by: Henry James de Jong
May, 1981
Institute for Christian Studies
Toronto, Ontario
for: Dr. George Vandervelde

1. Introduction.

There is, perhaps, no single facet of the Judaeo-Christian tradition that comes closer to the heart of Christian living than does the sabbath. Yet the reality of the sabbath seems largely to have been lost outside of the Jewish tradition. It has been said that “there is no other commandment or ritual observance in all of Judaism for which you can find such expressions of affection and devotion as for the Sabbath.” ¹ Such cannot be said of Christianity.

Vague stirrings within my own heart have hinted at the potential significance of the sabbath for modern day Christianity and have often voiced their dissatisfaction with the present-day understandings of this fourth commandment. It was in response to these stirrings that I took up the writing of this paper. In it I will attempt to lay a foundation for the necessary re-evaluation of modern sabbath practice by examining the Old Testament practice and then making some suggestions as to the direction a New Testament examination might take.

2. Etymology of ‘sabbath’

The word ‘sabbath’, as it is commonly found in the English language, is a transliteration from the Hebrew. It is derived from ‘sabath’, a verb meaning ‘to cease’ or ‘to cause to cease’. The doubling of the ‘b’ has an intensive force, probably implying a complete cessation.² While the verb ‘sabath’ was apparently a common verb, its main derivative is properly limited in its range of reference to the seventh day of the week. It remains to be seen yet, in this paper, how much ‘sabbath’ and ‘sabath’ rely on each other for their meaning. In most of the literature on the sabbath, use of the verb ‘sabath’ is ignored because it is seen to be “independent of the idea of the sabbath.”³

The origin of ‘sabbath’ is obscure. A century of higher critical methods, in its quest to make ‘sense’ of biblical data, has sought to link the sabbath, and other biblical givens, to practices of the surrounding ancient civilizations. Its view of the sabbath as having developed slowly but surely from pagan, superstitious observances, though waning, is still very much evident.

Within this perspective there are divergent opinions as to the actual nature of the sabbath’s origin. Some see the sabbath as having been derived from Babylonian evil days, days in which certain activities were taboo,⁴ or from some similar cult of moon worship with its superstitious observances of the moon’s resting days (full, new and half moon).⁵ Others see its origin in the Canaanite agricultural calendar,⁶ in Kenite superstitions,⁷ or from some practice of religious, sacrificial feasting that was tied to the phases of the moon.⁸ Whatever the case, most are willing to assume that there is at least an indirect etymological link between ‘sabbath’, and ‘sappatu’, a Babylonian name that has been found to indicate the unlucky day of full moon.⁹

The preoccupation of so many biblical theologians with such speculative matters is at first a bit overwhelming. One soon comes to realize, however, that “the wealth of learning and ingenuity expended in this search for the origin of the sabbath has, up to the present, yielded small returns.”¹⁰ If studies of the sabbath are to bear fruit, they must maintain that the meaning and content of the sabbath were controlled exclusively by Israel’s faith in Yahweh¹¹ and that whatever its connection with pagan superstitions, it must be seen that “the history of the sabbath began with a radical severance from the past.”¹²

3. Institution of the sabbath

3.1

It is significant to note that the sabbath was indeed formally instituted during a course of events that radically severed the Israelites from their past. Within a short period of time they witnessed, no doubt with great wonder, the plagues that were inflicted on the Egyptians, their own release from slavery, the ever present and ominous pillars of cloud and of fire, the parting of the Sea of Reeds, the terrible destruction of the Egyptian army, and the strange appearances of manna on the ground, quails from the sky, and water from a rock, enough each time, to quench the thirst and still the hunger of thousands of people. Such events must have greatly overshadowed the significance of any superstition and custom that was present among the Israelites, and there can have been no doubt in their minds that here was something new and radically superior to the forces that they had thought to be active in their past.

The narrative that describes these remarkable events focuses quite pointedly on God’s zealous attempts to establish his identity in the hearts and minds of a people who were familiar with gods of every sort. “What is his name?” the Israelites were likely to have asked. (Ex. 3:13) and Pharaoh’s scoffing “Who is Yahweh that I should obey him?…I do not know Yahweh” must have been echoed by the Israelites as well. (Ex. 5:2)

It is at the burning bush that God first identifies himself as ‘Yahweh’ or ‘I Am’, adding that “this is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.” (Ex. 3:14,15) To underscore the significance of this identification God frequently punctuates his words to the Israelites with the cryptic statement; “I am Yahweh” (Ex. 6:2,6,8,29; 15:26) and explains that the wonders of his making are given so that men “will know that I am Yahweh.” (Ex. 6:7; 7:5,17; 10:2; 14:4,18; 16:12). Such formula statements were to become a common refrain in the Old Testament.

