Exodus 20:10 - Exposition

The seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God . Rather—"The seventh day shall be a sabbath to the Lord thy God;" i.e; the seventh day shall be a day of holy rest dedicated to religion. All unnecessary labour shall be suspended and put aside—the law of rest and ease, so far as bodily toil is concerned, which was the law of man's existence before the fall, shall supersede for the time that law of heavy toil and continual unrest, which was laid on man as the penalty of his transgression ( Genesis 3:17-19 ). Eden shall be, as it were , restored—man shall not "go out to his toil and his labour"—even the very beasts, pressed into man's service since the fall, shall rest. In it thou shalt not do any work . On the exceptions to this rule, which even Judaism, with its extreme formality and literalism, saw to be necessary, see Matthew 12:5 , Matthew 12:11 . Still in many respects, a superstitious adherence to the precept was maintained by religious Jews, who would not even defend themselves on the sabbath, if attacked by an enemy (1 Mac. 2:32-38; 2 Mac. Matthew 5:25 , Matthew 5:26 ; Matthew 6:11 ; Matthew 15:1 ). Experience, however, taught them that the law had not been intended to extend so far, and after a time they determined, not to seek battle, but to accept if, and do their best, on the sabbath day (1 Mac. 2:41). Thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter . The rest is to extend to the whole family. Work is not to be merely devolved by the parents upon the children. Thy manservant, nor thy maid servant . It is to extend beyond the family proper, to the domestics of the household, who are to enjoy the respite from toil and to have the advantage of the religious refreshment, no less than their masters. Nor thy cattle . God's care for cattle is a remarkable feature of the Old Testament dispensation. God, at the time of the flood, "remembered Noah and the cattle which were with him in the ark " ( Genesis 8:1 ). Soon after, his covenant, not to drown the earth any more, was established "with the fowl, and with the cattle, and with every beast of the earth," no less than with man ( Genesis 9:9-11 ). In the Psalms he de clares that "the cattle upon a thousand hills" are his ( Psalms 50:10 ). In Jonah, we find that Nineveh was spared, in part because there was in it "much cattle" ( Jonah 4:11 ). The precept, "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn" is characteristic of the Mosaic dispensation, and had no parallel in the written codes or in the actual customs of other ancient nations. Animal suffering was generally regarded as of small account in the ancient world; and the idea of protecting animals from ill usage was wholly unknown. On the contrary, as Dr. Dollinger well observes: "The law was specially careful about the welfare of animals; they were to be treated with compassion and kindness. Domestic animals were to be well fed, and to enjoy the rest of the sabbath. The Israelites were to help to lift up the ass which had fallen beneath its burden, and to bring back the beast that had gone astray ( Exodus 23:5 , Exodus 23:12 ; Deuteronomy 25:4 )… The young was not to be taken from its mother before the seventh day … From these and similar ordinances—such, for instance, as about the least painful method of killing animals—it is plain that the law tried to subdue that coarse turn of mind and unfeeling cruelty, which are engendered by the maltreatment of animals." Nor the stranger that is within thy gates . The "strangers within the gates" of Israel are those foreigners who voluntarily sojourned with them in their camps or (afterwards) in their towns. A "mixed multitude" had gone up out of Egypt with them ( Exodus 12:38 ), and accompanied them in their wilderness wanderings. The command that these too should rest, was at once a restriction upon their liberty, requiring them to conform to the habits of those among whom they dwelt, and an admission of them into participation in some portion of the privileges of Israel. The sacred rest of the sabbath prefigured the final peace and happiness of the blest in heaven; and they who were commanded to share in the first, were encouraged to hope that they might also participate in the second.