4th Commandment: Remember the Sabbath

Summary

BibleProject Podcast: 4th Commandment - Remember the Sabbath
Episode Date: May 4, 2026
Hosts: John Collins, Tim Mackie, with Laurina Siatavicus

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Overview

This episode explores the fourth commandment—“Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy”—in depth. John Collins and Tim Mackie dive into its unique place among the Ten Commandments, uncovering its cosmic, social, and theological significance. The conversation traces the Sabbath from Genesis, through its articulation in both Exodus and Deuteronomy, and into its interpretation and practice by early Jews and Christians. The hosts also reflect on its enduring wisdom for contemporary life.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: The Ten Commandments as a Covenant (00:05)

• Israel at Sinai: The Ten Commandments symbolize Israel’s “marriage vows” with God—a radically mutual covenant unique for its time.
• Quote:
  “Israel will be his people and he will be their God. This is a marriage. And the marriage vows are what we call the Ten Commandments.”
  (John Collins, 00:09)

2. The Uniqueness of the Fourth Commandment (06:07)

• Unlike most other commandments, the Sabbath is deeply contextual to Israel’s ancient culture, grounding time and identity in ritual rest.
• The Sabbath is defined explicitly: from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown.
• The command appears twice in the Torah: Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5—each with distinct emphases.

3. Sabbath in Exodus 20: Cosmic Rest (08:17–16:03)

• Structure:
  • Six days of labor, seventh day of rest.
  • Observance extended to everyone: heads of family, children, slaves, livestock, and immigrants—a deliberate “seven” in the list.
• Genesis Connection:
  • Emphasizes imitation of God’s own rest and links to the seven-day creation narrative.
  • On the seventh day in Genesis, the cycle's “evening and morning” formula is absent, symbolizing cosmic rest that is still ongoing.
• Notable Quote:
  “The idea is that when God generates something out of God's own self, ... that thing needs to then go on a journey of sharing in God's own rest to become one with God.”
  (Tim Mackie, 19:41)

4. Sabbath Language and Significance (11:40; 14:01)

• Terms:
  • Shabbat (“to stop/cease”)
  • Noach (“to rest/settle”)—evoking both the act of stopping and restorative enjoyment.
• Seven as Symbol: Lists and numbers are intentionally arranged to emphasize completion/fullness, mirroring creation.

5. Day Seven: The Day Without End (22:36–25:23)

• Genesis omits the usual ending for the seventh day, signaling an ongoing, open invitation to rest—a hint toward history’s ultimate destiny.
• Notable Quote:
  “Literally the sun has not yet set on God's Sabbath.”
  (Tim Mackie quoting Richard Lowry, 23:43)

6. Sabbath in Deuteronomy 5: Social Liberation (28:49–32:50)

• Expanded Recipients:
  • Now includes ox, donkey, and all animals—list increases to nine.
• Reason Shifts:
  • Moves from cosmic imitation to social practice—rest is commanded so that “your male slave and your female slave may rest just as you rest.”
• Memory of Slavery:
  • Sabbath as a weekly liberation celebration, rooted in Israel’s exodus from Egyptian oppression.
  • Notable social critique of labor systems:
    “No rest, no Shabbat. So that type of maximizing profit at the expense of human life and flourishing is viewed as a chaotic death force in the world.”
    (Tim Mackie, 32:56)

7. Trajectory Toward Justice (34:06–36:46)

• The Sabbath command, while not abolishing slavery outright, sets Israel on a trajectory toward liberation and social equity—evident in later laws like the Jubilee.

8. Sabbath as Wisdom and Imitation (26:44; 49:06)

• Participation: Keeping Sabbath is seen both as a cosmic participation (imitating God’s rest) and a social equalization (everybody is equal on the Sabbath).
• Quote:
  “Our work is not ultimate ... There's a purpose and a worker that transcends us all. God's purpose.”
  (Tim Mackie, 26:53)

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Sabbath and Early Christianity: From Saturday to Sunday (39:01–44:05)

