The book of Exodus provides remarkably full and beautifully well-balanced narratives to aid our theological understanding of the Sabbath, stories that go well beyond the concept of just law. In this classic account of redemption and law, the Sabbath reconciliation story is revealed a perfect seven times, in chiastic pattern:
A. Exodus 5:5
B. Exodus 16:4–30
C. Exodus 20:8–11
X. Exodus 23:12
C’. Exodus 31:12–17
B’. Exodus 34:21
A’. Exodus 35:1–3
Let’s take a closer look at this beautiful account.
Coercion and misunderstanding: The “A” arms
The Sabbath of Exodus 5:5, something missed in most translations, occurs in the showdown between Pharaoh and Moses. Moses asked that Israel go into the desert to worship God. Pharaoh yelled an adamant no! Pharaoh was not concerned about ordinary rest but about the sabbath of God’s freedom: “ ‘And you make them shabbath [cease] from their burdens!’ ” The text does not necessarily imply that the Israelites were observing the Sabbath in Egypt. Still, it shows us that the contest about worshiping God versus social norms regarding work was the same for the Israelites then as we face today.
Before Israel began work on the tabernacle, God reminded them that the Sabbath was more important than their efforts. “ ‘Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.’ ” (Exod. 35:2).1 Building the tabernacle was extremely important work for the Israelites, so recently forgiven for their failure regarding the golden calf, to do.
But God said, “On my Sabbath you are to stop and enjoy my company.” Too often, humans act as though God needs a helping hand. Many sincere Christians believe that before Christ can return, they must make the world a perfect place. Some label it co-creation and think God handed over the world for humans to use and restore,2 while others term it transformation and call on the Holy Spirit for help.3
Such ideas put pressure on people to “do God’s work” rather than spending quality time with Him as He asked. That may be more of an issue at the time of the end than religious laws. After all, what is better than doing things for God, like fixing the environment or getting rid of tragic behaviors? Importantly, the Hebrew of the death threat reflects the prohibition regarding the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:16, 17). Were the couple struck dead when they ate? No! But they were cut off from eternal life. The Sabbath is a life-and-death matter. We are either connected with God so we live or disconnected from Him, doing things our own way, so we die. “Doing God’s work” is not the way to keep the Sabbath.
Steadfast love and provision: The “B” arms
The “B” pair demonstrates God’s steadfast love in providing for all human needs, both spiritual and physical. The Exodus 16 manna story shows God’s interest in our physical requirements. Humans do not have a holy soul and an unholy body. More importantly, the manna story states explicitly that the Sabbath is a gift from God: “ ‘See! The LORD has given you the Sabbath’ ” (Exod. 16:29; emphasis added). Sabbath is not a duty to perform to please God. It is His gift to humanity, one that extends all the way back to Creation. Deuteronomy 8:3 expands this understanding: “ ‘And he . . . fed you with manna, which you did not know, . . . that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but . . . by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.’ ” Humans talk about working for a living, earning money to feed themselves, but it is not their efforts that give life. The manna story shows that God is the great provider of life.
Paired with the manna narrative is the covenant following the golden calf tragedy, which reveals that God provides not only for humanity’s physical necessities but also for humanity’s deepest spiritual need—reconciliation with God after failure. When people worshiped the calf, they utterly shattered the covenant made at Sinai. Exodus 34 is usually seen as a renewal of the Sinai covenant, but God declares in verse 10: “ ‘Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation’ ” (emphasis added). It is a new covenant, a newly created marvel, based not on the old covenant of peoples’ performance but on God’s amazing love and willingness to carry their sins.4 It is the covenant that Jeremiah spoke of: “ ‘This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days . . . : I will put my law within them, and write it on their hearts. . . . For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more’ ” (Jer. 31:33, 34; emphasis added).
But although God inaugurated this new covenant based on His forgiving love, He told Moses, “ ‘Observe what I command you.’ ” “ ‘Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest’ ” (Exod. 34:11, 21). Forgiving sin does not change Sabbath (our connection with God) or any of His laws of love. Although plowing and harvest are the busiest times of the year for agricultural people, there is never a time to refuse to accept God’s gift of the Sabbath. As long as plowing and harvesting continue, God wants people to remember His Sabbath. It is encouraging to notice that Sabbath, the day to connect with God, enfolds the golden calf tragedy.
A. Sanctuary instructions—Exodus 25:1–31:11
B. The Sabbath—Exodus 31:12–17
C. The golden calf tragedy—Exodus 32:1–34:35
B’. The Sabbath—Exodus 35:1–3
A’. Sanctuary construction—Exodus 35:4–40:38
Theology of God’s work: The “C” arms
The fourth commandment, Exodus 20:8–11, commemorates God’s Creation story while reminding us of our tendency to forget this. Creation gives dignity to everything. Humanity is not a sad cosmic accident, coming from nothing and going nowhere. They are God’s children, made in His image, an incredible heritage! This removes the sad ethnic barriers in our world. But the Sabbath was made holy by God Himself. The commandment says, “ ‘The LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy’ ” (v. 11). Humans keeping the Sabbath does not make it holy. Their job is simply to remember that the Sabbath has already been made holy by God Himself. Absolutely nothing they do will make it holy.
