The Sabbath as Described in the Bible

Before beginning to answer questions regarding the Sabbath that immediately come up in conversation after conversation with Christians today I wanted to lay a foundation of how the Sabbath is described throughout the scriptures beginning in Genesis and going through Revelation.

The first time we see the Sabbath being brought up in scripture is during the creation in Genesis. This account is directly following the six days of creation ending with the creation of man. Here is what the text says:

Genesis 2:2-3 “By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”

So not only did God rest on this day, but He blessed it and sanctified it. The word used for sanctified is the Hebrew ‘qadosh’, it means ‘holy’ or ‘set-apart’. So before the Mosaic Law was even given, God set this special day aside.

Most would stop and say, "But the Sabbath wasn’t really instituted until Moses was given the Law on Mt. Sinai." Is this the case? Let’s explore the next occurrence of the Sabbath. Interestingly it occurs before the Law was given at Mt. Sinai. You will find this account in Exodus 16. I suggest a full reading of this chapter, but I will highlight a few verses below:

Exodus 16:22-30 “Now on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one. When all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, then he said to them, "This is what the LORD meant: Tomorrow is a Sabbath observance, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. Bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over put aside to be kept until morning." So they put it aside until morning, as Moses had ordered, and it did not become foul nor was there any worm in it. Moses said, "Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the LORD; today you will not find it in the field. "Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none." It came about on the seventh day that some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. Then the LORD said to Moses, "How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My instructions? "See, the LORD has given you the Sabbath; therefore He gives you bread for two days on the sixth day. Remain every man in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day." So the people rested on the seventh day.”

The first thing I want to point out is the fact that this occurred before the Law was given at Mt.Sinai. So to say that the Sabbath wasn’t given as a law until Sinai is just not true. After being told what to do, the Israelites do not follow the command. What is the response of God?  He says to Moses, “How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My instructions?” God clearly expects that they already knew the commandment.  Moses doesn't question that the Sabbath was to be observed.  Clearly God's expectation was that they would keep the Sabbath and not gather on it.  How were the people to know not to gather on the Sabbath? I would suggest that it was because the Sabbath was instituted back at creation - it was already established. The people may have forgotten while in exile, but God reminded them once they came out of Egypt and they were then expected to abide by the law that was instituted at creation.

Of course the next instance of the Sabbath in scripture is at Mt Sinai as the 4^th of the Ten Commandments that most of us as Christians are familiar with. If you are Catholic it is the 3^rd Commandment. (They omit the commandment about having graven images and separate out coveting your neighbor’s wife and your neighbor’s goods. This is an interesting subject; maybe I will address it in its own post sometime!) Let’s take a look at the full version of this commandment as it is written in scripture:

Exodus 20:8-11 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

Is there any way to read this command as anything other than the 7^th day of the week? So why do some move it to Sunday? I will address this question in depth in a later post. Did you know this is the longest commandment? It is also the only commandment that tells us to remember it. So why have we forgotten it? I think these are valid questions to discuss! I want to also note that the 10 commandments were given to Israel after the Exodus from Egypt. Israel consisted of a mixed multitude. It was not only the descendents of the 12 tribes, it was a mixture of those descendants and others that decided to follow with them. All were considered Israel at this point and all were expected to keep the commandments. This is why it is so clear in the passage above that the commandment was not only for the descendents but for the sojourner among them. The sojourners of today are Gentiles that have decided to follow the God of Abraham.

Now let’s move on to some verses throughout the Tanakh (OT) regarding the Sabbath.

Exodus 31:14-16 “Therefore you are to observe the Sabbath, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people. For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a Sabbath of complete rest, holy to the LORD; whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall surely be put to death. So the sons of Israel shall observe the Sabbath, to celebrate the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.”

Leviticus 23:3 “For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a Sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation. You shall not do any work; it is a Sabbath to the LORD in all your dwellings.”

Deuteronomy 5:12 “Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you.”

Lamentations 2:6 “And He has violently treated His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has destroyed His appointed meeting place. The LORD has caused to be forgotten the appointed feast and Sabbath in Zion, And He has despised king and priest in the indignation of His anger.”

So these verses and many more indicate that the Sabbath was to be a perpetual covenant for all Israel as well as those Gentiles that choose to align themselves with Israel. The penalty for breaking the Sabbath was quite high. In fact it was death. That’s pretty steep! It must have been gravely important to God for His people to keep this commandment!

Now that we have seen how the Sabbath was viewed in the Tanakh (OT) let’s take a look at some of the future prophecies regarding the Sabbath that can be found in the Prophets writings:

Isaiah 56:2 "How blessed is the man who does this, And the son of man who takes hold of it; who keeps from profaning the Sabbath, And keeps his hand from doing any evil."

