THE strict injunction (Ex. 20:8), "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy," is based upon the fact that the Sabbath is essentially God's day. Verses 9-11 associate its establishment with the period of creation in six days, or basic periods outlined in the first chapter of Genesis, followed by a seventh day, on which God rested or, more strictly, desisted from His work. In the account of the fourth commandment as given in Deuteronomy (5:12-15), however, the requirement of rest on the Sabbath day is viewed as constituting a perpetual reminder that God had delivered the ancestors of the Hebrews from servitude in Egypt. Therefore they, in their turn, should see to it that their weekly rest on the Sabbath was shared with their servants and visiting strangers and also with their animals.
Both accounts agree in stating, "The seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work." Indeed, the Hebrew word for "sabbath" has the basic sense of "rest" or "intermission." The Hebrews observed and still observe the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week, corresponding approximately to the modern Saturday, although strictly the day is counted as from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday, in accord with the repeated statement in the record of creation that evening preceded morning (see, for example, Gen. 1:5). Certain present-day Christian groups also count Saturday to be their Sabbath.
However, with the growth of the early Christian Church, stress was soon laid on the first day of the week, associated with Christ Jesus' resurrection and therefore termed "the Lord's day" (Rev. 1: 10). And since that time, about the close of the first century, the great majority of Christian Churches have transferred the weekly day of rest and worship ordained in the fourth commandment to what we term Sunday.
The orthodox Jewish authorities, and in particular the scribes and Pharisees so often mentioned in the New Testament, claimed to be meticulous in their strict and literal obedience to the wording of the fourth commandment that on the Sabbath "thou shalt not do any work"; but Christ Jesus repeatedly exposed the hypocrisy of their approach. On numerous occasions we find them denouncing the Master's healing of the sick on the Sabbath day. But he had no hesitation in reminding them that they considered it legal to let loose their animals and to feed them on that day. This being the case, he cogently argued, what valid objection could they find to his healing on the same day of the week a woman who had been in bondage to disease for eighteen years? Shamed into silence, they could offer no reply to his inspired logic (see Luke 13:11-17).
To such literally-minded people, even the disciples' plucking of a few ears of grain, and eating the kernels, on the Sabbath constituted a breach of the fourth commandment; as did a former cripple's carrying of his mattress on the same day in proof of Jesus' complete healing of his disability (see Matt. 12:1, 2; John 5: 1-16).
It is abundantly plain from careful study of the Gospels that the Master had no hesitation in obeying the religious aspects of the fourth commandment, as witnessed by his regular attendance at the synagogue services held on the Sabbath day; but his consistent practice of love and compassion led him to bring healing whenever such healing was needed and desired, without regard to the day of the week on which the call came.
How truly he exemplified the words of his own beatitude (Matt. 5:7), "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy"!
