Leviticus 23:3

The Sabbath (Leviticus 23:3).

Leviticus 23:3

“Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no manner of work. It is a sabbath to Yahweh in all your dwellings.”

The first celebration mentioned is of the seventh day feast. This was the Sabbath, the seventh day, the day laid down in the covenant beginning at sunset after each period of six working days when all work was to cease in the camp, and later throughout the land (Exodus 20:11; Deuteronomy 5:12). Wherever they were throughout the land they would on that day cease from labour, both they, and all their servants, and all their bond-men and women. No manner of work could be done. It was a Sabbath of solemn rest, in every dwelling. The whole of Israel was to stop work as one. And as work ceased they would remember, ‘we were once in bondage in the land of Egypt, we had to work without ceasing, and by His mighty power Yahweh delivered us' (Deuteronomy 5:15).

The Sabbath was a holy ‘calling-together' in an act of obedience and tribute to Yahweh, and recognition of His overlordship. This more than anything else would bind them together, distinguishing them from all others, and forming a bond of unity between them. They were the Sabbath-keepers to the glory of Yahweh.

On this day at the Central Sanctuary two lambs instead of one would be offered for the morning and evening sacrifices (Numbers 28:9), and twelve loaves of showbread were presented to God (Leviticus 24:5; 1 Chronicles 9:32). However far they may be from that Sanctuary they would be aware that ‘the Priest' was offering these on their behalf.

There was no day like it anywhere else in the world. The Babylonian sabbatu was not part of a regular cycle but occurred on specific days of the month (the fourteenth, nineteenth, twenty first and twenty eighth), and was for the purposes of religious observance and sacrifices in order to divert the wrath of certain gods. But it was limited to certain classes of society, including the ruler and certain priests, while work continued on it for others, as is evidenced by business contracts of which we have copies. It was not a day of total rest. Other nations also had days in the month on which there were certain restrictions, but none like the Sabbath. The Sabbath was totally free from connection with the moon (see below). It was a new idea altogether.

We are so used to the idea of ‘a week' that we automatically read it into Scripture. But everyone, including Israel, dated things by the moon. Everything happened on such and such a day of a moon period. The first possible mention of ‘a week' in the sense in which we know it was in Jeremiah 5:24, and even there it is extremely questionable. Otherwise the concept does not appear in the Old Testament. (Where we find the translation ‘week' we should retranslate as ‘seven'). The seven day period leading up to the Sabbath operated independently of dating. There is never any reference to a particular ‘day of the week', it is always to a ‘day of the month'.

With regard to the Sabbath being a day of complete cessation of all work it is difficult for us in our day, when we have so much free time, to recognise what it must have been like to live in days when some had no free time at all, and when many could find themselves literally worked without respite until they died of exhaustion. The Sabbath ensured that this could not happen to anyone in Israel. No exceptions were allowed specifically for this reason. Men must not be allowed to find a way round it. All men, slave or free, must every seventh day have that one day of total rest.

The timing of the ‘seventh' day Sabbath was probably determined by the first day on which manna appeared (Exodus 16:23). Whether it was known before that we do not know. There is no mention of the Sabbath prior to that point, nor of a regular day when men were to cease to work, even though, once commenced, it was patterned on the seventh day of the creation narrative. But Moses declared that the reason that Yahweh had given them the Sabbath was as a reminder of their deliverance from bondage in Egypt by His mighty power (Deuteronomy 5:15). Isaiah would later stress that it was to be a day when men remembered God and sought His pleasure and not their own (Isaiah 58:13). Then they would be blessed indeed.

Note On The Sabbath.

The first mention of the Sabbath is in Exodus 16. The impression given there (Leviticus 23:23; Leviticus 23:25; Leviticus 23:29) is that when Moses spoke of the Sabbath he was imparting new information. He was declaring that at the same time as the giving of the Manna God had given them the Sabbath (Leviticus 23:29). He explained that the seventh day of the giving of the manna was to be a holy sabbath (a ‘ceasing from work'), and therefore also that every seventh day after that was to be a Sabbath as it followed a six day supply of Manna.

Indeed the ‘rulers' were confused about it and had to have it explained to them (Leviticus 23:22). This can only be explained by the fact that they were at this stage unaware of a regular Sabbath. If they had been their question could hardly have arisen. Had the Sabbath already been instituted they would have expected that there should be no gathering on the Sabbath.

The seventh day Sabbath was then firmly established as something which was to continue while the Manna was given (Leviticus 23:26). Later in the giving of the covenant at Sinai it was made a permanent feature, and there it was made a reminder of creation (Exodus 20:8) which established its permanence. God had rested on the seventh day and blessed it, and now also so must Israel on each seventh day that followed the giving of Manna. But it should be noted that the creation account says nothing about the Sabbath, nor about ‘a week'. Nor does it suggest that time should follow that pattern. It simply speaks of a divinely perfect period of ‘seven days'.

