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Exodus 31:15  (Young's Literal Translation)
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<< Exodus 31:14   Exodus 31:16 >>


Exodus 31:12-17

Several points stand out in this passage:

1) The Sabbath is a sign of who the true God is. The true God is the Creator.
2) The Sabbath is a sign of God's people.
3) The Sabbath(s) belongs to God (verse 13). He designed the time as holy, not Moses or any other man.
4) The Sabbath sanctifies. It sets apart the man who keeps it by showing him to be distinct from the rest of the culture.
5) Sabbath-breaking incurs the death penalty.
6) The Sabbath is a perpetual covenant. The Old Covenant was not a perpetual covenant; it has been replaced by the New.
7) The Sabbath covenant is separate and distinct from the Old Covenant given at Mt. Sinai. Not only did the events in this passage take place 40 days after the proposal and acceptance of the Old Covenant, but God re-revealed the Sabbath to the children of Israel (because they were in Egypt for so long they had forgotten it) right after they left Egypt and days before they arrived at Mt. Sinai. The lesson of the manna, which demonstrated the difference in the days of the week (Exodus 16), happened before the rest of the law was given via the Old Covenant. Even though the Old Covenant - that specific agreement - has passed away, that does not mean that the eternal code of conduct on which the agreement was based has passed away. Notice that idolatry and adultery are both still sin (and nobody considers those laws to be "Jewish").
8) This was spoken to the people that God was working with at the time - Israel. Part of Jesus Christ's earthly ministry was to "fulfill" the law, and not to destroy it (Matthew 5:17-18)! The rest of Matthew 5 shows Him magnifying various points of law to reveal the true intent behind them. Jesus Christ says in Mark 2:27 that the Sabbath was made for mankind, not just for physical Israel! Galatians 6:16 shows that the designation of "Israel" under the New Covenant is now a designation of the church. And the Bible shows the New Testament church, Christ included, observing the Sabbath and not the first day of the week.

David C. Grabbe



Exodus 31:15

The Sabbath is "holy to the LORD." This is not something that men dreamed up. God does not say it is holy to certain denominations or certain people. It is holy to the Lord—set apart or sanctified to Him. He Himself sanctified it, as it says right in the commandment.

God, right in this covenant, sets how long it is to be observed or adhered to: as long as there are generations of Israelites. Are the generations of Israelites continuing? Yes, indeed. The generations continue, and therefore this covenant continues.

He also says that the Sabbath and its roots go back to Creation. He takes the Sabbath back to Genesis 2, not Exodus 16. This is significant. God places the beginning of the Sabbath at Creation to confirm that a physical or spiritual Israelite's relationship is with the Creator. The events of Exodus 16 were only a reminder of what already existed from the seventh day of Creation.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Twenty-Nine)



Exodus 31:13-17

Consider where this covenant appears. It is in the book of Exodus, but after chapter 20, where God gives the commandments. From this we see that God proposes a special covenant, which He places in the midst of all of the instructions for building the Tabernacle. It means that, even though these people were employed to construct such an important edifice for the worship of God, they were not to desecrate the Sabbath by working on it. Even the construction of the Tabernacle had to take second place to the keeping of the Sabbath.

The Sabbath is a sign. It is not a mark. Bible usage shows that a sign is voluntarily accepted, whereas a mark is put on against a person's will. The Sabbath is a special sign. It is a special covenant between God and His people. Who are His people?

A sign can identify an occupation. One might read, "Joe Smith, Dentist"or plumber or electrician. A sign can also give purpose for a thing; it tells us why something is being used or done in the way that it is. A sign can give directions: "This way to River City."

A sign can also bring people together with shared interests and common purposes. Some fraternal organizations have special signs that they pass to one another to identify what lodge, or organization, it is that they belong to. A sign can unify; it can bring people together. A sign can be a pledge of mutual fidelity and commitment. Signs are used by organizations to designate membership. People wear a little badge on their lapel that says that they belong to such-and-such organization, and by it members recognize one another.

This is part of the way that the Sabbath is also used. The Sabbath serves as an external and visible bond that unites and sanctifies us [sets us apart] from everyone else. Here in the United States and Canada, almost everybody else who is religious keeps Sunday or nothing. If a person keeps the Sabbath, he is being cut away from, separated from, sanctified by the very fact that he is keeping it. Though these people do not realize it yet, it becomes a sign to them that he is in the process of being sanctified. We ought to be very much aware of this sign because we are keeping it.

