Why does Exodus 35:2 require the death penalty for working on the Sabbath?

Over and over again Israel had been warned against doing any work on the sabbath. Therefore if one were to violate this, it would be presumptuous sin. such a case arose at this time, that of a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath. We can understand that the children of Israel would hesitate to think of carrying out a sentence against him so severe as death. But they put him under guard until Moses should be told by the Lord what to do. The answer was definite and solemn. The man must be put to death by means of all the congregation stoning him (v.35). This was the stern requirement of law.

Verse 36 speaks of the death penalty carried out against the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath. He had not directly harmed other people by his working, but he had defied the Word of God, which is certainly more serious. Why did God make the Sabbath so serious a matter? Because he was declaring to mankind the basic truth that no relationship with God could be gained or maintained on the basis of human works. One who violated the Sabbath was therefore choosing his own works rather than faith in the clear Word of God. Today, under grace, God does not require the death sentence for working on the Sabbath, and also the Sabbath was never imposed on Gentiles, but only on Israel under law (Ex.31:12-17). However, the spiritual significance of this is more serious than the literal law of the Sabbath. For if one refuses to trust God's Word concerning the sacrifice of His Son, but trusts his own works instead, he will suffer, not only death, but the judgment of eternal fire.

Anyone who defiled the Sabbath was immediately under sentence of death. Whoever did any work on that day was to be cut off in death. Does this seem cruel? The answer is that any Israelite guilty of breaking the Sabbath was showing contempt for God. Whether people think lightly of this or not, this is enormous wickedness. Israel was guilty of disobeying this consistently, and rulers did not carry out God's sentence of death. Certainly people today are no less guilty when they coldly disobey the Word of God, but God deals in patient grace, not judging yet, but giving opportunity to sinners to repent and be saved.

The presumptuous sinner cannot plead ignorance; his sin is the violation of a well-known command. These two sins are the only ones here looked at for the land. The general character of the restored nation, as we have seen, is that all shall know the Lord (comp, Jer. 24:7; Ezek. 35:12). If any man notwithstanding knowledge commit sin, then immediate judgment follows. Thus it is distinguished from mere ignorance. To despise the word of Jehovah is presumptuous, it is sin apart from the nature of the thing done. An instance is given, for God teaches us both by example and precept. The children of Israel found a man that gathered sticks on the sabbath day, and he is put in ward until Jehovah declares His judgment upon him. All the congregation stone him. The same was done to another who had blasphemed the Name (of Jehovah). In the one case the act was sin because it had been forbidden. The other was sin even if there had been no command. The seemingly trivial character of the presumptuous sin recorded in Num. 15 is to show the absolute and perfect obedience to be rendered by Israel in that day, and the swift judgment is also in keeping with Isa. 65. As compared with Lev. 24 human judgment would see great disparity between the two, and while meting out the heaviest penalty to the blasphemer would look upon the gathering of sticks on the sabbath as of trifling import. But in divine things human judgment is always wrong. Each was equal to the other in guilt, despising the authority of God. If we saw nothing more than that the penalty in each case was death, this is sufficient warrant to pronounce them equally guilty, for God is righteous in judgment. But in truth their sin was essentially the same: both were presumptuous sinners; for He who said, "Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain," said also, "Remember the sabbath to keep it holy." Neither of these sinners could plead ignorance. Each violated the divine majesty, if not a well-known command.

But why, it may be asked, had they to put the man in ward? Because, although the commandment was explicit, yet the breach of it had not been anticipated, nor had any penalty been enacted. To speak after the manner of men, Jehovah had not contemplated such folly on man's part, as the interruption of His rest, and therefore He had not formally provided for such an occurrence. We need not say that God knows the end from the beginning; but in the matter now before us, He purposely left the case unnoticed until occasion required. But alas! occasion did require, for man is capable of anything. He has no heart for God's rest. To kindle a fire on the sabbath day was not only a positive breach of the law, but it evidenced the most complete alienation from the mind of the Lawgiver, inasmuch as it introduced into the day of rest that which is the apt symbol of judgement. Fire is emblematic of judgement, and as such it was wholly out of keeping with the repose of the sabbath. Nothing therefore remained but to visit the sabbath-breaker with judgement, for "whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap."

It is not overlooked that there are earlier references to a hebdomadal division of time, and also to the seventh day as the sabbath. But only when incorporated with the "ten words," did it possess the nature of a legal obligation, so that to break the sabbath, by gathering sticks, for instance, was punishable by death. It was the sabbath of Jehovah Elohim, and it was to be hallowed to His worship and service.