Isaiah 56:6 “Also the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, To minister to Him, and to love the name of the LORD, To be His servants, every one who keeps from profaning the Sabbath And holds fast My covenant;”

Isaiah 58:13-14 “If because of the Sabbath, you turn your foot From doing your own pleasure on My holy day, And call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable, And honor it, desisting from your own ways, From seeking your own pleasure And speaking your own word, Then you will take delight in the LORD, And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; And I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, For the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

Isaiah 66:23 “And it shall be from new moon to new moon And from Sabbath to Sabbath, All mankind will come to bow down before Me," says the LORD.”

Ezekiel 46:1 “Thus says the Lord GOD, "The gate of the inner court facing east shall be shut the six working days; but it shall be opened on the Sabbath day and opened on the day of the new moon.”

Ezekiel 46:4 “The burnt offering which the prince shall offer to the LORD on the Sabbath day shall be six lambs without blemish and a ram without blemish;”

It took awhile for the above to sink in for me. Let me reiterate, these verses are taking place in the future. They are taking place in the Millennial Kingdom after the second coming of Yeshua (Jesus) when He establishes His Kingdom on earth. According to this all believers will be expected to observe the 7^th day Sabbath during this time! So the Sabbath was a perpetual covenant in the Tanakh (OT). Perpetual means forever! And not only that, it will also be observed during the Millennial Kingdom. So it was in the past, and will be in the future. The question is why aren’t Christians observing it now?

When we move into the gospel’s we read many accounts of Yeshua regarding the Sabbath. There are way too many to list all of the references. There are basically two different kinds of accounts. The first is Yeshua being accused of breaking the Sabbath, either for healing or picking grain to eat. Yet both of these things are permitted according to the Torah. Jewish oral tradition and law stated that these actions were breaking the law. Yeshua, called them on this time and time again. He did not except the traditions of men. He adhered to the laws as they were written in Torah. The second type of reference is to Yeshua observing the Sabbath by entering the synagogue and speaking in the traditional manner. There is one other occurrence worth mentioning in Matthew. It is when Yeshua is describing the future tribulation and end time events:

Matthew 254:20 “But pray that your flight will not be in the winter, or on a Sabbath.”

Isn’t it interesting that Yeshua would suggest that they pray not to have to flee on the Sabbath? Why would He state this if the believers would not be observing the Sabbath during the end times?

So now let’s move into Acts to see how the Sabbath was referred to after Yeshua’s resurrection. You would expect to see the early followers shifting to a Sunday observance at this point if Sunday worship is based on the resurrection. Let’s take a look:

Acts 13:14 “But going on from Perga, they arrived at Pisidian Antioch, and on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down.”

Acts 13:44 “The next Sabbath nearly the whole city assembled to hear the word of the Lord.”

Acts 15:21 “For Moses from ancient generations has in every city those who preach him, since he is read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”

Acts 16:13 “And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to a riverside, where we were supposing that there would be a place of prayer; and we sat down and began speaking to the women who had assembled.”

Acts 18:4 “And he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.”

Acts 17:2 “And according to Paul's custom, he went to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures,”

So it seems that the early followers were indeed meeting together regularly on the Sabbath. They were speaking not only to Jews in the synagogues but also to the Greeks. They considered it their custom to meet on the Sabbath. There is no indication that the early followers were starting to meet on Sunday following the Resurrection. In Acts 15 it is suggested that the place to go to learn scripture is the synagogue on the Sabbath! And in fact the 2 verses in scripture that point to that idea are completely taken out of cultural context. I will cover these verses in a later post.

And furthermore we are told in Hebrews that:

Hebrews 4:9 “So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.”

In Conclusion

We have seen that the Sabbath was instituted at creation, upheld before the giving of the Torah, reiterated in the 10 commandments, kept by Yeshua and His followers and continued to be observed by the early believers after the resurrection of Yeshua. We also have observed that the Sabbath will be a part of the millennial reign of the Messiah in the future. So I ask again - why aren’t believers observing it today?

I already know that there are immediate questions coming into your mind. Haven’t we already entered God’s rest? What about Romans 14, Acts 20:7-12, Colossians 2:16, Galatians 4:9 and 1 Corinthians 16:1-3? Or maybe you have heard that it refers to Sunday in Revelation as “The LORD’s day”. I will get to these in my next few posts. After all I can’t cover every question in one post, so please follow along for those answers. In my next post I would like to give a little history on how the church today came to meet on Sunday rather than the 7^th day as commanded in scripture. So keep an eye out for my posts to come.

Shalom for now in the name of Yeshua HaMashiach