Sabbath Prohibitions for Biblical Christians?

As part of my continuing meditations on the Sabbath, I would like to consider specifically the ideas of work and kindling of fires, both of which seem to be explicit prohibitions associated with Sabbath keeping.

In the first version of the fourth commandment (Exo. 20:9-10a) God clearly prohibits work, “Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work…” Now the word for work in this passage is עָבַד (abad), and in most of its occurrences in the OT refers to constrained service, (i.e. bondage, forced labour, in other words slavery). This is understandable given the context of Israel’s sojourn in Egypt where, after Joseph’s death, the Hebrew people were enslaved by Pharaoh, as recounted in the book of Exodus.

However, according to my understanding, the overriding context informs us that it was not so much freely chosen work that God was prohibiting but rather work that was reckoned necessary by those having to do it, perhaps even for one’s very existence. This labour was oppressive. By this, the Bible has in mind such work as building, service, heavy gardening, farming, etc. which are all forms of work forced on the Hebrews by their Egyptian taskmasters. In many places the Bible describes such work as “ordinary work” (Exo. 12:16; see also Exo. 16:23; Lev. 23:3, 8; Num. 28:18, 25; Jer. 17:27). It was work in and of the world.

So the work God commanded His people to give up on the Sabbath seems to be work that people were forced to engage in to earn a living, pay bills, buy (or grow) food and so on. Such work was deemed an unavoidable aspect of life during the first six days of the week. Nevertheless, such work done on the Sabbath God considered unnecessary and therefore it was a form of slavery, hearkening back to the dark days in Goshen, before God brought the people up to the Promised Land through the leadership of His prophet Moshe (Moses). This is the general context of the fourth commandment. Engaging in such hard labour was an affront to God who had provided His people with freedom from such slavery. To engage in hard physical labour without rest was in effect to go back into Egypt or slavery, thus repudiating God and His gracious provision of freedom.

By contrast, at least as I understand it, the rabbinic tradition prohibits creative work on the Sabbath but that other mundane forms of labour (i.e. ordinary work) are acceptable. I think the reason given is that on the seventh day (i.e. the Sabbath) God rested from His work of creation. However, I’m unable to find this—at least explicitly—in God’s Word. God never gives this as the reason we should rest. Rather, the references in the Bible are to forms of work that create a deficit in our energy levels, and our peace etc. It is a prohibition against work that is not recuperative and restorative but hard and oppressive.

According to rabbinic tradition, there are 39 types of prohibited work, called melachot. The rabbis maintain that the melachot are those activities by which the Tabernacle was built and include farm work of all types and degrees, working with cloth, writing, building of any kind, making and putting out fires, carrying loads and so on; in other words, any activity by which you may alter your environment. But again, to my mind, this seems to be an inference from Scripture, perhaps even a form of eisegesis.

This idea of the melachot is part of the so-called “oral Torah.” This is the tradition of interpretation taught by the scribes and rabbis of Israel. The oral tradition was given written form and codified as the Mishnah in approximately 200 CE by Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. The melachot were quite detailed extrapolations of a few simple declarations from the written Torah. It is to such extrapolations that our Lord refers in such places as Mark 7:6-8. (The website Chabad.org has a brief summary of Shabbat laws.)

A specific form of work prohibited on the Sabbath is the kindling of fires, which the Rabbis considered as a melachah, (Exo. 35:3). Today, all over the world, observant Jews go to extremes in order to be obedient to this prohibition, not only refraining from cooking food but even avoiding having to turn on lights or furnaces. In the two occasions of the proclamation of the Sabbath from the moral law, the Ten Commandments, (Exo. 20:8-11 and Deut. 5:12-15) the ban on fires is not mentioned. In fact, the ban on fires is explicit only in Exo. 35:3 (although arguably it may be implied by other verses). Now it’s important to understand the context of Exo. 35:3, which is the fabrication of the Tabernacle and its various components and ceremonial objects such as vessels, bowls, instruments and the like. For many of these things fires would be needed. And not just simple cooking fires either. In order to forge metal into all the ceremonial accessories, silver, gold, and bronze would need to be melted down, or at least made red hot in order to be worked and shaped. It is interesting that in this regard the form of the Hebrew verb “to kindle” is in the Pi’el, which indicates an increased intensity in the action of the verb. In other words, the injunction seems not against simple cooking fires, but rather raging or very hot fires such as would be required for working metals. Fashioning metal parts with such a fire would require a high degree of effort (metal smithing is hard work). Not only that, it would require a lot of work to gather up combustibles, cut firewood (or make charcoal) and so on. All this would be just the kind of activity prohibited as part of the fourth commandment. This is the view of the commentators Jamieson, Fausset and Brown. As well, the Hebrews were at this time subsisting on manna, which they were (presumably) cooking on the day before the Sabbath in compliance with God’s instructions in Exo. 16:23. Since there would have been no need to kindle cooking fires on the Sabbath, there would be no need for God to prohibit them. I also believe that in describing Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Exo. 12:16 lends support to this theory since it indicates that cooking food on the two Sabbaths of the feast was permissible, thus strengthening the view that no prohibition against fires of the everyday sort—as used for lighting and cooking—was ever intended. “On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you.”

Therefore, if I’m correct in my understanding, people who refrain from the use of fire (or other forms of radiant energy for that matter) because they believe it is prohibited by God, are putting themselves through unnecessary hardship. (However, if they voluntarily choose this course of action, that is a matter between them and God.)

In summary, one generalization I think its fair to make is that on the Sabbath, we are to refrain from all kinds of profane activities through separating ourselves from concerns of the world. This, for me, is perhaps the essential reason for Sabbath; it is to acknowledge the “holy” aspect we are able to enjoy as God’s adopted children. In Sabbath, we “redeem the time”, separating the Holy from the profane, coming before God in the realization that our time (and perhaps our space) has become sanctified, made holy by focusing on God, His laws for our blessing, and on His unique Son who died in order that we—through the reconciliation He made possible by His atoning death—may indeed come before the Throne of Grace.

The traditional Jewish Sabbath Havdalah blessing embodies the proper tone for the entire day: “Blessed are You, L-rd our G-d…Who differentiates between the holy and the mundane, between light and darkness, between Israel and the nations, between the seventh day and the six days of work.”

God has set aside—has separated to Himself, not to Jews or Gentiles, (Matt. 12:8)—a full day for our pleasure in Him. God differentiated the Sabbath from the other six days by His will and communicated that to us through His Word, His speech. Through His speech, He revealed to us the need to separate the holy from the profane (Deut. 5:12). Without this act of speech—His fiat—we would never know God’s will concerning the Sabbath, therefore there would be no difference between the Sabbath and any other day of the week. Sabbath is holy because God is holy and He has sanctified this day and told us so in clear and explicit terms through His Word, so that we may fully understand His holiness and to partake of the blessings of that holiness.

Nor does God ask for only one or two hours on a Sunday morning. Rather, He commands us to give up our worldly concerns and activities on the last day of the week—not simply by refraining from those activities, but by spiritualizing them, sanctifying them, giving them back to Him. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:1-2).

AMEN