Remember the sabbath day to hallow it.
This commandment opens by looking back: the day it names was holy long before Sinai. The writers ask what that rest meant, why it tested Israel, and what it means for a Christian now.
God set the day apart long before He gave the law. This command does not create the day; it recalls it. One writer traces the steps.
The day was set apart and made holy from the beginning (Gen. 2). Later it came in again. First, in grace to Israel, marked by the stopping of the manna and a double portion to provide for that holy day (Ex. 16). Second, as part of the law of Sinai, woven into every new and special dealing of Jehovah (chap. 20).
The other nine commandments echo what any conscience already knows. This one does not, and that is where its weight lies.
If any of the ten commandments rests on God's claim alone, it is the sabbath. A child shows far more of the spirit of obedience when he does his father's will than when he only avoids or hates what his own conscience knows to be wrong. In the same way, the Jew proved his obedience much more by bowing to God's command about the sabbath. If I bow to God's command where my own conscience says nothing apart from His word, it is clear that His authority is dear to me… For this reason the sabbath acted as a test in a way the other nine commandments did not; so it was the special sign between Jehovah and Israel.
The day points back to what God did at creation.
The Gentile nations had by this time lost all knowledge of the true God and of His work in creation. Israel alone knew this, and knew that God had rested on the seventh day. In the law God was enforcing His rights as Creator over man. By keeping the sabbath, Israel was to hold His work of creation in constant remembrance.
God did not give this command to slaves. He gave it to a people He had already brought out of Egypt.
It was to this redeemed people that the command was given, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."… That blood had separated them from Egypt and brought them to God in picture. That mighty power had brought them out. These were the ground on which God says, "Therefore the Lord your God commands you to keep the Sabbath day."… The real rest of God can only be known by those who have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
God gave the day as a gift to a weary world.
In itself, it was a real blessing. It was a sweet mercy from the hand of a loving and gracious God, who would relieve the toil and hardship of a sin-stricken earth with the refreshment of one day of rest in seven… "The Sabbath was made for man." Man has never kept it as God meant it to be kept. But that does not take away from the grace that shines in His giving of it.
The day pointed back to a rest God once enjoyed. Sin ended it.
This is the only Sabbath which God ever celebrated, so far as the inspired record teaches us. After this, we read of God commanding man to keep the Sabbath, and man failing completely to do so. But we never read the words "God rested" again. On the contrary, the word is, "My Father is working until now, and I am working" (John 5:17)… God can have no rest where there is sin.
So which day belongs to the Christian? The answer turns on the resurrection.
This is the reason why Christians keep the first day of the week, and not the seventh or sabbath day. Christ's redemption won that rest. The first day, when He rose from the dead, proclaimed it to faith, despite man's guilt and ruin… The Christian therefore has the first day as his own, because it belongs to and witnesses of the finished work of Christ.
The rest itself, meanwhile, is still future.
"Sabbath" means "rest."… The Lord Jesus could not rest in a world full of sin and suffering… But in Hebrews 4:9 we read: "So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God." The sabbath rest is ahead of us.
- Rest remembered — God made the day holy at creation. "Remember" points Israel back to it, not to something new.
- Rest as test — this command rests on God's word alone. That made it the sign between Him and Israel.
- Rest through redemption — God gave it to a people He had already brought out of Egypt. Only the redeemed know His rest.
- Rest as mercy — one day of rest in seven eased the toil of a sin-stricken earth; the sabbath was made for man.
- Rest still ahead — sin broke God's rest, so God kept working. The Christian keeps the resurrection day and waits for the rest that remains.
Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work;
The fourth commandment does not begin with the day of rest; it begins with the six days that lead up to it. Before God claims the seventh day, He gives man the other six. He calls all of that labour "your work." So what place does ordinary work hold in God's order? And what became of the rest waiting at the end of it?
God's measure for work reaches past the week. The same pattern shapes the years of the land.
Six days are man's working time; so six years of labour are followed by the Sabbatic year. Here we have the perfect period of service...
Work itself is not a penalty invented after sin came in. It was already Adam's occupation in the garden.
It is very illuminating that even in these days of man's innocence, God did not intend man to be idle. He was to dress the garden and keep it. Labour would not be irksome.
The six days here are the ordinary days of our week. The commandment sets them beside the six days of creation and treats both alike.
Once more, in Exodus 20:8-11, we have the fourth commandment about the Sabbath. There the seven days of the week and the seven days of creation stand together. Not one word marks off the two sets of days. We could only claim that one set of days was completely different from the other if clear proof came from other parts of Scripture. It does not.
Israel had just come out of Egypt, where the calendar itself belonged to the gods. Fixing six days for work and one for God cleared the week of rival claims.
The Egyptians dedicated each day of the week to one of their gods. Processions and obscene celebrations marked the honour paid to them... After the work of six days the command was imperative to rest on the seventh. It is not a bare permission but a command, and in effect the prohibition of idolatrous feasts. Working six days and resting the seventh cut off all opportunity for the riotous feasts of idolatry.
The command was never designed to grind people down. Six days of work with one day of rest brought relief to a hard-pressed earth.
In itself, it was a real blessing. It was a sweet mercy from the hand of a loving and gracious God. He would relieve the toil and hardship of a sin-stricken earth by the refreshment of one day of rest out of the seven... "The Sabbath was made for man." Man has never kept it as God meant it to be kept. But that does not take away from the grace that shines in the appointment of it. Nor does it strip the Sabbath of its deep meaning as a picture of the eternal rest that remains for the people of God, or as a shadow of what faith now enjoys in the Person and work of a risen Christ.
The order of the verse is work first, rest after. Under Moses that order left Israel's rest out of reach.
Moses had set the people to work, with a promise of rest when they had fulfilled their obligations. They were to work their six days, and get their Sabbath when they had finished all their work. But they never finished, so they never got their Sabbath. But Jesus gives the Sabbath to begin with.
Law and grace run in opposite directions, and the day Christians keep shows it.
The Sabbath marks the creation of the world. It is a rest at the end of six days' labour. That only makes the reason for keeping the first day plainer... The principle of grace is not "do and live," but "live and do." Life begins for us out of death... How fitting that a Christian should keep the day of his Lord's resurrection! He is raised with Christ, and that day is his new beginning — the day he rightly calls "the Lord's day"! How fitting that he keeps it, not because a law commands him, but for the joy and privilege of it!
Rest at the start does not empty the six days. Christ claims the ordinary working week, not only the day set apart for Him.
Christianity is meant to govern every day. I do not like your Sunday Christians... Some of us have work to do. Some of us may know what it is to work early and late... I still say it is a sad thing to be diligent for the world and not for the Lord. We are bound to see that our ordinary daily life is a witness of Christ.
- Work. The six days are man's appointed working time, and labour was Adam's task before sin ever entered.
- Rest. The rest that closes the week is a command, not an option, and it cleared Israel's calendar of the idol feasts of Egypt.
- Mercy. One day of rest in seven was pure kindness — relief for a sin-stricken earth, and a picture of the rest that remains for God's people.
- Reversal. Under law the rest came only after all the work, and Israel never finished. Christ gives the rest first: "live and do."
- Witness. Rest now comes first, so the six working days must show Christ — every day, not just the Lord's day.
but the seventh day is the sabbath of Jehovah thy God thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy bondman, nor thy handmaid, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.