Day of rest. Exodus 20:9-10 – “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.” No livelihood or household work of any kind may be done on the seventh-day Sabbath (Saturday).
“Preparation day”. For these reasons, Jews have made it a habit to carry out and prepare necessities for the Sabbath on Friday – the “preparation day” (John 19:14,31; Matt 27:62).
There seems to be an exception mentioned in Exodus 12:16b – “…no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you.”
However, “Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day” (Ex 35:3). Starting a fire was hard work in ancient times.
No buying and selling. “And if the people of the land bring ware or any victuals on the sabbath day to sell, that we would not buy it of them on the sabbath” (Neh 10:31a). If one watches television, he or she is supporting the people who work on the Sabbath, including the businesses that sell their products through advertisements.
Keep the day holy. “Remember the sabbath day, to
keep it holy” (Ex 20:8). We can keep it holy “If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure
on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD,
honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine
own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words” (Isa 58:13).
No traveling. “See, for that the
LORD hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the
bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his
place on the seventh day” (Ex 16:29).
Sabbath-keepers,
though, may go on a “sabbath day’s
journey.” “Then returned they unto
Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a sabbath day's
journey” (Acts 1:12).
“Sabbath day’s journey”. This
is around 1,000 yards (2,000
cubits – Josh 3:4, Num 35:4-5). It is the distance one may travel on the Sabbath
without breaking the law (based on the space between the tents of the people and the holy tabernacle in the
wilderness). The idea behind the law was that every person in the camp (later towns and cities) should be close enough
to the center of worship without
having to travel a great distance on the Sabbath.
Q: A thousand yards only? My church is
about half an hour’s drive away!
A: There are two lines of thought on this. One is that a person in
a vehicle today may travel a long distance, because he or she simply has to
step on the gas pedal or sit back while somebody else drives. The other
standpoint is to keep the Sabbath day’s journey teaching strictly. So, it boils down to a matter of personal
decision.
Q: Christ went to synagogues on the Sabbath.
A: True. “And he came to
Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into
the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read” (Luke 4:16).
Many synagogues. “By New Testament times synagogues
were very numerous and popular” (Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary); “…there
was in every town of Palestine, and even in smaller places, at least one
synagogue. In the post-Talmudic period it was required that a synagogue should
be built wherever ten Israelites were dwelling together. In the larger towns
there was a considerable number of synagogues” (The New Unger's Bible
Dictionary).
In the
first century, there was most probably a synagogue within a Sabbath day’s
journey of everybody in a Jewish community.
Q: If I do not go, I would be violating the
instruction to join a “holy convocation” on the Sabbath!
A: In
Leviticus 23:3 (“Six days shall work be
done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath
of the LORD in all your dwellings.”) and similar other passages, the word “convocation” is misinterpreted.
“Convocation” (”call out”).
“Convocation” has been translated
from Hebrew “OT:4744 miqra' (mik-raw');
from OT:7121; something called out… (New
Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew
Dictionary, 1994), and as translated in the “KJV – assembly, calling,
convocation, reading.” The misinterpretation stems from miqra; supposedly meaning “assembly”.
Dictionaries
define “call out vt (15c) 1: to summon into action” (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary); and “call-out,
noun. a summons into service or for some special duty or purpose” (World Book Dictionary).
Miqra’, therefore, is a “call out:” for
the people to do something – together at the same time, but not necessarily in
the same place.
Q: The Israelites did not assemble at the
tabernacle in the wilderness?
A: Tabernacle
too small. The tabernacle in the wilderness was small; it “was in the form
of a tent 10 cubits wide and 30 cubits long” (Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary, 1986), or just 5 yards by 15
yards.
It was
too small for some two million Israelites (“about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children” – Ex 12:37; a man is described as 20-60 years
old – Lev 27:1-3b; plus all the women, the young, and the elderly). Thus, miqra could not mean “assembly”.
A call-out to rest. The term “holy convocation” is found 16 times in the KJV (Ex 12:16; Lev
23:3,7,8,21,24,27,35,36; Num 28:18,25,26; 29:1,7,12); and in all instances it
is followed by the phrase “ye shall do no
work”. It becomes clear that “holy
convocation” means a “sacred call
out” for people to rest, not to assemble, on the Sabbath!
Proof-text. The women disciples waited until Sunday before anointing the body of Christ after the cucifixion on Friday. They did not assemble on Saturday, they rested. “And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment… Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them” (Luke 23:56; 24:1).
Saturday night assembly. In fact, the first Christians,
who were also Jews, rested first on the Sabbath, before assembling on the
evening of Saturday, when the “first day of the week” (Sunday) had already
begun. “And upon the first day of
the week, when the disciples came
together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the
morrow; and continued his speech until midnight”
(Acts 20:7).
The “first day of the week” began after
sunset of the seventh-day Sabbath, that is, Saturday evening, based on Genesis
1:5b (“And the evening and the morning were the first day.”)
Q: What happens now to the teaching in
Hebrews 10:25?
A: “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves
together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the
more, as ye see the day approaching.”
House-church. Christ said, “For
where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of
them” (Matt 18:20).
Sabbatarians
can keep the Sabbath with their families and brethren in their homes. Paul
said, “Likewise greet the church that is
in their house…” (Rom 16:5a; cf.
1 Cor 16:19).
Besides,
worship gatherings do not have to be done on the day of the Sabbath. This is a
misconception among many Sabbath-keepers who were formerly Sunday-keeping
evangelicals. They simply transfer their day of worship from Sunday to
Saturday. However, worship may be done on any day of the week.