The contexts of these regular re-introductions to the name of God generally point, by way of some wondrous act either past or promised, to the power of God as well as to his saving goodness. That the Israelites clearly perceived the double significance of God’s acts is evident from the song of Moses.

“Yahweh is my strength,…he has become my salvation,” they sang. (Ex. 15:2) “In your strength you will guide…the people you have redeemed.” (Ex. 15:13) This confession can only be a fulfilment of God’s revelation that through his wondrous deeds they would come to know that “I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.” (Ex. 6:7) By deliberately associating his name with these wonders, God indicates that his unmatchable power and his saving goodness, together form the core of his identity. Indeed, to know that God is Yahweh is synonymous with the knowledge of God’s strength and goodness.

3.2

So it is with the miracle of the manna as well. God’s goodness and power are again demonstrated so that Israel might know that he is Yahweh, their God, (Ex. 16:11) that it was Yahweh, the God whose very name indicates unlimited power and goodness, who brought them out of Egypt, (Ex. 16:6,8) and not some other impotent, self-serving god.

At the time of this miracle of the manna, God’s name has already been established and God now guards it jealously. This he does by testing the Israelites; limiting the quantity of manna that may be gathered to what is needed for the day, and requiring that a double portion be collected on the sixth of every seven days so that there might be enough to eat in the absence of manna on the seventh. Through this test it would become evident that those who disobeyed by gathering more than they needed (Ex. 16:20) or going out to gather on the seventh day (Ex. 16:27) showed a lack of trust in God’s providence and were thus guilty of denying the truth of God’s name; ‘Yahweh the good and mighty one.’

These regulations, especially those concerning the sixth and seventh days are to a large extent simply arbitrary. God’s name could be upheld just as well by an unlimited or regular supply of manna. Such providence, however, is soon taken for granted unless its recipients are continually confronted by the tenuous balance between needs and supplies that characterizes life in a God-less world. To ensure that the Israelites lived one day at a time, and so were driven to trust in him every day again, God symbolically institutionalized their need for food by limiting its supply.

3.3

It is evident, however, that the regulations concerning the gathering and preparation of manna on the sixth and seventh days are intended to form part of a larger, though as yet undefined whole, for here we encounter for the first time the identification of the seventh day with ‘sabbath’. After the Israelites had gathered their double portion on the sixth day, Moses relays to them God’s command: “Tomorrow is a ‘sabbathon’ (sabbath festival), a sabbath set apart for Yahweh.” (Ex. 16:23) Then on the next day God says to the Israelites: “. . . bear in mind that Yahweh has given you the sabbath. That is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Everyone is to stay where he is on the seventh day; no one is to go out. So the people ‘sabathed’ (ceased)¹³ on the seventh day.” (Ex. 16:29,30)

The sudden introduction of ‘sabbath’, ‘sabbathon’ and ‘sabath’, within the space of three short paragraphs (Ex. 16:21-30) raises more questions than it answers. What did those words mean to the Israelites? Did ‘sabbath’ refer to some existing ceremonial or superstitious practice, or does its introduction here witness the birth of a noun from the existing verb ‘sabath’? And how does ‘sabbathon’ fit into this scheme? This trio of words seems to suggest more than the absence of manna on the seventh day, and the prohibition of going out to gather it, yet we can establish nothing further without reading back into it from subsequent elaborations of the sabbath commandment. We can only be sure that this sabbath must have pointed to the greatness and goodness of Yahweh as radically as the many miracles that preceded it.

4. Sabbath in the Sinai covenant

4.1

Some two months after the Israelites ate their first passover meal, and about a month after the sabbath was instituted, a formal covenant was made between Israel and Yahweh on Mount Sinai. Here the sabbath commandment takes its place as one of the cornerstones of that covenant, the fourth of ten words that are inscribed by the finger of God on the tablets of the testimony (Ex. 34:28) which serve as a witness to that covenant.

