A Sample Extract from Ken Hanko’s Book, The Sabbath, the Covenant, and the Tabernacle
Exodus 20–23 make up the book of the covenant which the Lord gave to Moses for the people of Israel. This book begins with the moral law, and that is followed both by explanations of those ten basic commandments and various civil and ceremonial laws. The end of chapter 20 states the law for the building of altars. Chapter 21 is mostly about treatment of servants and the sixth commandment. Chapters 22 and 23:1–9 are mostly about the eighth, seventh and ninth commandments. However, at the end of that covenant, therefore in a prominent place within it, the Lord repeated the fourth commandment and added to it.
The section begins in verse 10 and takes us to the end of the covenant in verse 19. In it we find provision for the sabbath year (v.10–11), and a repetition of the fourth commandment (v.12) and the first (v.13). These are followed by a review of the three major feasts (v.14–17) and four ceremonial laws (v.18–19).
Notice the emphasis on the Sabbath in that section. If we remember that the feast days were also really Sabbaths (see Leviticus 23), then seven of the ten verses have to do with the Sabbath. Furthermore, the four ceremonial laws in verses 18–19 are laws of worship, laws to be observed on Sabbath Days, as well as any other days of sacrifice. The Lord, therefore, gives special prominence to the Sabbath Day in this book of the Covenant.
That’s not all. The Lord also joined the explanation of the fourth commandment to his explanation of the first commandment. “Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant and the stranger may be refreshed. And in all that I have said to you, be circumspect and make no mention of the name of other gods, nor let it be heard from your mouth (vv.12–13).”
Observance of the first commandment was impossible without observance of the fourth, and observance of the fourth had as its goal observance of the first.
There are three Hebrew words that the Scriptures use in connection with the Sabbath. The first is, of course, the word Sabbath which means rest. In fact, in Exodus 31:15 there is a phrase that demonstrates that very clearly. The English version says, “Sabbath of rest” but the Hebrew is “sabbath of sabbath.” It’s also the word that the New Testament transliterates in Greek and uses for the Sabbath in the various passages that talk about it.
There’s another word for rest that appears in the fourth commandment as given in Exodus 20:11. The Scriptures use it in a much broader way than the word Sabbath, and many times it doesn’t have anything to do with the Sabbath. But it’s the word used in Exodus 23:12 about the animals resting, in Exodus 33:14 of the rest of God’s people in the land, and in Numbers 10:36 of the resting of the ark of the covenant. It’s also the root of the word mentioned in Psalm 132:8. It seems to point to rest as a gift that God gives to us or that we give to those who serve us.
Chapter 23:12 uses still another word for the rest of the Sabbath, the word refresh. The Sabbath is a day of refreshment. The word appears also in 2 Samuel 16:14, as David and the people with him were fleeing from Jerusalem after Absalom’s temporarily successful coup. “Now the king and all the people who were with him became weary; so they refreshed themselves there.”
It is at least possible that they were observing the Sabbath. It appears in one more place, Exodus 31:17: “It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.”
Here we have one of those anthropomorphisms of the Old Testament that boldly depict God as sleeping, waking, walking and so on. The suggestion is that God had worked hard during the six days of creation and therefore needed to rest and refresh himself on the seventh day. Of course, he does not grow weary and his rest and refreshment were not to recover from exhaustion but to consider what he had made and to see that it was very good.
Finally, the Lord followed this book of the covenant and this reaffirmation of the Sabbath laws with the promise that his angel would go before them (20–23). He said, “Beware of Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in Him. But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.”
Obeying his voice included keeping the Sabbaths that the law prescribed.