• Jewish Practice: Sabbath continued Friday night to Saturday.
• Jesus' Resurrection: Early Christians began gathering on Sunday to commemorate resurrection (“day one”).
• Development of Weekend: The shift to a two-day “weekend” (Saturday Sabbath + Sunday worship) developed over centuries and wasn’t universal or immediate.
• Paul’s Guidance: In Romans, Colossians, and Galatians, Paul advises not to let Sabbath observance become a cause for division; the meaning and wisdom of the rest are centrally important, not the specific day.
• Quote:
  “The Sabbath is made for humans. Humans weren't made for the Sabbath.”
  (Tim Mackie quoting Jesus, 45:58)

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Applying Sabbath Wisdom Today (44:40–48:44)

• Wisdom Literature Approach: Recognizes the essence of Sabbath—rest as imitation of God and means for cosmic/social flourishing—rather than just a rule to be literally transplanted.
• Keeping Sabbath Today:
  • Encouragement to intentionally set apart time for rest, family, and cosmic reflection.
  • Acknowledgement that it “takes a lot of work to rest” in modern contexts.
• Quote:
  “Every person, community and family needs to find their way, but also not feel the burden to have to make it up yourself. There's 3,000 plus years of human communities ... living by this wisdom.”
  (Tim Mackie, 48:13)

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The Structure of the Ten Commandments (48:44–50:42)

• First Four: Centered on the relationship with God (no other gods, no idols, not carrying God’s name in vain, and Sabbath observance).

• Transition to Human Relationships: Commandment 5 (“Honor your father and mother”) serves as a hinge between the divine and social aspects.

• Quote:
  “Commands one through four ... are primarily oriented in the human relationship to God. And that's gonna shift. Command five ... is about humans relating to humans, but there's some deep connection ... we'll talk more about that.”
  (Tim Mackie, 50:08)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “In the ancient world, a story about a God getting married in a covenant with a human would sound as strange as a story ... about a human getting married to a cat.” (Tim Mackie, quoting Joshua Berman, 04:09)
• “Day seven doesn't get that final marker... It's the day that doesn't end.” (John Collins, 22:43)
• “What Sabbath means is the most important thing.” (Tim Mackie, 45:52)
• “It takes a lot of work to rest.” (Tim Mackie, 48:40)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introduction to the Fourth Commandment: (00:05–01:14)
• Ten Commandments as a Marriage Covenant: (03:31–05:53)
• Cultural Specificity of the Sabbath: (06:07–08:13)
• Exodus Version of the Sabbath Command: (09:26–16:03)
• Cosmic Significance: Creation & the Ongoing Seventh Day: (16:03–25:23)
• Deuteronomy Version: Social Emphasis: (28:49–36:46)
• From Sabbath to Sunday: Early Christians: (39:01–45:25)
• Modern Sabbath Practice & Wisdom: (44:40–48:44)
• First Four Commandments as God-Centered: (48:44–50:42)

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Conclusion

Summary:
The Sabbath command is multifaceted—rooted in the cosmic order and in the memory of liberation from slavery, it both imitates God and fosters social equality. The hosts invite listeners to honor its spirit: rhythmically pausing, embracing rest, and remembering both divine and social dimensions. Applying the Sabbath today is less about rigid rule-keeping and more about intentional, communal rhythms of rest deeply connected to God’s cosmic story and justice.

Final Reflection:
“Let's take a rest.” (Tim Mackie, 50:42)

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Next Episode: Honor Your Father and Mother (Commandment Five)

Transcript

[John Collins]

In the book of Exodus, Yahweh liberates the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, and he brings them to Mount Sinai to establish an intimate relationship with them. Israel will be his people and he will be their God. This is a marriage. And the marriage vows are what we call the Ten Commandments. Now, most of these commands make sense to us on face value. In fact, they make sense to any culture. Don't murder, don't lie, honest. Honor your parents. But today we'll look at the fourth command, which was utterly unique to Israel, how they set apart one day every week and treated it as different.

[Tim Mackie]

Remember the day of Shabbat to treat it as holy. Six days you will labor and you will make all of your work. But the seventh day is a Shabbat of Yahweh, your Elohim.

[John Collins]

The command goes on to say to stop work on the seventh day, because in six days Yahweh made the skies and the land, the sea and all that is in them. And he rested on the seventh day. So the reason for this command is cosmic. It's connected to the story of God creating and bringing order to everything.