In this fourth commandment the restrictions that were already associated with the sabbath are broadened to include a ban on any kind of work by any of the people or beasts of burden living within the gates of Israel. (Ex. 20:8-10) This is followed by a formulation of the purpose of the sabbath; “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.” This explanation takes its substance directly from Genesis 2:2,3, the concluding verses of the first creation account.

4.2

The creation motive is probably the most important text in a biblical overview of the sabbath, but it is also the most problematic. Interpretations of this motive are often superficial, going little further in their explanations than what is already stated in the text, and skirting the questions of those who feel that there must be some deeper meaning to it, as well as some reference to the significance of the sabbath prior to the giving of the Law.

Most of those who deal in some more than cursory manner with the creation motive see man’s sabbath as a memorial to God’s rest¹⁴ on the seventh day of creation, or see God’s rest as an example for man to follow, or a rule to obey.¹⁵ Calvin, for example, holds to the latter view, linking the creation motive with what he elsewhere calls the ‘second part’ of sabbath observance, by explaining that “God rested; then he blessed this rest . . . that his own example might be a perpetual rule.¹⁶ Walthar Eichrodt comments too, in connection with the creation motive, that “the Sabbath is extolled as the will of the sovereign Creator God at the foundation of the world.¹⁷

The account of God’s sabbath, however, is hardly explicit enough to serve practically as an example or rule without some further elucidation. God’s rest from creative activities must itself have been a manifestation of goodness, yet it is difficult to pinpoint the location of that goodness within an essentially negative act, much less translate that goodness into an imitation of God’s rest by man, whose working and resting seems, in many respects, to be of a different order than God’s creativity and rest.

This difficulty has been circumvented, unjustly and unwisely, it seems to me, by replacing the negative aspect of the sabbath rule with some corresponding positive aspect. One author, for example, states the problem by maintaining that it is “altogether improbable . . . that rest per se, mere bodily repose, should have been constituted the peculiar mark and symbol (or, similarly, imitation) of holiness, as if this in itself had something God-like about it,” and then solves his problem by finding “in the prohibition of doing work of a secular kind”, an implied requirement to do work of a religious kind.¹⁸

It is in this vein, also, that Calvin and Eichrodt continue their explanation of the creation motive as rule or example. In Calvin’s view, God gives the rule so that men, “being released from all other business, might the more readily apply their minds to the creator of the world,”¹⁹ while Eichrodt states that abstention from work is merely a “pious act” marking a day that is given as “an emphatic reminder that God is the Lord of time, and that no business, however pressing, must be allowed to keep men from regularly seeking his fellowship.”²⁰

These interpretations, in spite of initial assertions to the contrary, discard the idea of God’s sabbath as an example or rule. The implied conceptions of religious work, contemplation of the Creator, or fellowship with him ignore the necessarily positive value of God’s own abstention from creativity and can hardly be seen to be intrinsic to that act of abstention as it is described in the creation account.

4.3

What then is so good about God’s sabbath rest and, by analogy, the Israelites’ sabbath rest? Or, to turn the question around, what would have been so bad about God’s and, by analogy, the Israelites’ refusal to rest? Or again, to put it in the words of Calvin, “the question may not improperly be put; what kind of rest” was this sabbath rest of God?²¹ The answer lies clearly, I think, within the creation account taken as a whole.

Karl Barth presents a picture of God’s sabbath that successfully places it within that whole context. “On the seventh day God the Creator completed his work by ‘resting’. This simply means that he did not go on with this work of creation as such. He set both himself and his creation a limit. He was content to be the Creator of this particular creation, to glory, as the Creator, in this particular work. He had no occasion to proceed to further creations. He needed no further creations. And he found what he created ‘very good’. Before this cosmos, established but also delimited by his will, and finally and supremely before the man of this cosmos, the work of the sixth day, God stood on the seventh day openly ‘relaxed,’ (Ex. 31:7) celebrating joyfully and freely . . .”²²

The creation account, then, must be seen as a narrative that builds up to a climax. At the end of every day God surveyed the work of his hands and “saw that it was good.” On the sixth day, after he had created man, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good,” indicating with the superlative that the pinnacle of goodness had been reached. Indeed, in the next verse, it is stated that “thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array,” and, as if to drive the point home, it is immediately repeated that “by the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing.” (Gn. 1:31-2:2)

With this context in mind we may assert that Calvin, in answering his own question, rightly sees that, by resting, God “desisted from the creation of new kinds of things,” and that this is made clear only if we understand “that the last touch of God had been put, in order that nothing might be wanting to the perfection of the world.”²³ In other words, God rested, not to contemplate his creation, or to urge man to do likewise, but quite necessarily because the universe had been brought to perfection. God had ‘finished’, and was unwilling and unable to improve his handiwork with new creations.

