SATURDAY
“rest”, “cessation of activity”.
Divinely instituted day of rest for all men.
(A) Origin.
According to the creation account, God rested on the seventh day from all his work, and blessed and sanctified it (Gen. 2:2-3). The term “Sabattu” is found in cuneiform on Babylonian tablets; It seems to designate an ominous day, and is also applied to the 14th, 19th, 21st and 28th days of the lunar month, in addition to the seventh.
During these days, the king had to abstain from certain activities. It can be seen how such a conception was far removed from the Israelite Sabbath, which did not depend at all on the phases of the moon.
(B) Institution and object:
The first mention of the institution for Israel of a seventh day of rest, consecrated to Jehovah, is found in Ex. 16:23-30. This ordinance was later included in the fourth commandment of the Decalogue, directly establishing its relationship with the cessation of creative activity on the seventh day (Ex. 20:8-11, 31:13-17).
God ceased his work by contemplating and blessing it; man is called to partake of this blessing, and to cease also from his works, on this hallowed day. The Sabbath rest is thus linked to the entire fulfillment of man’s work:
“Six days you will work, and you will do all your work.”
On the other hand, according to Deut. 5:15, the Sabbath remembers the liberation from slavery in Egypt: the people can enjoy the freedom that the powerful hand of God has given them.
Everyone must participate in this rest: parents, children, servants, foreigners, and even beasts of burden and draft (Deut. 5:14). The Sabbath became a peculiar sign of the perpetual covenant entered into by the Lord with Israel (Ex. 31:13, 16-17).
(C) Sabbath observance.
(I) The Decalogue generally prohibited carrying out any work on this day (Ex. 20:10). The Law specifies that fires should not be lit in houses, because meals must be prepared the day before (Ex. 35:2-3).
Gathering firewood is considered a violation of the Sabbath, and transgressors are punished with death (Num. 15:32-36); Likewise, carrying burdens is prohibited (Jer. 17:21-22). Traveling on the Sabbath was considered contrary to Ex. 16:29, and that trading was not permitted either (Neh. 10:10-31; 13:15-21; Am. 8:5).
(II) The Sabbath was the day consecrated to the Lord (Ex. 16:23; 35:2). Two lambs were to be sacrificed in the sanctuary, in addition to the perpetual burnt offering of the ordinary days (Num. 28:9-10, 13).
The two shewbreads were renewed every Sabbath (Lev. 24:5-8; 1 Chron. 9:32). The Sabbath was also counted among the days of joy of Israel (Num. 10:10; cf. Hos. 2:13).
The people had to make him their delight, to try in a particular way on this day to do the will of the Lord, sanctifying and honoring him; The pious man was careful on that day not to do his own will or say what came out of himself (Is. 58:13). He was blessed, sanctified by his pursuit of God, and proclaimed happy (Is. 56:2, 4-6; Ezek. 20:12, 21).
It is especially after the captivity that Sabbath observance fell into extreme legalism. Antiochus Epiphanes, the persecuting king of Syria, attempted to prohibit its celebration (1 Maccabees 1:45, 52; 2 Maccabees 6:6), but the Israelites who remained faithful rebelled under the leadership of the Maccabees, maintaining strict observance of this ordinance.
At the beginning of the war, the Jews believed that they had no right to defend themselves on the Sabbath. Hostilities began with the massacre of 1,000 Jewish patriots and their families.
The survivors resolved to defend themselves if the enemy attacked them on the Sabbath, but not to go on the offensive on this day (1 Mac. 2:31-41), even if such an attitude favored the advance of the pagans.
Later, during the siege of Jerusalem, Pompey erected battering rams and towers on a Sabbath. The Jews did not respond to the threat. As soon as the Sabbath was over, the Romans breached the walls (Ant. 14:4, 2, 3).
In the time of Christ, the Pharisees had established ridiculous rules about the Sabbath, prohibiting even acts of mercy, and they fought Jesus because he performed healings on the Sabbath.
However, the Pharisees did not consider it against the Law to save an ox, a donkey or a sheep on the Sabbath, nor did they deny watering their animals (Mt. 12:9-13; Luke 13:10-17).
