Message #273

[Martin]

Martin, look at Exodus 31.  There is an instruction 'not to work' here, but not a exact definition of this.  The passage in Numbers 15 would seem to refer to something that was not required to be done on the Sabbath - after all, the man had had 6 days to collect enough (rather like the people were told not to collect excess manna - but only enough for that day - except on the 6th day, when a double collection would not go bad).  As such, it would appear that the man concerned was intentionally breaking the interpretation that had been laid down by the leaders of the people.  Therefore, God's instruction to have him killed (in a context where there were no means of punishing him in a way that would give a serious message to the people, such as incarceration), would have been typical to the way that nomadic people dealt (and still deal) with transgressions.

I thought I understood you - you were very clear, but now I don't. You were saying that things like 'you mustn't cook on the Sabbath' were things added by men to God's initial law and therefore not what God intended.  Now you seem to be saying that God could see the way that his original law had been misinterpreted by the leaders of the people, and, rather than correct those leaders, God would rather have a man killed.

Also, I'm not clear whether you're now saying that God did command that no firewood should be gathered, no fire should be lit and that no cooking must be done.  You were clearly saying God didn't command this previously. you wrote:

Exodus 20: 8-11 outlines the way the Israelites were to behave on the Sabbath.  However, by the time of Christ, the definition of 'work' had been so stretched (so that you couldn't walk more than a certain distance; you couldn't take your donkey out to graze; you couldn't cook anything; ...) as to make a mockery of the instruction in Exodus.

So answer me straight.  Did God command that no fire should be lit on the Sabbath, and that food must be gathered on the previous day to avoid gathering it on the Sabbath or not?  Or was this simply a 'stretching' of what God had said that 'made a mockery' of God's instruction.