While Calvin does not bring this to bear on the nature of man’s sabbath rest, Barth is more explicit. Through obedience to the sabbath commandment, he says, “every seventh day shall have for man the same content and meaning as the seventh day of creation has for God himself.” Man is to be “free from work . . . He is to have a breathing space . . . There is no question of man’s contemplation of accomplished work,” however, “even without any work or merits, he himself may rest with God, . . . imitating his action, doing no work, celebrating in joy and freedom . . . He is obliged to be free.”²⁴

Among all the sabbath theologies that I have been confronted with, the Jewish tradition alone has been found to be comparable to Barth’s explicit analogy between the sabbath rest of God and of man. In a work called To Be A Jew,²⁵ Rabbi Donin, using various sources, elucidates this Jewish tradition in a way that brings Barth’s lofty sabbath ideal down to earth. The sabbath observer, he quotes, is to feel that, “when the sabbath arrives after six days of work that all his work has been completed in that time.” ²⁶

Donin’s exposition describes the sabbath rest as the type of rest that “comes in the wake of completing some project, after reaching some goal. This type of rest comes at the completion of one’s work, not as a ‘rest’ during it. Here a man sits back and contemplates his achievement or his handiwork. This kind of rest is a delight to the soul. It brings a sense of release; it provides a deep satisfaction accompanied by a sense of peace and tranquillity.” ²⁷

This rest, of course, is in reality not a product of man’s own success in finishing his work. Man must rather feel that “though I have not finished, it is as though I have. I now stop for there is no such thing as ‘must’ do.”²⁸ This freedom from having to do work is made possible only by God. In it man remembers “that Almighty God is the source of all power, and his Lawgiver,” and “proclaims both to himself, and to his surroundings, that he enjoys only a borrowed authority. Therefore even the smallest work done on the sabbath is a denial of the fact that God is the Creator and Master of the world. It is an arrogant setting up of man as his own master.”²⁹

5. Unity of pre-covenant and covenant sabbath

5.1

A conception of the sabbath that focuses on the completion of work is clearly similar to the earliest experience of sabbath regulations in the Desert of Sin. Up until their exodus from Egypt the Israelites had been working from dawn to dusk, day in, day out. With such slavery still fresh in their memories they must have felt or at least sensed the depth of their freedom from the inevitable necessity of labour on those first sabbath days. Any sneers in the face of such freedom, any attempts to take ‘providence’ into their own hands could only be considered as ungrateful acts of arrogance that denied the authority of God and certainly merited the righteous anger that is twice described in Exodus 16.

When, a month or so later, the creation account is recalled to justify the fourth commandment it must have called to mind the parallel between God’s ‘rest’ in the goodness of his creation and their own rest in the power of his providence. Such rest is so much the more necessary and trustworthy because of the reassuring fact that Yahweh himself was sure enough about the perfection of that goodness to allow himself the leisure to rest in it.

The continuity of this early sabbath practice with the fourth commandment is, on the other hand, undermined by interpretations that posit some form of religious work or contemplation, rather than a simple act of faith, as the kernel of the commandment. Such thinking seems to be far removed from the early sabbath practices of an unsettled people, so much so that higher critical theologians, in linking the sabbath commandment with this kind of thinking, have been forced to attribute the creation motive to a very late and ‘religiously developed’ stage of Judaism.³⁰

5.2

That the fourth commandment and the early practice of the sabbath must be continuous in conception is, I think, borne out by the inclusion of the refrain, “I am Yahweh,” within both contexts. Four repetitions of the sabbath commandment, occurring within Exodus and Leviticus, include it as part of the formulation: “You must observe my sabbaths. I am Yahweh your God.” (Lev. 19:3); “Observe my sabbaths….I am Yahweh.” (Lev. 19:30, 26:2); and, most explicit of all, “You must observe my sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for generations to come, so that you may know that I am Yahweh who sanctifies you.” (Ex. 31:12,13) These restatements of the sabbath law quite explicitly draw into close connection man’s observance of the sabbath and the establishment of God’s identity as Yahweh, the supreme but benevolent ruler, an identification that was, as we have seen, linked explicitly to the wonders that were worked by God’s hand during the early stages of the exodus.