The Pharisees were not only opposed to the healings, but also to the accidental gathering of some ears of grain by Jesus’ disciples on the Sabbath. The Lord then declared: “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:23-28).
As for the Essenes, their position was exacerbated. They could not help an animal that fell into a hole; They could not even relieve physiological needs, since their regulations prohibited them from doing so in Jerusalem, and the distance they had to go outside the city was greater than that of a Sabbath day (see QUMRAN [SCROLLS OF], VI, Qumran and the Essenes).
(D) Sabbath cycles.
In addition to the seventh day, there were regular periods dedicated to rest, to the worship of Jehovah, to the proclamation of freedom. There were: the first day of the seventh month (Lev. 23:24-25); in this same month, on the tenth day (Lev. 23:27, 32), and starting on the 15th, a week was spent under the tabernacles (Lev. 23:39-41); Every seven years a sabbatical year was celebrated (Ex. 23:10-11; Lev. 25:2-7, 20-22; Deut. 15:1-4; 31:10), during which the land itself was to rest. , and creditors free their debtors from their debts; Every Israelite reduced to the condition of a slave regained his freedom.
Finally, the jubilee took place in the fiftieth year, after seven cycles of sabbatical years. At the end of the sabbatical year the trumpet was blown to proclaim the year of grace (Lev. 25:8-16). (See JUBILEE.) There are some historical testimonies about the observance of the sabbatical year:
the covenant made in the time of Nehemiah (Neh. 10:31);
the year 150 of the Seleucid era, that is, the year 164-163 BC. (1 Mac. 6:49, 53; cf. Ant. 12:9, 5);
the year 178 of the Seleucids, the year 136-135 BC. (Ant. 13:8, 1; Wars 1:2, 4);
Caesar’s decree exempting the Jews from paying tribute during the sabbatical year (Ant. 14:10, 6; cf. Tacitus, Histories 5:4);
the year 38-37 BC. (Ant. 14:16, 2; 15:1, 2); and
the year before the fall of Jerusalem, 68-69 AD. (Talmud). Cf. also Ant. 11:8, 5 for the time of Alexander the Great.
The captivity had been predicted among the curses; During this time the land of Israel would enjoy the unfulfilled Sabbaths (Lev. 26:34-43).
Jeremiah prophesied that God would punish the people’s idolatry by devasting the country and enslaving Israel in Babylon for 70 years (Jer. 25:7-11).
The author of Chronicles confirms that the violation of the Law and the desecration of the Temple brought upon the Jews, as Jeremiah had predicted, a 70-year exile, and that during this period the land of Israel enjoyed its Sabbaths and rested ( 2 Chron. 36:14, 16, 20, 21).
(E) The Sabbath and Christianity.
In the Gospels and Acts, the Sabbath is frequently mentioned in connection with the Jews. In the rest of the NT it is cited only twice (Col. 2:16; Heb. 4:4) to indicate its spiritual and typological significance.
In these two passages there is no claim that we should observe it, but rather in the Sabbath institution of the OT we can see a picture of the rest that awaits God’s people.
Having been purchased with the precious blood of Christ, our entire time and being belongs to God. No one should be judged for the observance of a festival, a new moon, or Sabbaths (Col. 2:16).
In the early years of the Christian Church, there were believers who continued to distinguish between days, while others considered them all equal (Rom. 14:5); Paul does not want these divergences to cause a breakdown in the fraternal spirit.
But it was also normal that the legal observance of the seventh day gave way to constant rest in Christ, of which the weekly rest was only a shadow (Col. 2:17). Those who believe will enter this rest, in which they are already in principle by faith (cf. Heb. 4:3), but whose definitive fulfillment is still in the future (cf. Heb. 4:9).
It is desirable that, in order to have the desired free time to be able to attend worship (Heb. 10:25) and in view of good physical balance, Christians take Sunday as a holiday, the Lord’s Day.
However, this is not a legal fulfillment of the fourth commandment, which is ceremonial in nature and not corresponding to the dispensation of grace. True obedience to God on the part of the Christian consists of living every day in the spiritual rest described in Hebrews chapters. 3 and 4, allowing the Lord to be the one who works in them and through them.