In fact Moses specifically declared in Deuteronomy 5:15 that the reason that Yahweh commanded them to keep the Sabbath day was as a memorial of their delivery from Egypt, with the ceasing from work symbolising their ceasing from bondage. Every Sabbath as they ceased work it would be a reminder of that great deliverance from bondage by the mighty power of Yahweh.

This gives good reason to think that Exodus 16 was in fact the time when the regular permanent seventh day Sabbath was first established, in order to commemorate the giving of the Manna as something better than the bread of Egypt, and as a symbol of deliverance and of God's care. Previously holy rest days had been mentioned on which all work should cease (Exodus 12:16), and they were sometimes, but not always, ‘seventh days', but they had never been called sabbaths, and they were specific memorial days indicating the beginning and ending of special feasts. The Sabbath was something new.

Because it was a sabbath (shabbath - a stopping of work) they were to cease work on it. It was a holy rest (shabbathon). This would hardly have needed to be explained if they were familiar with it.

So while no specific statement was made in Exodus 16 that it was a new institution, everything about the narrative suggests that it was. The sabbath had not previously been mentioned, and the only mention of a seventh day feast previously was in Exodus 13:6 and there it was a seventh day numbered from another day (the first day after the fourteenth day of Abib) fixed by the moon. And new and full moons did not always occur on a specific day of the week. Indeed in Exodus 13 there was also a special feast on the first day after the fourteenth of Abib as well as on the seventh after. Both were holy days. This was the pattern of special days elsewhere. They were on fixed days of a moon period

It may well be therefore that the first giving of the Manna also represented the first establishing of the strict seven day ‘week' pattern and of the regular Sabbath. Previously they probably simply numbered the days of each moon period and have utilised periods of the moon for recording time, or followed the ways of the Egyptians. This new way of measuring time from one Sabbath to another would be another indication of their new nationhood, and their new position under God their Provider. But they still dated everything under the old non-week system.

Indeed had the Sabbath and the seven day period on which it ended already been a well recognised feature we might have expected that those who broke it (Exodus 16:27) would be put to death (compare Numbers 15:32). But instead they are only rebuked for having disobeyed the command not to gather.

It is also interesting to note that there is no specific emphasis in Exodus 16 of doing no work, although it may possibly be seen as implied in Leviticus 23:23 and Leviticus 23:26, the latter only being stated, however, after the failure to observe the Sabbath. This may be why they were only rebuked.

If this be so its introduction was probably made easier by the fact that ‘seven days' (not directly related to the week) was often seen as a holy period (see Genesis 7:4; Genesis 7:10; Genesis 8:10; Genesis 8:12; Genesis 8:22; Genesis 29:27; Genesis 50:10; Exodus 7:25; Exodus 12:15; Exodus 12:19; Exodus 13:6 and often). Seven was the number of divine perfection. Thus they learned that from now on their life was in a sense to be made up of holy periods of seven days in which God provided their food for six days, followed by a day on which they ceased work as a reminder of their deliverance from bondage.

It is true that in Genesis 2:1 God stopped working on ‘the seventh day' from all His activity in creation, but that is not applied there to any requirement for man to observe it, and had it been a requirement when that was written we would have expected it to be mentioned, especially if that was the intention. Nor is the seventh day there called the Sabbath, although it is true that shabbath is related to shabath, to stop, be at a standstill, stop working, the verb used there. Later in Exodus 20:10 (see also Exodus 31:17) this example is given as proving that the idea of the seventh day was something which God has blessed but there is no necessary suggestion or indication that the Sabbath itself was inaugurated at the time of creation. Creation did not take place in a ‘week', it took place over a seven day period. The distinction is important for accuracy. As we have seen in Deuteronomy 5:14 it is in fact the deliverance from Egypt that is given as the reason why God instituted the Sabbath. The bondmen had become free and in gladness and gratitude would honour Yahweh by dedicating a work-free day to Him.

Thus we should note that ‘the seventh day' was not something that was fixed as the last day in a week. The week did not come first. The idea of the seventh day of a series of days came first. The reason that it was special was precisely because it was the seventh day of a divinely complete series. It was because God introduced the idea of a Sabbath every seventh day in Exodus 16 to follow each six day series of giving of the Manna that the week eventually resulted. This brings out how important the Manna was seen to be, that the giving of it led up after each six day period to a Sabbath. God was sealing the fact that it was a divine supply. But for calendar purposes they still thought of moon periods.

End of Note.

So the Sabbath was to be seen as primary. It would distinguish Yahweh's people from all others, and ensured that on one day in seven they turned from the demands and trials of daily life to a day of contemplation and worship. Every seven days they would observe a feast. It was to be Yahweh's day, a day of ceasing work and a day of remembering. It reminded them of creation, and of the Creator (Exodus 20:11). It reminded them that their lives continually followed His creation pattern. It reminded them that they had been delivered from bondage in the land of Egypt, that they had not been able to cease work then, and that Yahweh had mightily delivered them. Indeed the latter is why He commanded them to keep the Sabbath day (Deuteronomy 5:15).