Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

While Karl and Yohanan have each answered this question in his own way, I am 
reminded of the joke, from back when Israelis were just starting to go over 
to a five-day working week: "working five days is fine, but let's start by 
working two days, then three, eventually we'll get up to five".

Seriously, the question is only a problem for the list when it becomes a 
theological argument. As long as we all limit ourselves to explaining our 
own views, I think that we're fine.

The Sabbath law does not appear only in Exodus 20 as the fourth commandment, 
but about half a dozen times in the Torah, each time with a slightly 
different emphasis. In Ex. 20, for example, the reason given for the Sabbath 
is that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, while 
in the almost-parallel version of the Decalogue in Deut. 5 it is to remember 
that God took Israel out of slavery in Egypt. There are also differences in 
the details of just what is forbidden. Rabbinic interpretation, which is the 
traditional Jewish observance of the Sabbath, is that it is not "physical 
labor" per se that is forbidden but "creative work", which the Rabbis listed 
as 49 categories such as building, lighting a fire, carrying in the public 
domain, writing, buying and selling etc. In general it is the action that 
produces the result that is forbidden, not the act itself.
So there is no commandment to "work" on the other six days.

As far as which day is the "true Sabbath", it is my understanding that the 
Christian shift from Saturday to Sunday as "the Lord's Day" was originally 
not due to a claim that Creation began on Monday, but because of Jesus's 
resurrection being on Sunday, which was then seen as "replacing" the "old" 
Sabbath. I'd love someone more knowledgable in Christian theology to expamd 
on (or refute) this.

Yigal Levin



----- Original Message ----- 
From: <pporta AT oham.net>
To: "Jeremy Bickel" <jeremybickel AT att.net>; "b-hebrew mailing list" 
<b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 10:49 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Exo 20:9-10


> I do not know whether my question on Ex 20:9-10 fits the rules of this 
> list.
> If not, please excuse me.
> ___________
>
> In Ex 20:9-10 it is written that God commands to man to work during six 
> days
> but to reserve the seventh, Shabat, to Him (God).
> I heared along my life that at explaining this commandment the stress has
> always been put on the fact that "we must sanctify Sunday, the Lord's 
> day".
> But... does this commandement imply also the duty of WORKING during SIX
> days? Could we say that someone who stops his work at Friday evening, 
> namely
> after FIVE days, and starts it again at Monday morning... does not obey 
> the
> spirit of this Commandement?
> Can this conclusion be inferred or deduced from the Hebrew text of Ex
> 20:9-10?
>
> Pere Porta
> Barcelona (Spain)
>
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