required to view both ourselves and time under the light of God’s word. We are His creation, and so, too, is time. Men have always had forms of reckoning time, and the most common has been a statist calendar and perspective. When current politicians talk about a new world order, they are viewing time and the future as a human product, or at the least something to be shaped and given form by man and society. The true purpose of all sabbaths is to teach us that God is the Lord, and not man. Psalm 90 is a prayer of Moses, and it is a great commentary on time. Moses sees time as totally God’s instrument, whether it be man’s lifespan or the world and its course, and he prays, “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” We are told to see all things as God’s work, and so Moses concludes, “Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children, and let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us and establish now the work of our hands upon us. Yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.” His prayer that the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us is a request that His magnificence, his loving favor, and the glory of His grace be upon us, and understood to some degree by us. We are to see time, in other words, not as a burden, but as an opportunity from God.

Irving L. Jensen said of the burnt offering that, “It’s symbolically represented the yielding of the person to God.” Here, as a public sacrifice, it signifies that not only are the persons but the nation to yield themselves to God by acknowledging His sovereignty in creation and over time. We must learn to say with David, ‘My times are in thy hand.’ Everything in our culture works to give man a man-centered view of time, whether the perspective be personal or national, work-oriented or play-oriented. The sabbath is profaned, if we fail to recognize all time as God-created and God-governed.”

We can understand something of the sad dereliction of Phariseeism in the comment of a modern rabbi, Rabbi Raphael Pelkovitz, on the new moon sabbaths. A monthly rebirth of the moon he sees symbolic of Israel’s rebirth as well, and he says, “Not only do they atone for themselves through the sin offering but, in a sense, they also atone for God, who sent them into exile thereby causing the desecration of God’s name.” That is Phariseeism.

The new moon sabbaths had been ordered earlier, together with the blowing of trumpets. Here, the sacrifices of this observance are specified. In Deuteronomy 17:3, God specifically and stricly forbids the worship of the moon and other aspects of nature. The purpose of this new moon sabbath is simply to mark time as God’s time. Israel’s calendar was and is, among the orthodox it still is, a lunar calendar of twelve months, or thirty days, with the remaining days constituting special sabbaths. Sabbaths are quite properly recognized as days of rest. This is God’s ordained purpose.

God not only does not require continuous work, but he also condemns it as a violation of His law. Here, we see still another aspect of God’s purpose regarding the sabbath. It is a time for focus. The men whom Amos condemned outwardly kept the sabbath, but their lives’ focus was on evil. They were lawless men, despite their formal observance of a day of rest. They failed to recognize the meaning of God’s covenant of which the sabbath is a witness. God’s covenant requires that the totality of our lives be governed by His covenant law and lived in the light of His mercy. This is the required focus. This is the reason for the sabbath, to give focus to our lives. We rest from ourselves and our way of life, to refocus our lives on God and His law word. We look to His spirit to govern our spirit, to His word to silence our foolish words, and to His providential care. Because our lives are not our own, we need the requirement of the sabbath to remind us of that fact.

Modern man is destroying his ability to work by abandoning the true sabbath. His life now has no focus except his own wishes, and because as a fallen man, his wishes are self-centered, he increasingly loses hold on reality. Reality is God-centered. The self-centered man loses touch with it. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee that all time come from thy hands, and the purpose of all time is to teach us to look unto thee, to work to move our lives, our families, our world out from under the Fall, into the glorious light of Jesus Christ and His atonement. Make us zealous, therefore, in thy service. Keep us from discouragement as we face the evils around us. Make us ever full of hope, knowing how great thou art, and that thy purposes are altogether true and holy. In Christ’s name. Amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] I think there may be a confusion between rest and contemplation. Rest, to most people, seems to mean play.

[Rushdoony] Yes. That’s a very good point. Play has come to be, in the modern world, a substitute for rest. This is why the common saying is that people need a rest from their vacations, and their work performance after a vacation tends to be not as good because their vacation is hard play, and it is not true rest. Any other questions and comments? The essence of resting in the Lord is to take hands off our lives. It means that we do have concerns. We do have problems. Work, very urgent things pressing in upon us, six days a week. We live in a troubled world, a very troubled world, and certainly the things I heard and learned on this trip make clear that we, in this country, are not the only ones who have problems, and the purpose of the sabbath is to take us out of ourselves and to give us rest. Any other questions or comments? If not, let us conclude in prayer.

Our Father, teach us to rest in thee. Give us grace to take hands off our lives and to commit them into thy keeping. Thou knowest our burdens better than we ourselves. Our concerns for our today and our tomorrows, for our loved ones, for our work, give us grace now to lay all these burdens down, to know that underneath all these things and ourselves are thine everlasting arms. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

End of tape