[Tim Mackie]

The seven day creation narrative is clearly being hyperlinked. Here God generates out of generous love, something that is wholly contained within and sustained by God. But that thing needs to then go on a journey of sharing in God's own rest to become one with God.

[John Collins]

On days one through six of the creation narrative, the narrator repeats the line, and there was evening and morning on that day. But jarringly, the seventh day doesn't end with this phrase implying that we're still in the seventh day and the moment of ultimate completion and rest for the cosmos is yet to come.

[Tim Mackie]

The Genesis 1 narrative is trying to teach us to think about all of history as being on this journey of we're laboring towards this great day of unity and rest and completeness and blessing and sharing in the harmony and shalom that is God's own essence.

[John Collins]

And so the fourth command of resting on the seventh day is actually an invitation to reflect on the journey of the whole cosmos. We get to partner with God as God's image, but we have to remember

[Tim Mackie]

our work is not ultimate. It's not actually what has the final word about where this universe is going. There's a purpose and a worker that transcends us all. God's purpose.

[John Collins]

When the 10 commands are given a second time, the reason for the Sabbath shifts. Instead of focusing on this coming cosmic rest, it focuses on a coming liberation. Moses says, six days you do your work. Seventh day, you Shabbat so that your slaves can get the same rest from work.

[Tim Mackie]

Your slave is not your slave on the Shabbat, you will remember that you all were slaves in the land of Egypt. And Yahweh, your Elohim brought you out with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm. And so now the weekly Shabbat, every seventh day, is a liberation day.

[John Collins]

Today, Tim Mackey and I talk about the fourth commandment. Remember the Sabbath with all of its cosmic and social implications. Plus, we'll look at how the early followers of Jesus balanced obeying the wisdom of the Sabbath with Sunday as resurrection day. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey, Tim.

[Tim Mackie]

Hello, John Collins.

[John Collins]

We're talking the 10 words, talking 1010

[Tim Mackie]

commandments, 10 words, 10 things that God said to the people of ancient Israel as they stood at Mount Sinai entering into a covenant. They got married. Israel got married to a God that day.

[John Collins]

Okay.

[Tim Mackie]

You know, there's.

[John Collins]

That'd be a cool theme study.

[Tim Mackie]

There's a Hebrew Bible scholar, Joshua Berman, who was trying to draw attention to how odd the story of God making a covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai would sound in the ancient world.

[John Collins]

Did it?

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah.

[John Collins]

This wasn't a thing you would do.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. He said in the ancient world, a story about a God getting married in a covenant with a human would sound as strange as a story to us would sound about a human getting married to a cat. That's what he used, his analogy.

[John Collins]

That's helpful.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah.

[John Collins]

It's good to know. It is strange. It's normalized. Growing up with the Bible and hearing metaphors like you are the bride and the marriage of the lamb and these kind of things.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Collins]

But you just take one step back and you're like, what?

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. Now, he's not saying there was no precedent for gods entering into some kind of partnership with humans. The idea of gods enlisting humans to do stuff for them and serve them, that's not new. But what's truly new is the mutuality about a God making God self vulnerable to a human community to partner with and represent him to be his kingdom of priests and attaching God's name. Thinking of our last conversation about carrying the name of Yahweh, your God, for a futile purpose or in vain. That's what's unique. That I am your Elohim and you are my people. And the reciprocity of partnership is truly unique. Something unique that the Hebrew Bible is contributing to the history of human thought. And so what these 10 words represent are the first 10 terms of that covenant marriage, partnership between Yahweh, the One who is, and the people of ancient Israel.

[John Collins]

Yeah. They're very contextual to ancient Israel.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. And actually what we're going to look at today, the command number four is a great example of a highly contextualized command to the life of ancient Israel.

[John Collins]

That's true. The rest of these feel much easier to cross any cultural boundaries.

[Laurina Siatavicus]

Exactly.

[Tim Mackie]

In other words, the faced value reading first reading, even in translation, commands 1, 2 and 3 are pretty easy for contemporary readers of. Actually readers of any time and culture to just be like, oh, yeah, I get it. No other gods, no idols, don't carry or take the name of God in vain.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

Whatever that might mean. There's a perception that they're pretty easy to just copy and paste into my cultural setting.

