4th Commandment: Remember the Sabbath

Reflection Questions

• How does the Genesis creation narrative contribute to the 4th Commandment’s meaning?

• What are some implications of God commanding slave owners to allow their slaves to rest alongside them on Sabbath days?

• What story do we tell when we choose to stop working and rest every week?

• In light of this conversation, consider the meaning of Jesus’ words in Mark 2:27, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.”

• How should Jesus’ followers respond when they have disagreements over which day to treat as holy?

Chapter 1: Israel’s Unique Covenant Partnership

The reciprocity of Yahweh and Israel in their covenant marriage partnership is a truly unique contribution to the history of human thought and experience. The 10 Commandments represent the first 10 terms of that partnership. Most of the 10 make sense at face value and easily apply to any culture. But the 4th Commandment (Exod. 20:8) about observing the Sabbath (or Shabbat in Hebrew) is highly contextualized to Israel.

Chapter 2: The Cosmic, Creation Version of the Command in Exodus 20

Yahweh commands Israel to make, do (‘asah), and labor (‘avad) for six days, and then rest (nuakh) on the seventh, similar to how God creates (bara’) in the seven-day creation narrative (Exod. 20:8-11). A striking part of the creation narrative is that the seventh day is not said to end (Gen. 1:1-2:3). The implication is that all creation is still in the seventh day, awaiting a final culmination of rest with God and a renewed Heaven and Earth (Isa. 65:17; 66:22). In the fourth command, God is inviting Israel to reflect on this reality: our work is not ultimate, God’s work in the world has the final say, and we can stop (Shabbat) to rest and enjoy what God has given us.

Chapter 3: The Civil, Social Version of the Command in Deuteronomy 5

If the fourth command has a cosmic scope in Exodus 20, a different version in Deuteronomy 5 focuses on a social, civil dimension. On the Sabbath, slave owners must allow their slaves to rest, because they also were once slaves in Egypt and Yahweh liberated them (Deut. 5:12-14). Therefore, every seventh day in Israel functions like a liberation day, when God reminds all people of their value as image-bearers.

The Torah’s laws further expand this trajectory of liberation. Yahweh commands for the land to rest every seven years. And every 49 years (the Jubilee year), Israelite slaves are freed and ancestral lands are restored to the original families (Lev. 25:1-55). A later law expands this even further, providing debt forgiveness and liberation for Israelite slaves every seven years (Deut. 15:1-18).

Chapter 4: Sabbath in the Early Jesus Movement and Today

The trajectory in the New Testament, both in Jesus’ and Paul’s words, is that the meaning of the Sabbath is what is most important, not specific ways of keeping it (Mark 2:23-28; Rom. 14:5-6; Col. 2:16-17). Jesus’ followers should take seriously the 4th Commandment’s wisdom to rest. And it’s all right for different people to form different rhythms around the observance of the Sabbath.