This identification is intrinsic to the larger context of the sabbath law as well. The Sinai covenant has been demonstrated, by research, to be closely akin to the form and practice of ancient treaties. Meredith Kline maintains, convincingly, that such treaties, or ‘law covenants’, negotiated between a king and his vassals, were “expressive of a lordship that could satisfy the terms of the covenant by stretching out its scepter in either blessing or curse.”³¹ The Sinai covenant, already by nature of the form that it took, was expressive of God’s identity.

The introduction of the Sinai covenant does indeed establish this lordship as the setting for the whole covenant; “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” (Ex. 20:2) Or, in other words, “I am the Great King by whose mighty hand you have been blessed.” The covenant itself, Kline argues, as an extension of this introduction may be defined as “an administration of God’s lordship,” or “a sovereign administration of the Kingdom of God.” It is a “legal instrument by which God’s kingship is exercised over his creatures.”³²

The exercise of God’s kingship through covenant law is, in effect, identical with the exercise of his kingship through signs and wonders. The ten commandments, like the miracles, are given so that the Israelites might know that God is Yahweh, that it is his rule which is established over them and over the forces of this world, and that his work, quite apart from any human effort to assist or supplant it, has been and always will be the source of their freedom.

5.3

Given the thrust of the sabbath towards an affirmation of God’s power and goodness, it is not surprising that demonstrations of this power and goodness other than the act of creation should serve as its foundation. Such is the case in Deuteronomy, Moses’ retelling of the Sinai covenant. “Remember,” says God in this newly affirmed covenant, “that you were slaves in Egypt and that Yahweh your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore Yahweh has commanded you to observe the sabbath day.” (Dt. 5:15) God’s ‘mighty hand’ and the ‘outstretched arm’ of his fatherly love reaffirm God’s identity as Yahweh.

It is, I think, significant to note that in these two versions of the decalogue the sabbath is grounded in both redemptive and pre-redemptive history. To this day, in fact, Jews symbolize and remember this double foundation in their sabbath observances.³³ The exodus motive of Deuteronomy also tells favourably for the unity of the sabbath commandment and of the earlier experience of the sabbath in the desert, since the latter shares with this motive a deep awareness of the Israelites’ newfound freedom from never-adequate, never-ending work.

6. Sabbath: recognition and response

6.1

The establishment of God’s lordship requires of his ‘vassals’ a reciprocal expression of allegiance. Such allegiance is not the grudging, legalistic obedience that has characterized so much of Judaism and Christianity down to the present day. Though the Sinai covenant is indeed a legal instrument, it is not a “mercantile quid pro quo contract” in which the covenant laws are “a mere legal code” whose fulfilment guarantees the receipt of promised blessings. Rather, the covenant, beginning “with the declaration of the central and controlling demand for personal allegiance to the overlord, presents all other additional stipulations as so many specifications of the vassal’s primary allegiance.” “The covenantal commandments . . . were first and last concerned with the duty of the covenant people . . . to walk before him in perfect loyalty.”³⁴

Loyalty and allegiance are matters of the heart. God’s covenant laws, and his self-revelation through miracles and mighty works, all lay claim upon that heart’s commitment. God’s rest on the seventh day of creation, reflecting as it does the infinite power and goodness that went into it, also claims allegiance, and by instituting the sabbath as a sign of his power and goodness, God preserves the force of that claim.

The sabbath, says God, “will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he abstained from work and rested.” (Ex. 31:17) In six days Yahweh made a creation of such complete perfection and goodness that the Israelites could forever rest assured that it would stand them in good stead. It is to such faith that they were called by this remembrance of God’s sabbath rest and by the reality of their own sabbath rest.

6.2

In spite of the unity between sabbath in particular and covenant in general, the sabbath seems, somehow, to be set apart from the other commandments. It is true that these commandments, too, confirm God’s call to loyalty. The injunction against stealing, for example, calls men to trust in their hearts that what God has given them is sufficient for their needs. The other prohibitions are similarly inclined. Each one is a timeless, very real, every-day reminder that God’s grace is sufficient for all things.