[John Collins]

Yeah. Then the ones later will also feel the same.

[Tim Mackie]

Honor your father and mother, don't kill, don't commit adultery, don't steal, bear false witness, don't desire.

[John Collins]

And I think what makes the ten Commandments then so enduring is how transferable they are to any setting.

[Tim Mackie]

That's right. And that's a part of their intention in being set in front of all the other hundreds to follow.

[John Collins]

Okay.

[Tim Mackie]

Yep. But then this one, this number four. Number four, which literally is remember the day of the Sabbath to keep it holy.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

Sabbath is very explicitly, all throughout the Bible, Old and New Testament refers to from Friday at sundown to Saturday at sundown.

[John Collins]

It spells it out.

[Tim Mackie]

Yes.

[John Collins]

The time.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah.

[John Collins]

Okay.

[Tim Mackie]

The seventh day.

[John Collins]

That's the seventh day.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. Because the day begins at sundown in the Bible.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

So we'll get into all this, but the point is, is that number four is the most culturally specific to the life and the liturgy and religious calendar of ancient Israel and then of later Judaism. So let's get ourselves into the heads of an ancient Israelite. What is the fourth command all about? First let's read it. And that immediately is going to confront us with another puzzle, which is the fact that this fourth command, remember the ten Commandments appear two times in the Torah, and this fourth command in the two versions is the most different of any of the ten commands.

[John Collins]

When it's restated, it's stated in a different way. Yep.

[Tim Mackie]

So the Exodus 20 version and the Deuteronomy chapter 5 version are really different. The same command, keep the Sabbath, but the way it's worded and why you do it, totally different. So first let's just read the Exodus version, make sense of it. Then let's compare it with the Deuteronomy version. Make sense of it. And then we'll ask some of the bigger questions that arise from both. Deal? Okay. Exodus 20 version reads like this. Remember the day of Shabbat. So I'm actually not translating there. I'm transliterating the word Shabbat.

[John Collins]

Okay.

[Tim Mackie]

That's how you say it.

[John Collins]

Say it in Hebrew.

[Tim Mackie]

Hebrew word. Yeah.

[John Collins]

The day of Shabbat.

[Tim Mackie]

Yep, the day of Shabbat. To treat it as holy.

[John Collins]

Okay.

[Tim Mackie]

To consecrate or to sanctify are common English translations. Those are funky words. Those are funky words that mean to recognize and then treat something as sacred, one and only, set apart in relationship to the one and only set apart God. So there's something sacred about this day because it has a unique relationship to the sacred, unique one and only God.

[John Collins]

Recognizing and treating it with the sanctity that it has.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. Yep.

[John Collins]

And you can use a special word for that, like sanctify or consecrate.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. To consecrate it, to set it aside, recognize it, and then treat it as holy. These are all English ways of getting at what the Hebrew phrase is. Lakad sho.

[John Collins]

I'm imagining it's a mental state, a perception of what this thing is, but then also the way that you interact with it.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. There's a 24 hour period that in your mind you're to recognize that one's different and then how you behave in that 24 hour period should be different.

[John Collins]

And that's treating it as holy.

[Tim Mackie]

That's treating it as holy. Okay. All right, how exactly? Well, the command goes on six days you will labor and you will make all of your work or do. The verb is asa. It's the most general Hebrew word. To do or to make, to be active. All right, Produce something. So for six days you'll labor and do your work. But the seventh day is a Shabbat of Yahweh, your Elohim. On it, you will not make or do any work. Okay, Six days work, seventh day, Shabbat, forced rest. Shabbat means to stop. It's a Hebrew verb that means. Well, the verb means to stop. And then the noun means to a cessation or a stopping. Okay, so what does it mean to remember this day and treat it as different than all the other days?

[John Collins]

Well, you're not going to work.

[Tim Mackie]

You have all these days where you work. But then the Shabbat, you don't work. And that's because it's a Shabbat of Yahweh. Your Elohim.

[John Collins]

Hmm.

[Tim Mackie]

What does that mean? First of all, you get a list of who it is that's supposed to honor the holiness of this day of Shabbat. It's you, your son, your daughter, your male slave, your female slave, your cattle, and the immigrant who's in your gates.

[John Collins]

Is that seven?