Everybody who has ever kept both Sunday and Saturday knows this: Sunday sets almost no one apart because everybody who is "religious" is already doing it. Big deal! What is so different about that? They are only sanctified from the people who keep no day at all. For those who are "religious," it does not sanctify them because the Baptists are keeping the day, and the Catholics are keeping the day, as well as the Mormons, the Pentecostals, the Church of Christ, the Disciples of Christ, and the Congregationalists. All those people are keeping Sunday, and it is not separating, or sanctifying, anybody.

But once a person begins to keep the Sabbath, it immediately begins to sanctify him, to separate him from everyone else. God has a purpose that He is working out. He has made a tremendous investment in the Creation and in the death of His Son. The Sabbath is a means by which He protects His investment.

If the only reason He created the Sabbath was because we need rest, then any old time would do. Ultimately, how and why one keeps the Sabbath are the real sign. Other religious groups "keep" the Sabbath, but are they keeping it as God desires? It is how and why we keep it that makes us different—they do the sanctifying. "Sanctify them through Your truth," Jesus says in John 17:17. God's Word is truth. If people accept it and use it, they will be using the Sabbath for different purposes than others are.

God created the Sabbath to educate His people in His way. It prepares them for their witness. Suppose that a basketball coach says to his players, "Come to the gym and meet with me at such-and-such a time." But some of the players decide that they will go to a different gym, at a different time, and with a different coach. Players on a team begin to take on the qualities and the philosophy of their coach. Anybody who is familiar with athletics understands this. Those who are intimately involved in athletics say that they can always tell whether a certain player has been coached by a certain coach, say John Wooden or John Thompson. What has happened is the player has taken on the sign of the coach, and it has sanctified him from other players who are not coached by that particular coach.

The same principle is at work with God and us. He is our Coach. He has made an appointment with us to meet at a certain place, at a certain time. And if we choose not to go to where He is going to be, then we are not going to begin to take on the image of our Coach. The Sabbath was created because it both enhances and protects our relationship with God. And it provides the witness—to God, to the individual, and to the world—of who is keeping it. This is how it becomes the sign. It provides a witness.

The Sabbath exists to keep us in a proper frame of mind and to provide us with the right material to negotiate the way to God's Kingdom. We live in a grubby, grasping material world. Every day has a built-in bias towards material things, and it is very difficult to keep our minds focused on things that are spiritual. But the Sabbath, if a person is keeping it as God desires, will almost put a person into a spiritual mode, point him toward God, and force him to acknowledge Him as Creator.

The Sabbath presents us with the opportunity to consider the whys of life, to get our head on straight with the right orientation so that we can properly use the other six days. The Sabbath is the kernel, the nucleus, from which the proper worship—our response to God—grows.

Existentialist philosophers tell us that life is absurd, that all of life is nothing but a prelude to death. But keeping the Sabbath is a celebration of life! It tells us that God's creative process is continuing, that He is creating us in His spiritual image so that we might live with Him forever. For the great God, the Sabbath is a day of creation. The Sabbath ensures us that life is not absurd, but rather, it is a prelude to life on an infinitely higher and greater level. The more we become like Him, the more sanctified we are from the world. It is in experiencing the refreshing elevation of the mind that we get a tiny foretaste of what is to come.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Fourth Commandment (Part 1)



Exodus 31:12-17

Notice which day is "the Lord's Day." God calls the Sabbaths "My Sabbaths." The Sabbaths, weekly and annual, are His; they do not belong to us, nor are they "Jewish Sabbaths" or "Gentile Sabbaths." The Sabbath is a space of time. That time, whenever it arrives, is not ours but God's. If we appropriate it for our own use, whether for work or pleasure, we are stealing that time from God! In Exodus 20:8, He commands us to "keep it holy." God made it holy time, and commands us to keep it holy rather than profane it.

"Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you" (Exodus 31:13). Here, then, is the purpose of the Sabbath: ". . . it is a sign." A sign is a badge, symbol, mark, or token of identity. Webster's Dictionary defines a sign as "a display used to identify or advertise a place of business or a product. Something indicating the presence or existence of something else."

The word Moses wrote in Hebrew is 'owth, which means "a sign, signal, distinguishing mark, banner, remembrance, warning; a token, ensign, standard, miracle, proof" (Brown, Driver & Briggs Hebrew Lexicon). A banner or flag identifies a nation or group. A signal like a beacon announces the existence of something, like a rocky shore, that others need to be warned about. A token is a visible sign that serves to make something known, such as a white flag is a token of surrender.

God commands His people to keep His Sabbaths as a sign. It is a sign between God's people and God: "It is a sign between Me and you." It is a badge or token of identity, advertising, announcing, or proclaiming certain identifying knowledge: ". . . that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you."

The Sabbath is the sign that identifies to people who their God is. It is the sign by which we may know that He is the Lord. It identifies God, and by so doing, it identifies who His people are as well.

