Commandment #4: Remember the Sabbath Day, to Keep it Holy (Exodus 20:8-11)
2023-04-03
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 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: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. (Exodus 20:8-11)
And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the LORD thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the LORD thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5:15)
The Sabbath was the seventh day of the week and the sign of the covenant at Sinai. The discussion on those things is here. Now we discuss the laws of the Sabbath.
The people were commanded to work six days. Only on the seventh day did they rest. This parallels God’s rest after six days of creating the world (Exodus 20:11).
In the parallel passage in Deuteronomy 5:15, we see another reason: they were to rest because in Egypt, from where they were saved, there was no rest. “Let there more work be laid upon the men, that they may labour therein; and let them not regard vain words” (Exodus 5:9). This rest is the foreshadowing of the rest given in Jesus Christ in the book of Hebrews.
This command is nested between two parts of the Ten Commandments. The first part governs the people’s relationship with God; the second governs the people’s relationship with other people. In the middle we have the commandment of rest, which is only found in Jesus Christ. “For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world” (Hebrews 4:3). For who stands between God and man but Jesus of Nazareth? “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5).
In the middle of all the required works of the covenant at Sinai, the covenantal sign is rest. Everything in the Old Testament points to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.