Exodus 31:16

31:12-17 Orders were now given that a tabernacle should be set up for the service of God. But they must not think that the nature of the work, and the haste that was required, would justify them in working at it on sabbath days. The Hebrew word /shabath/ signifies rest, or ceasing from labour. The thing signified by the sabbath is that rest in glory which remains for the people of God; therefore the moral obligation of the sabbath must continue, till time is swallowed up in eternity.

Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath,.... On whom the sabbath of the seventh day was only enjoined, as well as that of the seventh and of the fiftieth years, being all ceremonial and shadowy: to observe the sabbath throughout their generations; so long as the Mosaic dispensation lasted, and their civil polity and church state continued, even until the Messiah came, when all those Jewish shadows, rites, and ceremonies, fled away and disappeared: for a perpetual covenant; just in the same sense as circumcision was, Genesis 17:13.

Or, shall keep the sabbath by observing or celebrating the sabbath, i. e. by observing or celebrating it, the antecedent being put for the relative, as is frequently done. So here is another most emphatical repetition to oblige us to the greater caution and diligence in this great duty, and to show what stress God lays upon it, who hath therefore placed this in the midst of the commands of the decalogue, as the heart which gives life and rigour to all the rest. Or it may be rendered thus; shall observe the day of rest to celebrate the sabbath ; and so the phrase is like that in the fourth command , Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. So here, Observe the sabbath . i.e. watch its coming and approach, consider attentively the nature and use of it, and that not as a matter of idle speculation, but of serious practice; or, so that you may do or celebrate the sabbath, i.e. perform all the duties of it. Or thus, shall observe the sabbath, to make it a sabbath or day of rest , and that no idle or carnal rest, but a rest, holy to the Lord , as it is called in the foregoing verse. For a perpetual covenant , or, by a perpetual covenant , or, it is a perpetual covenant , i. e. condition or part of that agreement made between me and them. They have solemnly covenanted or promised that they will do all that I commanded them, Exodus 24:7,8 , among which this is a chief branch; and I have covenanted to bless and sanctify them in so doing.

And this word perpetual , as also the word for ever , being added to it in the next verse, may intimate that this hath a longer perpetuity than the ceremonies, to which this phrase is sometimes ascribed, the rather because the reason of this perpetuity given in the next verse is such as hath its force not only till Christ, but even till the end of the world, and it is fit and just that men should retain this monument or memorial of the world’s creation even till its dissolution.

See Numbers 15:32-36 . The distinction between the meaning of the two expressions, "to be cut off from the people", and "to be put to death", is here indicated. He who was cut off from the people had, by his offence, put himself out of the terms of the covenant, and was an outlaw. On such, and on such alone, when the offence was one which affected the well-being of the nation, as it was in this case, death could be inflicted by the public authority.

Verse 16. - For a perpetual covenant . The sabbath is itself a covenant - i.e. , a part of the covenant between God and Israel ( Exodus 24:4 ) - and it is, also, a sign of covenant - i.e. , a perceptible indication that the nation has entered into a special agreement with God, and undertaken the observance of special laws. Exodus 31:16

16 . Wherefore ] The Heb. is simply And. to observe ] to hold. See on Exodus 12:47 . a perpetual (or, as the same Heb. is rendered elsewhere, everlasting ) covenant ] An expression frequent in P: Genesis 9:16 (of the rainbow), Genesis 17:7 ; Genesis 17:13 ; Genesis 17:19 (of circumcision), Leviticus 24:8 , cf. Numbers 18:19 ; Numbers 25:13 ; also Ezekiel 16:60 ; Ezekiel 37:26 , Jeremiah 50:5 , Isaiah 24:5 ; Isaiah 55:3 ; Isaiah 61:8 , Psalm 105:10 †. Here, as the context shews (cf. p. 175), the stress lies not on the divine promise, but on Israel’s obligation to observe the terms on which the covenant is based. 16, 17 . The main thoughts of vv. 13–15 repeated, and emphasized, in P’s manner: cf. on Exodus 6:27 .

12-17. Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep—The reason for the fresh inculcation of the fourth commandment at this particular period was, that the great ardor and eagerness, with which all classes betook themselves to the construction of the tabernacle, exposed them to the temptation of encroaching on the sanctity of the appointed day of rest. They might suppose that the erection of the tabernacle was a sacred work, and that it would be a high merit, an acceptable tribute, to prosecute the undertaking without the interruption of a day's repose; and therefore the caution here given, at the commencement of the undertaking, was a seasonable admonition.

(cf. Exodus 35:2-3 ). God concludes by enforcing the observance of His Sabbaths in the most solemn manner, repeating the threat of death and extermination in the case of every transgressor. The repetition and further development of this command, which was included already in the decalogue, is quite in its proper place here, inasmuch as the thought might easily have occurred, that it was allowable to omit the keeping of the Sabbath, when the execution of so great a work in honour of Jehovah had been commanded. "My Sabbaths:" by these we are to understand the weekly Sabbaths, not the other sabbatical festivals, since the words which follow apply to the weekly Sabbath alone. This was "a sign between Jehovah and Israel for all generations, to know (i.e., by which Israel might learn) that it was Jehovah who sanctified them," viz., by the sabbatical rest (see at Exodus 20:11 ). It was therefore a holy thing for Israel ( Exodus 31:14 ), the desecration of which would be followed by the punishment of death, as a breach of the covenant. The kernel of the Sabbath commandment is repeated in Exodus 31:15 ; the seventh day of the week, however, is not simply designated a "Sabbath," but שׁבּתון שׁבּת "a high Sabbath" (the repetition of the same word, or of an abstract form of the concrete noun, denoting the superlative; see Ges. 113, 2), and "holy to Jehovah" (see at Exodus 16:23 ).

For this reason Israel was to keep it in all future generations, i.e., to observe it as an eternal covenant ( Exodus 31:16 ), as in the case of circumcision, since it was to be a sign for ever between Jehovah and the children of Israel ( Ezekiel 20:20 ). The eternal duration of this sign was involved in the signification of the sabbatical rest, which is pointed out in Exodus 20:11 , and reaches forward into eternity.

[Bible] 31:16. Let the children of Israel keep the sabbath, and celebrate it in their generations. It is an everlasting covenant. 31:17. Between me and the children of Israel, and a perpetual sign. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and in the seventh he ceased from work. 31:18. And the Lord, when he had ended these words in Mount Sinai, gave to Moses two stone tables of testimony, written with the finger of God. Exodus Chapter 32 The people fall into idolatry. Moses prayeth for them. He breaketh the tables: destroyeth the idol: blameth Aaron, and causeth many of the idolaters to be slain. 32:1. And the people seeing that Moses delayed to come down from the mount, gathering together against Aaron, said: Arise, make us gods, that may go before us: For as to this Moses, the man that brought us out of the land of Egypt, we know not what has befallen him. 32:2. And Aaron said to them: Take the golden earrings from the ears of your wives, and your sons and daughters, and bring them to me. 32:3. And the people did what he had commanded, bringing the earrings to Aaron. 32:4. And when he had received them, he fashioned them by founders' work, and made of them a molten calf. And they said: These are thy gods, O Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt. 32:5. And when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and made proclamation by a crier's voice, saying To morrow is the solemnity of the Lord. 32:6. And rising in the morning, they offered holocausts, and peace victims, and the people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play. 32:7. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Go, get thee down: thy people, which thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, hath sinned. 32:8. They have quickly strayed from the way which thou didst shew them: and they have made to themselves a molten calf, and have adored it, and sacrificing victims to it, have said: These are thy gods, O Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt.