LESSON 2
THE SABBATH
“The Lord said to Moses, ‘Speak to the Israelites and say to them: “These are my appointed feasts, the appointed feasts of the Lord, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies.
“There are six days when you may work, but the seventh is a Sabbath of rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the Lord.” Leviticus 23:1-3.
- THE MEANING OF SABBATH
Although the Sabbath is not strictly part of the annual feasts which rehearse the work of the Messiah in His first and second comings, they are prophetic of the overall work He did to take His people out of slavery in Egypt into the rest of the Promised Land. The Sabbath is a sign of the Mosaic covenant, just like the rainbow was God’s sign of His covenant with Noah, and circumcision was the sign of the Abrahamic covenant.
“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign me and you for the generations to come, that you may know that I am the Lord who makes you holy.’” Exodus 31:12, 13.
“The origin of the Hebrew sabbat [t’B;v] is uncertain, but it seems to have derived from the verb sabat, meaning to stop, to cease, or to keep. Its theological meaning is rooted in God’s rest following the six days of creation (Gen 2:2-3). The Greek noun sabbat [savbbaton] translates the Hebrew noun sabbat [t’B;v]. The noun form is used primarily to denote the seventh day of the week, though it may occasionally refer to the Sabbath week (Lev 23:15-16) at the end of every seven Sabbaths or fifty days, or the Sabbath year (Lev 25:1-7) in which the land was to be at complete rest.”
(http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/sabbath/)
- THE PURPOSE OF THE SABBATH
“In the Torah, the purpose of Sabbath observance is to remind the Hebrew people of two very important events in history: the creation of the world (Ex. 20:11) and the deliverance from slavery in Egypt (Deut. 5:15). Both highlight the central Jewish religious belief: that there is one, powerful creator God who cares for his people. Jews also believe that God commanded the Sabbath to ensure that his people stopped every once in a while to be a human being instead of a “human doing.”