Mar 10-16, 2024

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The seventh day of the week, which divided the Hebrew month into four equal parts, was called the Sabbath. The word sabbath implies ceasing or coming to an end of activity (Richards 524).

Two Rationales for Sabbath

The Ten Commandments are listed in Exodus and Deuteronomy and are in virtually identical format, except for one important difference: the rationale offered for keeping Sabbath (Walt 9).

Exodus 20:8–11

8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

First, we keep Sabbath as imitators of God, who created in six days and rested on the seventh. The Sabbath rhythm teaches us to rest from the creation work of our lives, in order to deepen our touch with the creative wonder of God (Walt 10).

Genesis 1-2 present beauty as a universal vocation and right. Every human person has a calling and a right to share in the beauty of creation’s bounty (McCormick 70).

Why is imitating God’s rest valuable?

Deuteronomy 5:12–15

12 Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 14 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. 15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.

Second, we keep Sabbath as a perpetual reminder of the horrors of slavery and the deliverance of God. For 400 years, God’s people worked as Egyptian slaves without a day off. The Sabbath rhythm teaches us to rest from the hard work of our lives, that we might be it reintroduced to freedom (Walt 10).

God sent Moses to bring the beauty of the Sabbath and the Promised Land to the poor, landless, and enslaved Hebrews. It was the cries of the poor that moved Yahweh to send these liberating gifts of beauty, to offer a nation of slaves a Sabbath rest, and to provide a tribe of widows, orphans, and aliens with a land flowing with milk and honey (McCormick 70).

Which rationale – Exodus or Deuteronomy’s – speaks to you more? Why?

Sabbath and Survival

The Sabbath rest reveals a God who intends that everyone receive what they need from creation’s bounty, that none be reduced to bondage or poverty (McCormick 50). Impoverishment and degradation are unnatural in the Sabbath view for all people have the right to sufficient food, clothing, housing, safety and dignity (Lowery 163). Have you ever connected Sabbath to a concern for people’s well-being and dignity?

Therefore, the Sabbath rest is an invitation not only to open ourselves to God but also to recognize the humanity of all our neighbors and to share God’s bounty with them. The Sabbath is against hoarding, coveting, robbing. It is against poverty, slavery, and starvation. It is meant to open us to both God and the neighbor (McCormick 50). How might exercising restraint with our time and consumption open us up to God and our neighbors?

Denial of Humanity

Exodus 5:4 But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their work? Get to your labors!”

Why does Pharaoh react with such violence to this request for a “rest” for his slaves?

Surely all slave owners and overseers must give some rest to their slaves, just as they would provide rest for their cattle and oxen; even beasts of burden require sleep and recuperation. And unless an owner seeks to exhaust or destroy his property, he will tend and care for it (McCormick 50).

Pharaoh reacts violently to this demand for a Sabbath to worship God because this rest is a requirement not of chattel or slaves but of free people, of fully human persons. Oxen and donkeys do not worship. Humans worship. Giving a beast time off to rest weary bones is very different from recognizing a human right to a rest that opens one to the transcendent. And Moses and the Hebrews are demanding that Pharaoh recognize their right to a uniquely human rest, a rest dedicated to worship. This the slave master cannot abide. This rest must be forbidden, for it will (and does) lead inevitably to liberation (McCormick 50-51).

In what ways are you held back from worshiping God? How does that diminish your humanity?

Sabbath and Freedom

Humans have a fundamental need for more than just bread, clothing, and shelter. Humans, if they are to achieve their full potential and liberation, must also find in their lives some opportunity for a contemplative rest that opens them to the transcendent. They must have some regular release from the oppression of the mundane and practical, or from forced and endless toil. Without such rest they are little more than animated tools or beasts of burden. And any real struggle for liberation and justice must have this rest or release as a cornerstone (McCormick 52). Work is good for us. How can you tell when work has turned you into a slave?

Makers of Love and Beauty

Once safely out of Egypt, the Hebrews receive instructions from Yahweh for the construction of the sacred ark, a tabernacle that will carry the twin tablets of the Decalogue, and a work of unparalleled beauty that will also be their first public work. In the construction of the tabernacle — funded by the freewill offerings of liberated slaves, carried out under the wisdom and direction of a Hebrew master builder (Betzalel), and executed with the craft, skill, and wisdom of legions of Hebrew weavers, carpenters, and artisans — a society of slaves is being transformed into a liberated people (McCormick 57). In what ways can you use your Sabbath to create works of love and beauty for the glory of God?

Works Cited

Lowery, Richard. "Sabbath and Survival: Abundance and Self-Restraint in a Culture of Excess." Encounter, vol. Spring, no. 54, 1993.

McCormick, Patrick T. God's Beauty: A Call to Justice. Michael Glazier - Liturgical Press, 2012.

Richards, Lawrence O. New International Encyclopedia of Bible Words. Zondervan, 2016.

Walt, J.D. Sabbath Keeping: It’s About Time. Seedbed, 2012.