Significantly, Jewish people have also viewed this command as one to work diligently, the way God wants people to work. Abraham Joshua Heschel noted, “Just as we are commanded to keep Sabbath, we are commanded to labor. The duty to work for six days is just as much a part of God’s covenant with man as to abstain from work on the seventh day.”5 Here we have an Edenic perspective, for God put humans in the garden “to work it” (Gen. 2:15). The Sabbath command is remarkably inclusive, with seven groups identified: “ ‘On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates’ ” (Exod. 20:10).
The other “C” arm is the message of Exodus 31:12–17, which comes at the conclusion of the instructions God gave Moses about building a sanctuary, thus reinforcing the importance of the Sabbath over human activity. Significantly, the elegantly written Exodus 31 passage mentions Sabbath seven times and begins: “ ‘ “Truly, guard my Sabbaths, a sign between me and you . . . that I, the LORD, sanctify you. . . . Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. . . . Six days shall work be done, but the seventh is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work shall be put to death. . . . The Sabbath . . . a perpetual covenant . . . a sign forever” ’ ” (vv. 13–17; author’s translation).6
The Sabbath, rather than being legalistic, is the ultimate sign that we do not earn our own sanctification, but God does all the sanctifying, all the work of making us holy, of saving us. It is God who favors humanity with His incredible sanctifying grace, and we simply enter Sabbath holiness as a sign that we are made holy, sanctified by God. Jesus died for the whole world; we do nothing but accept that incredible gift of love. The One who made the Sabbath holy is the One who makes us holy. Our “holiness” is entirely God’s gift to us, and this powerful concept is built into the Sabbath command to rest. Although in this passage we twice meet the frightening death declaration, as we have seen, it refers to the life and death choice given in Eden.
Reconciliation
At the center of the Sabbath chiasm of Exodus is an exquisite picture of reconciliation. Exodus 23:12 states, “ ‘Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest [shabbath]; that your ox and your donkey may have rest [noach], and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed.’ ”
Sabbath focuses on God and others, those less fortunate—whether animal or human. When Jesus healed a man with dropsy on the Sabbath and religious leaders complained, He reflected this verse: “ ‘Which of you having a donkey [margin] or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?’ ” (Luke 14:5). The text sees animals as our working partners, not mere “dumb” creatures.
While English translations of Exodus 23:12 use the word rest two times, in Hebrew they are different. Humans are to shabbath, but animals simply rest, nuach. The text is a reminder of what Jesus said: “ ‘Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets’ ” (Matt. 7:12; emphasis added). Sadly, people rarely quote the complete golden rule, for actually, it is about keeping the Law and the Prophets. Jesus also said, “ ‘Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ ” (Matt. 11:28). Only Jesus can provide us with true rest.
In this verse the terms son of the servant woman and the stranger, who both need refreshing, are connected by powerful wordplay and backstory. The Hebrew for stranger, foreigner, is ger, and in the fourth commandment a general term is used, gereka. But in this verse the definite article is used, and the term is the stranger, which in Hebrew is ha-ger. Hagar was the Egyptian servant woman of Sarah, who became the mother of Ishmael, who was a long term enemy, or stranger to Israel.7 This moves the concept of stranger from being an unknown person to the challenging idea of someone who has deeply wounded you, who is in fact your enemy. Thus the Sabbath is about reconciliation with those who have hurt us most.
God wants to “refresh” His people, rescue them from the pain of estrangement, of injuring each other. Everyone has aliens, people they do not like or understand, who have wounded them or come from different cultures. Sabbath is about fellowshiping with others, “different” others, alienated others. To keep the Sabbath in God’s way, we must prepare by reconciling with our aliens, our enemies, those who are different. “ ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples’ ” (Isa. 56:7). Sabbath is about forgiving as we are forgiven, something possible only in the power of God’s love. Sabbath, at the core, is about reconciliation: of humans to God, and humans to humans.
- Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is from the English Standard Version.
- See Pope John Paul II, Laborem Exercens (London, UK: Catholic Truth Society, 1984).
- See Miroslav Volf, Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2001).
- Elizabeth Ostring, “The New Covenant of Exodus,” Ministry, March 2022, 10–13.
- Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath (New York, NY: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2005), 28.
- More literal translation from the Hebrew.
- Mathilde Frey, Edward Allen, Sigve Tonstad, and Denis Fortin, eds., Remembering: It Matters How We Tell the Sabbath Story (Westlake Village, CA: Oak and Acorn Publishing, 2023), 13–17.