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December 23, 2025 |
| The Missing Commandment | ||
Nine of the Ten Commandments are plainly … commandments - "Thou shalt not do this," "honor your mother and father," and "You shall have no other gods before me." The 4th Commandment is not like those. Paraphrased, it says, "Remember the Sabbath rest I gave you? Keep doing that. Here are some more details about it, and the reason for it being a weekly observance is that I rested after the 6 days of creation." That's not a commandment; that's a reminder with some elaboration.
The 4th Commandment specifies the continuance of an observance they were already doing. It is so obviously not a commandment that we have to ask if we are missing the commandment. That's God's point. Seek, and you will find.
When this commandment was given, it was not the first time the Israelites had heard the word "Sabbath."
They had left Egypt with all the unleavened bread they could make in a hurry. That didn't last very long. That's when God gives them Manna. Along with that, they are given the rules for keeping the Sabbath. That's also where we see the first mention of the word "Sabbath."
And he said to them, "This is what Yahweh has spoken: Tomorrow is a Sabbath observance, a holy sabbath to Yahweh. Bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is in excess put aside to be kept until morning." (Exodus 16:23)
Right from the start, God makes it clear that what they will be doing is an observance of something. That something is Sabbath, a word that means "to rest," or "to cease from work." God won't explain to them why they are doing this until the 4th Commandment is given in Exodus 20.
Here is the text of the 4th Commandment:
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath of Yahweh your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female slave or your cattle or your sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (Exodus 20:8-11)
If we are missing the real commandment, how do we find it? I know of two ways. In the study I did of the Ten Commandments, I showed one way. I won't go into details here, but the idea is that each of the five commandments on the first tablet has the same principle behind it as each of the five on the other tablet. So the 4th Commandment has the same principle as the 9th Commandment.
The 9th Commandment is an example, like the others. The example is about not testifying falsely, and the principle behind the example is about not lying about what men have done, in any way, at all. I think everyone already understood that.
Therefore the 4th Commandment must have the same principle but focused on the relationship of God to man. Therefore that principle would be - not lying about what God has done. If we work that principle back to an example, using the text of the commandment as a guide, we get something like, "Do not lie about the Sabbath that God created."
That brings us to a question: "What Sabbath did God create?" We tend to think of the Sabbath as only the weekly observance, but God did create a Sabbath. The book "Hebrews" talks about God's rest, using a phrase from a Psalm, "they will not enter into my rest. Hebrews also explains that this rest is the rest after the 6 days of creation.
One of the things that God has done that he doesn't want men lying about is that rest, which is our future rest.
As I said there is a second way. To begin that one, we start with the realization that an observance has a purpose. Veterans Day (also called Remembrance Day) is an annual observance created by men. Once a year, it brings to mind the people who died in wars. The weekly Sabbath is also an observance and therefore has a purpose. It reminds us, or should, of the rest that God created for us so we won't forget it and lie about it.
Is the commandment completely missing from the text? No, verse 8 is actually God's wording of the commandment, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." Notice the wording of the verses; verse 8 is different. Verse 8 says "remember". Verses 9 through 11 describe the observance that God wants us to keep to make sure we remember.
Most people don't recognize the split between the verses. Partly that's because the text uses the word "Sabbath" in both. In verse 8, the Sabbath that is referred to is God's day of rest. In the other verses, it is the weekly rest of the observance.
In verse 8, God says something else important. If you remember it, you will keep it holy. God means holy to us. The opposite of "holy" is "common." God doesn't want his day of rest to become like any other day - it came, it went, it was forgotten.
It's an unusual way of thinking for us, but not for God. To forget something that happened is to deny it happened, which is a lie. As humans we forget all sorts of things, and we don't think much about it. But God doesn't want that happening with his rest.
We've seen that the text of the 4th Commandment does not present a commandment. It instructs the Israelites to continue the Sabbath observance. It also gives them more detail about how the observance is to be done. It also explains why it is a weekly observance.
We've also seen that there are two ways to figure out what the commandment is. Both of these took us to an understanding of the hidden commandment. Now, we understand the idea, but we have to put it into words ourselves, so it could be written in many ways. I gave one rendering above; another could be, "You shall not deny the existence of my Sabbath." These are different from the minimalist way God rendered it - "Remember the Sabbath day," which requires us to carefully inspect the text to understand it completely.
God's Sabbath and the weekly Sabbath are inextricably joined. The weekly Sabbath is the earthly version of the Heavenly Sabbath, in the same way that the Jewish temple was the earthly version of the Heavenly temple. Therefore the weekly Sabbath is a way to bring a shadow of the Heavenly Sabbath to Earth. It is an opportunity for us to enjoy the rest now that we will receive later.