[Tim Mackie]

Seven. Of course, of course, of course.

[John Collins]

So everyone, Everybody.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, so it begins with you. All the pronouns in here are second person masculine singular. So sorry. I'm so sorry.

[John Collins]

My brain just like turned off.

[Tim Mackie]

What do you say? The moment I utter grammar terminology, I'm

[John Collins]

just like, what world am I in?

[Tim Mackie]

The you there is a single man. Meaning that the first layer of audience presumes an ancient patriarchal and traditional society and arrangement where the man is a patriarch, the head of a state, and head of an extended family.

[John Collins]

And he's gonna have sons and daughters. He's gonna have male slaves, female slaves.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, that's the presumed setting. So what's interesting is missing from this list that's gonna come in, another list that's similar to this later on is your wife.

[John Collins]

Oh, no mention of your wife.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, down in Command Number 10, where it says, don't covet your neighbor's wife. That's the first on the list. And then it's like his male slave, female slave, ox, donkey.

[John Collins]

Well, but yeah, they can't have eight in the list.

[Tim Mackie]

Right, exactly. My point is that the list has been trimmed so that it's precisely seven. Seven on the list. So it's a good example of how biblical authors selectively create groups of seven on purpose.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

So seven is a. Again, it's the Hebrew word Sheva. It's spelled with the same letters as the Hebrew word sava, which means to fill up or to satisfy complete. So it's a very common literary device to arrange things in groups of seven. But also notice that this is a command about the seventh day.

[John Collins]

Right?

[Tim Mackie]

So the seventh day is a completion of work. There should be no rest. And who is it that gets to benefit from the resting from work? Everybody. A seven part list. The complete community. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now back to that. Remember that little puzzle? What does it mean? That the seventh day is a Shabbat of Yahweh. What does that mean? We come back around to that verse 11, we'll recall that in six days. Days, Yahweh made the skies, the land and the sea, and all that's in them. And he rested on the seventh day. So the word rest there is different. It's the name Noah Noach as a Verb. Yeah, Noach. Noach and Shabbat and noach are synonyms in Genesis. And here they're brought together.

[John Collins]

To stop is to rest.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. To Shabbat is to stop. And the nuach provides another nuance of meaning. It presumes that you stopped and now you're having the restorative experience of having stopped. Of having stopped. And you are resting and you're settling and you're enjoying. Shabbat is you stop so that you are now settling down. Resting is about having settled. You enjoy something. So they work together. So why is it that you work for six days and then Shabbat on the seventh? Because Yahweh worked for six days and then Noacht on the seventh.

[John Collins]

And this is referring to Genesis 1.

[Tim Mackie]

Yes. And which the last line of the command, therefore Yahweh blessed the day of Shabbat and he made it holy. Which links you back all the way up to the first line, which is, remember the day of Shabbat. To treat it as holy.

[John Collins]

Yeah. When God ordered all of the cosmos, he was laboring in some way.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, let's think about this. So the seven day creation narrative is clearly being hyperlinked here. Yeah, it opens with God speaking, but then there's two verbs that God is the subject of in the seven day narrative. It's either bara, which is to create, which only God is ever the actor of. The verb bara. In the Hebrew Bible, a human never baras, but God does. But bara essentially means God produces something that has no precedent. It's innovation.

[John Collins]

That's a very specific word.

[Tim Mackie]

Yes. Yeah.

[John Collins]

It's only used of God's actions and only God baraz.

[Tim Mackie]

But then God also asas, which means to make or to do. So he makes the big light and the small light and the stars makes them. And then that's what humans do when they do their work. They asa. And it kind of makes sense if God only God baras, he generates out of God's own self all the stuff, the stuff with which one can asa. And then God asahs with the stuff that he barad. And then he calls humans also to asa. Okay, I don't know if that does that make any sense?

[John Collins]

I was following.

[Tim Mackie]

So the point is that God baras humans can't do that. But God also asahs with the stuff that he baras and humans can asa. In fact, that's what God created and appointed humans to do.

[John Collins]

To work and to keep.

[Tim Mackie]

To work and to keep.

[John Collins]

And that work is saw that's a different word.

[Tim Mackie]

It's a synonym. It's the word labor. Here.

