Why Sabbath

Should we keep the Sabbath? If so, why?  Should we only keep the Sabbath if we are Jewish?  Why is keeping the Sabbath important?  What is the Sabbath?

These are all very important questions and they will be carefully answered here.

First of all, I say: It is absolutely imperative, and potentially life saving that you keep the Sabbath.  It does not matter if you are Jewish, American, Chinese, Jedi, Romulan, or Klingon.  Sabbath is not only for the Hebrews.

What Is The Sabbath?

Literally, “SABBATH’ means to rest, to cease from normal activities. We first see this resting/ceasing from work in Genesis chapter 2.

Genesis 2:1 - 3

“Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”

Let us carefully look at this passage.  God (Yahweh) created everything in Genesis chapter 1. Each day, Yahweh did something unique. Yahweh finished everything in six days. Now, certainly, Yahweh could have done everything in one day. Yahweh could have also taken twenty days (or a million years) to do everything. But, there is a purpose for all Yahweh does.

There is something else Yahweh did on purpose. Yahweh could have started the next week right away. But he did not.  Yahweh purposely put a seventh day in the week.

Now, let’s get something straight. Yahweh was NOT tired. He did not need to rest. Yahweh did not even break into a sweat when he created everything. He did not need to “recharge his batteries.” So, why did Yahweh create the Sabbath?

The answer is found in the above verse. “Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy…”  The word “blessed” means “to speak well of”, “to show favor to”, and “to place high value on.” The word “holy” means “to set apart for special use”, “something that is whole and complete”, and “something that does not need anything else to make it complete”.

When we say: “God, you are Holy.”, we are telling him, “You are unique, special, and you do not need anything else to make you complete.” Likewise, the Sabbath day is a special day, a day set apart for special purposes.

There is one more thing we need to focus on before we move on. In Genesis chapter 1, we repeatedly see the phrase:  “And there was evening, and there was morning - the _____ day.”.  Yahweh measures days evenings first, then mornings. The Hebrews do as well. Each new day starts at sunset. We will revisit this later.

Next, let’s go to something Jesus (Yeshua) said.

Mark 2:23 - 28

“One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grain fields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?’  He answered, ‘Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need?  In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat.  And he also gave some to his companions.’  Then he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’

By the time Jesus had come, the religious leaders had taken what Yahweh had commanded and turned them into religious rules for mankind to follow. They had become so hard hearted,  they actually believed it was more pleasing to Yahweh for a man (and even his wife and little children) to go hungry than for them to “work” on the Sabbath to get food. They were wrong.

I want to focus on one thing Jesus said. He said:  “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”  Yahweh created the Sabbath for us!  He did it for OUR benefit - not his.

Summing up everything we have discussed so far, the Sabbath is a special day Yahweh purposely created, called special, and set apart for OUR benefit.

I will conclude this section with a question. Did Yahweh create the Sabbath before, or after, he created the Hebrew race?  The Hebrew race was created many, many generations after the Sabbath was created. The Sabbath is not solely for the Hebrews.

If The Sabbath Is Not For Just The Hebrews, Why Is It In The Ten Commandments?

Good question. Again, please remember, the Sabbath was created long before the Ten Commandments were created.  Without being sacrilegious, it might be best to call the Ten Commandments Yahweh’s reminders of his already existing commandments. To drive this point home, let us look at one of the other commandments:  “You shall not murder.”

Did Yahweh just create a new law then? Up till then, was it acceptable to murder? The answer to these questions is found in Genesis chapter 4. We can see how Yahweh reacted to Cain after he had killed his brother Able.  Yahweh’s punishment for Cain was very severe. Clearly, murder was wrong long before the Ten Commandments.

A bit of history will help us understand the Ten Commandments. Long after creation, Yahweh took a man named Abraham and separated him from his people. Abraham’s grandson was Israel. Israel, and his family moved to Egypt.  That family line lived in Egypt some 400 years. They grew to a great number of people.  Yahweh used a man named Moses to lead them out of Egypt.

But Egypt had its own false gods, rules, and custom that did not match Yahweh’s rules. Think of it, if you moved to a new part of the world, how much would your descendants look like you after 400 years? How many of your rules would they still be following?  Simply put, Yahweh had taken the Israelites out of Egypt.  Now he had to take Egypt out of the Israelites.  The Ten Commandments were an important step in that process.

Is Keeping The Sabbath Important To Yahweh?

I will answer this question from the Bible.

Leviticus 25:4

“But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord.  Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards.”

In Leviticus, Yahweh commands his people to let the land rest every seventh year.  They are not to work the soil or plant anything.  They are to live off of what grows wildly.  Yahweh will make sure there is enough food to feed his people.  This gives the land a chance to rejuvenate.  It is also a frequent reminder that Israel’s food really comes from Yahweh - not just some godless natural process.

Is this important to Yahweh?  Is it important to Yahweh that his children trust and obey him?  Read 2 Chronicles chapter 36.  In short, Israel had lived in the land 490 years.  They were to have rested the land every 7 years.  Simple math tells us that Israel violated that sabbath law 70 times.  How many years were they held captive in Babylon?  They were prisoners for 70 years.  Was that just a coincidence?  The book of Jeremiah tells us “no”.  Yahweh held Israel captive one year for every year they did not let the land rest.  Yes, Sabbath is important to Yahweh.

Exodus chapter 16 gives us an amazing testimony.  Again, Yahweh used Moses to take the Israelites out of Egypt.  But, they had to pass through a desert.  It might surprise you to know there were not any ATM’s, grocery stores, or fast food restaurants there.  So Yahweh had to provide them food.  Every morning Yahweh rained down a bread like substance they called manna.  (Give us this day our daily bread.)  This manna was a gift and a test.

Yahweh commanded the Israelites to gather only one omer of manna for each person in their tent. They were not to gather extra for the next day. Many of the people obeyed this command. However, some did not.  Those disobedient people got a rude surprise when they woke up the next day. The extra manna they had collected was full of maggots.  Yup, throw it away and start over. Apparently manna only lasts one day. Or does it?

Yahweh did give the Israelites another command concerning this manna. On the sixth day, the day before Sabbath, they were to collect twice as much as every other day. Yahweh did not send manna to them on the Sabbath, and they had nothing to cook. Yet, the manna that was left for the Sabbath did not have maggots in it the next morning.

Amazing!  Either Yahweh is intimately involved with our lives, or the maggots just took the same day off each week.  You decide.