That which God spake to Moses when he was in the mount for forty days and forty nights began with Exodus 25, and now in verses 12-17 of our chapter we have God's closing words. They concerned the proper observance of the sabbath, which He declared was to be "a sign between Me and you throughout your generations." This fact is twice stated — verses 13 and 17 — so it is evidently of much importance. Based upon God's rest after creation the seventh day was chosen for it, and the penalty for its infringement was to be death. This may appear to us a very stringent enactment, but we must not forget that now everything was on the basis of law, which the people had just accepted, as that which should govern their relations with God.

Now in order to be a sign a thing must be of an outward nature which can be observed of men. The sabbath was such an outward observance. Its careful observance would at once have made Israel a peculiar people amongst the nations of the world, and signified that they were in covenant relations with God. In the light of this fact we can at once see how full of meaning were the repeated actions of our Lord in mercy on the sabbath day. He was not only showing that the mercy of God is not restricted by the law God had given, but also that the grace He brought was setting aside the law of Moses as the basis of acceptance before God. This is particularly marked in John 5:17-18. The sabbath, which spoke of rest, was the sign of the law system, but no rest had been reached on the basis of the law. It was now set aside in favour of work — that work which was shared by both the Father and the Son. After the foreshadowing of Abraham and Isaac, in Genesis 22, Father and Son were working together towards the sacrifice of the cross.

This brings us to the seventh great truth, Ex. 35:1-3, which is the culmination of all the previous ones. It is the rest of God. All provisions for preparing the Tabernacle had been made, and they were now about to enter upon its actual construction. But notice, first, the repetition of the command to keep the Sabbath. It points on to the rest of God He can never rest in the presence of sin. He would declare that His dwelling-place is to be on the basis of an eternal Sabbath. We see this in the last part of Revelation, when the toiling is done the glorious end is reached. All of man's day is at last over, and we are brought into the cloudless, eternal day of God. "The Tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them" (Rev. 21:3). The rest of God and the dwelling-place of God must be together, and that for eternity. But coming back to time, to the basis on which God dwells with His people even now, how preciously it reminds us of Him who is the true basis of rest — not our work or worthiness. It is ceasing to struggle to improve the flesh, and in anticipation entering upon God's rest, even Christ Himself, whose glory God spreads as a covering over His redeemed (Isa. 4:5-6).

The camp, we have said, was aroused into activity. The willing-hearted and the wise-hearted were busy proving - the former, by that which they brought, their title to be so reckoned; and the latter, by their work, to be thus classed. But the stir of the daily toil ceased on each Sabbath day; the spinning wheels were then at rest; the shuttles lay unused; saws and planes were laid aside on that one day in seven - the Sabbath of rest to the Lord. Is not this the reason why the reminder of Sabbatic observance prefaces the instructions to the people about the construction of the Tabernacle (35:1-3)? It was work for God to prepare the Tabernacle, but that was to be no excuse for the violation of the Sabbath. Instituted in Eden, the Sabbath was a sign given by God to Israel. Learning first about its observance on their way to Sinai, when the manna was given (Ex. 16.), they were reminded of it at Sinai by the fourth commandment (20). Then, after Moses had received all the directions about the construction of the Tabernacle, and the institution of the Aaronic priesthood, God charged him to impress on the people the observance of that day (31:12-17). Accordingly, the law-giver, when about to instruct them in all that was needed for the Tabernacle, prefaces it by a reminder of the sanctity of the Sabbath.

But if we seek a spiritual reason, we may find it in this, that rest indeed is only possible in God — in that divine sufficiency which is able to bear all demands upon it. And is not this the first requisite for all sufficiency on our part, this rest in God? a Sabbath to Jehovah, because Jehovah is known as the God of all deliverances, acting from Himself and for the glory of His name? It is this that enables us to bring Him our free-will offering and build His tabernacle. And therefore it is not strange, but simple, that it should be found here, insisted on in the peremptory fashion of the law indeed, but even thus not without its corresponding truth as solemn for the soul.

"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." (Ex. 35:1-3.)

The Lord, as has been stated before, always reminds the people of the end and object of all His ways with them; viz., entering into His rest. This was the end proposed, however impossible it became for them to attain it because of their unbelief. Hence the Sabbath is found again in this place, as it always is whenever any new relationship is formed between God and the people. It becomes thus a kind of preface to the account of the construction of the sanctuary.