Staff



Exodus 31:13-17

God has designated the Sabbath to be "the sign" between Him and His people. It is evidence that He, the Creator, is our God, and that those who keep it are His children. As a whole, the Bible shows that it is not just that it is observed, but also the manner in which it is observed that makes it the sign.

Except by creation, the Jews are not His children, but they keep the Sabbath. The same applies to Seventh-Day Adventists. The way it is observed makes a huge difference. Only then is it the sign. If this were not so, God would not have shown as much concern about how it is observed—even to the extent of saying that breaking it was a major reason why Israel went into captivity and was divorced by God.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Sabbathkeeping (Part 4)



Exodus 31:12-17

The high regard that God gives to the seventh-day Sabbath is evident throughout Scripture. God began teaching Israel about the Sabbath even before He gave the Ten Commandments and made the covenant with Israel (see Exodus 16:14-30; 20:8-11). For forty years, Israel had a weekly lesson on which day God had set apart because no manna fell for them to gather on the seventh day—God had provided twice the amount the day before.

Not only was the Sabbath command in place before the Old Covenant was made, but God even made an additional, perpetual covenant just for the Sabbath (Exodus 31:12-17). The Old Covenant—that temporary agreement between God and Israel—was made obsolete with the coming of the New Covenant, but the Sabbath exists outside of that agreement. In addition, notice God's promise at the core of the New Covenant: "I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts" (Hebrews 8:10; 10:16; see Jeremiah 31:31-34). While an agreement may be temporary, God is intent on writing His laws permanently on our hearts—and the Sabbath is one of the most important.

Time and again, ancient Israel was subjugated because of Sabbath-breaking and idolatry (see, for example, Ezekiel 20). God gives no indication that the Sabbath is temporary, that He intended to change it later, or that He is ambivalent about His command. In fact, the prophecies specifically show that the Sabbath will be kept after Christ returns and establishes His Kingdom (Isaiah 66:22-23; Ezekiel 44:24; 45:17; 46:3).

The gospel writers also do not give any hint or suggestion that God's sanctification of the Sabbath would somehow be switched to the first day of the week. Jesus leaves no impression that the day of worship would change upon His death. Though He and the Pharisees were frequently at odds over the Sabbath, it is clear that the controversy was always over how the Sabbath should be kept, never if or when.

Jesus' teachings about the Sabbath are just as applicable for His followers today as the Beatitudes and the parables (Matthew 12:1-12; 24:20; Mark 2:23-28; 3:1-4; Luke 6:1-9; 13:10-16; 14:1-5; John 5:16-19; 7:21-24). He taught the liberating intent of the Sabbath—not the abolishment of it!—because Pharisaic tradition had turned the Sabbath into a burden rather than the "delight" that God intended (Isaiah 58:13-14). Not only did Jesus keep the Sabbath and teach others on it (Mark 1:21; 6:2; Luke 4:16), but after His death, the apostles and even Gentile believers also kept it (Acts 13:14-15, 42-44; 15:19-21; 16:12-15; 17:2; 18:1-11).

Thus, from creation through the Millennium—and including Christ's ministry and the New Covenant church—we see God's establishment and steadfast reinforcement of the seventh-day Sabbath. On top of this, there is no scriptural intimation that the day of Christ's death, resurrection, ascension, or any other activity would modify the blessedness, sanctification, and holiness that He had already given to the seventh day.

David C. Grabbe
Did Christ's Resurrection Change the Day of Worship? (Part One)



Exodus 31:12-17

A sign identifies a business, a street, a product, etc., and so does the Sabbath! It identifies God's people. Notice also that this covenant, made after the ratification of the Old Covenant, bound the Sabbath as a "perpetual covenant" upon God's people.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
God's Sabbath



Exodus 31:12-17

It was Christ, as the God of the Old Testament, who actually created the Sabbath (John 1:1-3). It is a sign that identifies God's people just as a sign identifies a business or a street. Notice also that this covenant, made after the ratification of the Old Covenant, bound the Sabbath as a "perpetual covenant" upon God's people. Since the Sabbath has been in force from Creation, it is not just for the Jews, but for the foreigner and all mankind as well. All who keep the Sabbath properly are blessed.

Martin G. Collins
The Fourth Commandment




Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing Exodus 31:15:

Genesis 2:1-3
Exodus 31:12-17
Leviticus 23:11
Leviticus 23:15
1 Kings 12:25-33
Isaiah 58:13-14
Ezekiel 20:18-20
Matthew 12:38-40
Luke 4:16
Galatians 3:15

 

<< Exodus 31:14   Exodus 31:16 >>



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