The Mosaic Covenant: The Sabbath
Sabbath is a fascinating concept that I don’t think we always fully comprehend. When I think back to my early understanding of the Sabbath, I would always think of the movie Pollyanna. On Sundays, Pollyanna would go to church where the Reverend Ford always preached “a fire and brimstone” message, much to everyone’s dismay. Following church, the cook would prepare a roast chicken. Every single Sunday was the same. For whatever reason, this part of the movie came to represent Sabbath in my mind. It felt heavy and uncomfortable, slightly scary even. I knew part of the idea of Sabbath was that you would take a day off of work, but it seemed like it should be a serious day and not something that could, or should, be enjoyed.
On a side note, I find it curious that this is how I viewed Sabbath since I can’t think of a single real-life experience that actually backs this idea up. In any case, my concept of Sabbath had not been formed from Scripture. I had a lot of learning to do.
Sabbath shows up early in the Bible. We see it introduced at the beginning of Genesis 2 as the culmination of creation. It is the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae. What is curious is that while Sabbath shows up in the creation account, we will also see it at the heart of the Mosaic covenant, and yet again as an aspect of the new covenant. We will look at two sections of Scripture that introduce the Sabbath and then explain its significance: Genesis 2 and Exodus 20.
The account in Genesis states:
“So the heavens and the earth and everything in them were completed. On the seventh day God had completed his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it he rested from all his work of creation.” (2:1-3)
God rested. His work was complete, and, for this moment in time, perfect. All was as it should be and was intended to be. God saw that creation was good, very good, even. The seventh day, though, wasn’t just good. It was holy.
We tend to think of something holy as something that is separate due to its purity or perfection. But there is more to it than that. Peter Gentry makes a compelling argument in his article “No One Holy like the Lord” that holiness does not mean separate; rather, to be holy is to be consecrated or devoted. As I considered his argument, I found that I agreed with him, especially in light of the Sabbath as a day that is holy. The Sabbath is a day that is to be devoted to God.
The prophet Isaiah frequently called God the Holy One of Israel. If we look at this name in light of the idea of devotion, we can think of God as being devoted to Israel, specifically through His covenant with them. The prophet Isaiah said:
“This is what the LORD, the Holy One of Israel and its Maker, says: ‘Ask me what is to happen to my sons, and instruct me about the work of my hands. I made the earth, and created humans on it. It was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded everything in them.” (45:11-12)
The Sabbath command came at the end of the six days of creation. It is the day when God rested from His work. It is the day He commanded us to observe, long before it appeared in the Ten Commandments. Guy Prentiss Waters refers to it as a creation ordinance, meaning that observing the Sabbath is not just part of the Old Covenant, but its observance is something expected of all humans. Everyone is expected to observe a day of rest. Waters writes, “God made human beings to worship him, to have fellowship with him, and to find blessing and happiness in that worship and fellowship. We were created to labor, to be sure, but the ultimate goal of human existence is to worship and glorify the God who made us” (The Sabbath as Rest, 21). The day of rest is devoted to worshiping our Lord, where we can recognize Him as our King, Creator, and Savior.
The importance of the Sabbath is reiterated by its place in the Ten Commandments, which are the heart of the Old Covenant. The Sabbath is also called the sign of the Mosaic Covenant (Ex. 31:17), which further emphasizes its importance. The text in Exodus reads:
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy: You are to labor six days and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD you God. You must not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, your livestock, or the resident alien who is within your city gates. For the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything in them in six days; then he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy.” (20:8-11)
Israel is called to “[r]emember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” It is the only commandment where Israel is called to remember something. Besides the “honor your parents” commandment, the rest tell you NOT to do something. This commandment is in the positive, and it is a call to action.
To remember something does not just mean to bring it to mind. To remember requires an action to take place. The actions required for this commandment are to cease working and to keep the day holy. How do they keep the day holy? They devote their time and energy to God.
The reminder to keep the Sabbath not only harkened back to the days of creation but also reminded Israel of their new status. God called Israel His “firstborn son” (Ex. 4:22), and He freed them from Egypt that they might worship Him. They were no longer slaves to Egypt; instead, they were claimed by God to be His own. When God spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai, He said, “Now if you will carefully listen to me and keep my covenant, you will be my own possession out of all the peoples…” (Ex. 19:5a).
The Old Covenant is sometimes also called the Law, as it gave the newborn nation of Israel the social, political, and religious mores expected of a nation that God claimed for His own. The Ten Commandments are called the heart of this covenant because the rest of the Law enumerates how the Ten Commandments are to play out in the people’s lives. To boil it down, the people were to love God and love their neighbors. They were to practice complete devotion to God and social justice within their community, all so they could reflect God to the nations. Keeping the Sabbath would be instrumental in this endeavor as it required the people to express their devotion to the one true God.
In any covenant God institutes with humans, the base requirement is obedience. Several chapters in the Torah describe the covenant blessings that would accompany Israel’s obedience to God, such as Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. However, they also explain the consequences of Israel’s disobedience. Israel’s obedience would result in God dwelling among His people. In Leviticus, God says, “‘I will turn to you, make you fruitful and multiply you, and confirm my covenant with you…I will place my residence among you, and I will not reject you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people’” (26:9, 11-12). The words in this verse deliberately recall similar language from Genesis 1 when God commanded humans to “[b]e fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it” (1:28). It also recalls when God walked among humans in the Garden in Genesis 3. His presence was with them.
The Mosaic Covenant was the next step in the process of God coming to dwell with people. (We will look at that concept more when we consider the tabernacle.) The requirement, though, was obedience to God’s law. The Sabbath command is particularly crucial as it is synonymous with devotion to God. Israel would fail spectacularly, leading to their eventual exile from the Promised Land. They would be conquered first by the Assyrians and then by the Babylonians. Upon the Babylonian sacking of Jerusalem, the author of Chronicles recorded: “This fulfilled the word of the LORD through Jeremiah, and the land enjoyed its Sabbath rest all the days of the desolation until seventy years were fulfilled” (2 Chronicles 36:21). The people were not devoted to God, thus they received the promised covenant curses (Lev. 26, Deut. 28).
The Sabbath is a day that is so much more than “fire and brimstone” sermons and the heavy weight of duty and obedience. Observing the Sabbath should not be a burden for us. Observing the Sabbath should instead remind us of the God who loves us more than we can possibly imagine and who wants to have a relationship with us. So let us not be like the Israelites of old who forgot the God of their salvation. Instead, let us remember that God chose to dwell with us as Immanuel, Jesus Christ, who bore our sins on the cross and offered us eternal life with God. I think that calls for at least a little rejoicing.