[John Collins]

Oh, it's in here.

[Tim Mackie]

Yep. Verse nine. Labor. Yeah. Six days, you will labor. It's the word avad. Avad, which means to produce productive work.

[John Collins]

Okay.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. So, yeah, God's depicted as a laborer. And the way that God labors is by speaking and then making. So days 1 through 3 is separates light and dark. He separates the waters from the waters. That's day two. Day three, he separates the dry land from the waters and then summons the plants to come up out of the ground. Boom.

[John Collins]

Boom.

[Tim Mackie]

Days four through six, day four, he populates the light and the dark realms with the lights. Then he populates the waters above with the birds and the waters below with the fish. And then day six, he populates the land and calls up animals out of the ground and then creates and appoints humans to rule over the ground. Yeah.

[John Collins]

So that's the work. And he stops and he rests. What does he say?

[Tim Mackie]

So it reads like this. This is Genesis 2, verses 1 and to 3. And so they were completed. The skies and the land and all their inhabitants. Elohim completed on the seventh day the work that he had made. And he rested on the seventh day from the work that he had made. And Elohim blessed the seventh day and set it apart as holy, because on it he rested from all his work, which Elohim created to make. Yeah, I tried to kind of make the middle lines rhyme.

[John Collins]

Oh, yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

Each one of them is seven words in Hebrew. Oh, the three lines that have the word seven in them. The phrase seventh day are themselves made with seven words.

[John Collins]

Wow, cool.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, super cool. So he completed, he rested, and he blessed the day. So the idea is that when God generates something out of God's own self, that is not God, but that's sustained and ordered by God. There's some energy involved there. Movement out of God's own self. God generates out of generous love something that is not God, but that is wholly contained within and sustained by God. But that thing needs to then go on a journey of sharing in God's own rest to become one with God. And that's the framework of the concept of creation in the story of the Bible.

[John Collins]

The journey is going to include work.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah.

[John Collins]

But then also rest.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. A journey of separation, of distinguishing, of things becoming their own thing, but then also of things realizing.

[John Collins]

What do you mean by that?

[Tim Mackie]

Oh, the separating of days one through three.

[John Collins]

Sure.

[Tim Mackie]

So God begins to order by separating things. Day and night and waters above and Below and dry, land and sea. But then these inhabitants are meant to begin joining things back together again. So you have the lights that create this orderly partnership and alternation between the day and the night. And all of a sudden the things that are separate start working together.

[John Collins]

Oh, interesting.

[Tim Mackie]

And then you get the waters above and the waters below with their creatures.

[John Collins]

Creates kind of an ecosystem that works together.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, they function together like an ecosystem. And then you get the land, which is this in between, between the waters above and the waters below. And then the rulers on the land are actually then commissioned to like unite all of it by ruling over all of it. The birds of the air, the fish of the sea and the creatures on the land.

[John Collins]

Yeah, to work and keep it.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. So there's the separating, but then this unifying. I mean, these are the basic, like subterranean ideas at work in the creation story. And just as creation itself is both separate from God, but then also meant to be unified and connected with God. And so there's this period of laboring, but then that laboring culminates in this great seventh day rest, where you stop and you enjoy the goodness of all that results from that. And what's interesting, and all the way back in our series on the Sabbath years ago, the way that the six days are marked, each day opens with and God said, then God is making or doing something. And then it ends with saying, and there was evening and there was morning, the X day, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. And that little signal for the ending, it never happens with day seven.

[John Collins]

Day seven doesn't get that final marker. And there was evening and morning on the seventh day. Yeah, it's a day that doesn't end.

[Tim Mackie]

It's the day that doesn't end. So I quoted then in that series, and I'll quote it again now, great little book on the concept of Sabbath and jubilee in the biblical story by scholar Richard Lowry. He puts it this way. He says the seventh day account does not end with the expected formula. There was evening and there was morning. That phrase concluded days one through six. And so breaking the pattern in this way emphasizes the uniqueness of the seventh day. And it opens the door to, he calls eschatological interpretation. Literally the sun has not yet set on God's Sabbath. So I think what he's saying is the seven day creation narrative is trying to tell us about the foundation of the cosmos we inhabit, therefore pointing to the past. But it's also open ended in the fact that the seventh day has no end, it's ongoing, which opens the Door to say, well, perhaps the seven day narrative is also a way of thinking about all of history and that all of history is on this arc of. Of separating, but gathering up towards this grand unification. And that grand unification is something out there yet in the future. That's what he means by eschatological the final sunset. Yeah. And eschatos is the Greek word. Eschatos means the end or the completion. So eschatological means that the seventh day narrative is actually a way of thinking about the end of history. The completion of history.