The sabbath commandment, on the other hand, is more symbolic, and its injunctions hold sway over only one of every seven days. The very fact, however, that it is symbolic, gives it greater timelessness and relevance. It can even be said that, because it is the only commandment “which deals with a purely ritual observance,” it has been assigned a special priority “by the Almighty Himself, in the broad context of all the commandments that concern man’s relationship to God.”³⁵

Meredith Kline presents an hypothesis that would confirm this peculiar status of the sabbath word. It is worth quoting in full.

“It is tempting to see in the sabbath sign presented in the midst of the ten words the equivalent of the suzerain’s dynastic seal found in the midst of the obverse of the international treaty documents. Since in the case of the decalogue the suzerain is Yahweh, there will be no representation of him on his seal, but the sabbath is declared to be his ‘sign of the covenant.’ (Ex. 31:13-17) By means of his sabbath keeping, the image-bearer of God images the pattern of that divine act of creation which proclaims God’s absolute sovereignty over man, and thereby he pledges his covenant consecration to his maker. The Creator has stamped on world history the sign of the sabbath as his seal of ownership and authority. That is precisely what the pictures on the dynastic seals symbolize and their captions claim in behalf of the treaty gods and their representative, the suzerain.”³⁶

Such a seal, by impressing itself repeatedly on every Israelite’s week-to-week living, if that was indeed its intent, can only have been comprehended and effected in a spirit of the most profound allegiance, an allegiance that recognizes fully the proper place of man and God in creation and can, itself, be seen to imply all of the other commandments.

6.3

The identification of God as Lord, in the sabbath words and in all of the other words, is necessarily bound up with the identification of man as his vassal. It is impossible to obtain full knowledge of God as the great and good King without knowing fully that man is completely and utterly dependent on him. The sabbath and its two motives point to this kingship as well as to this dependence. The fact that God’s creation was perfectly good means that Adam and Eve, the recipients of that goodness, were in no way responsible for bringing it about. The fact that God delivered the Israelites from slavery means that the Israelites needed, in principle, only to stand by and watch.

In taking up this characterization of the sabbath (without making recourse to either of its two motives) Calvin explains that the first purpose of sabbath observance is that God “meant to represent (symbolize) to the people of Israel spiritual rest, in which believers ought to lay aside their own works to allow God to work in them.”³⁷ Karl Barth refers to the sabbath as a sign of good tidings and freedom, a sign that points man “away from everything that he himself can will and achieve and back to what God is for him and will do for him.”³⁸

The Israelites’ response to this symbolized revelation must be two-fold. He must maintain the force of the symbol in his sabbath practice, and he must respond to its revelation with a heart-felt determination to put aside his own aspirations and to allow God’s will to be done. The latter response, of course, is not meant to be limited to any particular day. In fact, the very nature of a heart’s commitment makes such a limitation impossible.

6.4

Just as the faith in God as Lord that is expressed through sabbath obedience necessarily spills over into every other day of the week, and vice-versa, disobedience of sabbath regulations must stem from a day to day attitude of arrogance. Any unwillingness to give in fully to the ceremonial strictness of the sabbath is likely to be a reflection of a deeper unwillingness to let God’s will be done during the week.

Because of this close correlation between heart and practice, Calvin can maintain, even though the sabbath laws never actually come out and say it, that sabbath observance called the Jews to “divest themselves of their reason, counsels, and all the feelings and affectations of the flesh,” or, to “deny themselves and renounce their earthly nature.”³⁹ The Heidelberg Catechism speaks of the sabbath still more plainly, as “rest from . . . evil works.”⁴⁰

Every evil work stems from a refusal to recognize that God, as King, is the source of everything that man needs, and that man, on his own, cannot look after himself. Every sin against the Law of God even in its smallest details is, at root, an expression of such arrogance. Stealing, adultery, lying, coveting, all demonstrate man’s blindness to the recognition that such works are not necessary for his well-being. When the sabbath symbolizes a style of living that has no need of man’s ineffectual and destructive activities, it, in effect, summarizes the whole of the Law.

Put into this context, the fall of Adam and Eve into sin, is due, precisely, to their disobedience of the sabbath ordinance. Adam and Eve lived in a time – the seventh day of creation – in which creation was sanctified or set apart as being perfectly and completely good, yet they, in their arrogance, trusted in their own judgement and works, rather than in God.

