Thursday, October 10, 2013

The Road to Redemption – Spiritual Disciplines – Sabbath 2

    In our last article we defined Sabbath as a time of rest ordained by God on the seventh day, seventh month or seventh year. We discussed that the origins of Sabbath can be found in God's resting on the seventh day after six days of creation. Finally we looked at the various ways in which that sense of rest was applied to people, animals, commerce and even the earth itself. Sabbath was thus intended to a gift of God to the people; offering them rest from their labors.

    The question then becomes how important was the idea of Sabbath in the actual life and work of the people of God. There are some scholars who believe that Sabbath, while being a nominal part of the life of the community, was in reality a late addition to the theological landscape. This argument carries some weight because there is little or no direct mention of Sabbath in the books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, I/II Samuel or I Kings; a period of about 500 years. However the two references in those books are significant and might imply that the Sabbath was so ubiquitous that it did not need mentioning. These references are first to David who, when hungry and fleeing from King Saul, ate the shew-bread. (I Samuel 21:6) The shew-bread was set out on the Sabbath to be eaten by the priests. The second reference concerns a woman from the town of Shunem who went to see Elisha the prophet, even though, as her husband puts it, "It is neither the new moon nor the Sabbath." (II Kings 4:23)

    Regardless of the lack of multiple references to the Sabbath in the Old Testament history books we can catch glimpses of the importance of the seventh day in the words of the prophets whose work overlaps much of the latter years of those same books. Amos (Amos 8:4-5a), writing around 787 BCE, refers to the Sabbath in his critique of the greed of Israel. "Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, "When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the Sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale?"
Isaiah (Isaiah 1:12-13) also refers to the importance of the Sabbath around 712 BCE when he declares, "When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and calling of convocation— I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity." Finally, Jeremiah (Jeremiah 19:21-23) writing around 600 BCE states, "Thus says the Lord: For the sake of your lives, take care that you do not bear a burden on the sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem. And do not carry a burden out of your houses on the sabbath or do any work, but keep the sabbath day holy, as I commanded your ancestors. Yet they did not listen or incline their ear; they stiffened their necks and would not hear or receive instruction."

    We see an increasing focus on the Sabbath in the writings and history following the Exile into Babylon. As the people attempted to come to grips with their national humiliation and as they attempted to retain their religious identity profaning the Sabbath became an explanation for their defeat and reinstituting the Sabbath a means to sustain their identity. We see this in the work of the prophet Ezekiel whose early prophecies (Chapters 20 and 22) contain indictments against Judah for desecrating the Sabbath and whose later prophecies (Chapters 44 and 45) offer images of a nation who keeps the Sabbath. In the historical books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which describe the restoration of the nation of Israel after their return from exile, we see the lengths to which national leaders would go to insure Sabbath observance. In Nehemiah 13:19 we read, "When it began to be dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut and gave orders that they should not be opened until after the sabbath. And I set some of my servants over the gates, to prevent any burden from being brought in on the sabbath day." By shutting the gates foreigners could not tempt God's people to engage in violations of the Sabbath (buying, selling, etc). This and other Sabbath protecting acts slowly became the norm for Israel and set the stage for some of Jesus most interesting confrontations in his ministry.

    

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