Thus, at its root, the sabbath is seen to call man to cease from doing evil works. Or, using the common Hebrew verb ‘sabath’ (to cease, or cause to cease), it can be said that the sabbath calls for man to ‘sabath’ these evil works from his living.

6.5

It is interesting and, I think, productive to note how much the nearness of spelling and pronunciation of ‘sabbath’ and ‘sabath’ have made each a part of the conceptual basis for understanding the other. This root connection cannot have failed to strike the Hebrew when, for example, God promised them that he would remove, or ‘sabath’ the savage beasts from the land, (Lev. 26:6) or when they were told again how, in the story of Exodus, Pharoah accused Moses of having removed, or ‘sabathed, the burdens of his people. (Ex. 5:5) Particularly striking must have been the prophetic warning of Hosea to Israel that God would ‘sabath’ her sabbaths. (Hosea 2:11) A further survey⁴¹ of the Bible’s use of ‘sabath’ reveals that the verb, especially in its Hiphil conjugation, is used predominantly to indicate that some evil has ceased or been caused to cease. Savage beasts, wars, arrogance, pride, idols, all receive warning that they will be sabathed from the land.

The depth of meaning and connotation that is associated with ‘sabath’ seems to indicate that the frequent translations of ‘sabath’ as ‘rest’ in English versions of the Bible are very misleading. ‘Rest’ says nothing at all about the work that it displaces except perhaps that, afterwards, the work will continue much the same as before. ‘Sabath’ on the other hand immediately focuses attention on the action that has ceased, and on the reason for its cessation. This is indeed the true focus of the sabbath as well. Without an awareness of the nature of the work that has preceded it and the reasons for which such work is to be sabathed, the sabbath in its general sense becomes a form of rest that lacks any religious or moral significance.

6.6

The particulars of ceremonial sabbath observance must also be rooted in an awareness of the inadequacy of man’s day to day work. The ritual abstention from work aims to include under its interdict anything that has, within itself, the potential to interfere with God’s work. According to modern Jewish thought, “any act, however small, that involves man in physically creative acts, and shows his mastery over the world constitutes ‘work’ . . . This is why acts which may not even require any physical effort, such as plucking a flower or striking a match, are still called ‘work’.”⁴² Such acts are forbidden because of the possibility that they could be conceived in an attitude of arrogance. Such strictness must have sorely tested the Israelites, but it must also have given them a profound awareness of the extent to which God was willing to take care of them.

The experience of God’s power and of his gracious care on the sabbath is far from purely symbolic. Man’s rest is real enough on these days to give him a sense of release comparable to that of the beleaguered Israelites in the desert on their first sabbaths. It need hardly be said, too, that the tradition of Sunday rest that has sprung up, if illegitimately, out of the sabbath observance has had as much healing power in the western world as any other social institution. The Israelite was not thinking of purely spiritual matters when he expressed his opinion that the sabbath was to be enjoyed (Lev. 26:34, 11 Chr. 36:21) and called a delight. (Is. 58:13) He could appreciate, because of the sabbath, that this world is “very good,” and he could experience a real sense of release from the frustrating inadequacies of his day to day living and working.

7. Conclusion

The Israelites’ ceremonial abstention from work on the sabbath day symbolizes both Yahweh’s recognition of the goodness of his work of creation, and man’s recognition of the futility of his own works. The six days of creation were so filled with goodness by Yahweh’s power and grace that there was no more need to work. Man’s six days of labour are so emptied of goodness by his humanity and sin that such labour need not even be attempted. This sign of the sabbath calls man to trust that the work of creation is more than sufficient for man’s well-being, and to trust that his own works must, like vessels, become filled by the workings of Yahweh rather than the workings of man’s fallen, human nature, if they are to contribute to his well-being.

8. Theses

8.1

Much of the strictness that has characterized Jewish and Christian observances of the Sabbath, and of Sunday, constitutes a ‘works-righteousness’ that is directly contrary to the intent of the sabbath commandment to discourage any kind of trust in man’s own works.

8.2

“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing.” (Gn. 2:2) “Jesus said, ‘It is finished. With that he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” (John 19:30)

Because man is actually dead to himself when he shares in the finished work of redemption, he no longer needs to experience the symbolical death to self that allowed him, each sabbath, to share in the finished work of creation.