[John Collins]

And the completion of history would be union back with God.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. About all creation coming back into rest, a state of rest within the generous love of God. And that definitely seems to be how later biblical authors understood the meaning of the seventh day. That's why Isaiah, at the end of Isaiah's scroll, will talk about God creating a new skies and a new land and all the nations coming to the mountain of God to celebrate all of these patterns of rest and Sabbath. This is how the end of Isaiah,

[John Collins]

he talks about, like a new sun rising, right?

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. Actually, what he says is you won't even need the sun and the moon anymore because God's light will be brighter than the light of seven days.

[John Collins]

Yeah. God's light is the next sunrise.

[Tim Mackie]

Yes, exactly.

[John Collins]

Is the eighth sunrise.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. So you don't need the lights of day four anymore because you've got the eternal light of day one, which is God's light shining.

[John Collins]

It's pretty cosmic.

[Tim Mackie]

Pretty cosmic, yeah. So the end is like the beginning, where the beginning is like the end. And so the Genesis 1 narrative is trying to teach, I think, teach us to think about all of history as being on this journey of we're laboring towards this great day of unity and rest and completeness and blessing and sharing in the harmony and shalom that is God's own essence. And what if, because that's such a long journey.

[John Collins]

Yeah. When is it again the universe? Is it going to happen?

[Tim Mackie]

Exactly.

[John Collins]

Do you have a. Can I put it in my calendar? So set an alarm.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. So what the fourth command is about is about Israel, is to structure its actual life rhythms along that storyline and then reenact the whole history of the universe once a week, every week, so that six days of labor culminating a seventh day of rest becomes a way of participating in the grand story of what God is doing and has in store for all of creation. It's an imitation of God. Yeah, yeah.

[John Collins]

This command is an invitation to think of the journey of the entire cosmos.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. Yeah.

[John Collins]

Wow.

[Tim Mackie]

Well, yeah, it's cosmic. Yeah, there's a cosmic participation, and in something bigger than us. So there's an important statement about reality to say I'm an image of God. I'm called to discover the vocation that God has for me and that he's instilled within me to contribute in some way to the working of the world. But our work is not ultimate. It's not actually what has the final word about where this universe is going. There's a purpose and a worker that transcends us all. God's purpose, that's what determines reality. And so I can stop and just enjoy the good things that God's given me and not think that the universe rests on my labor. Sam. So that was all in Exodus version. Okay, let's check out the Deuteronomy 5 version. It's helpful to pull them up in parallel columns just so you can see them. So here's the opening line of the fourth command in Deuteronomy 5. Keep the day of Shabbat to treat it as holy, just as Yahweh, your Elohim has commanded you.

[John Collins]

Okay. And I'm looking at the Exodus 20 version. On the side, it says, remember the day of Shabbat instead of keep the day of Shabbat.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. To treat it as holy.

[John Collins]

So that's a synonym, I suppose. Remember. Keep.

[Tim Mackie]

Remember the day of Shabbat. Keep the day of Shabbat. Yeah, yeah. What's interesting is if you're going to keep it, you need to have remembered it. And if you remember it, the whole point is that you remember it and then you. For a purpose, and then you keep it. Yeah, remember and keep. Deuteronomy 5 goes on six days. You will labor and do all of your work.

[John Collins]

That's the same.

[Tim Mackie]

Yep. It's the same as Exodus. But the seventh day is a Shabbat for Yahweh, your Elohim. You will not do any work. Virtually the same.

[John Collins]

Okay.

[Tim Mackie]

Couple single words, different, but virtually the same. And then here's the list. Same list, same list. Who gets to benefit? Well, let's check it out. You, your son or your daughter. That's the same. Your male slave or your female slave. That's the same. Your ox, your donkey, or any of your animals. Or the immigrant who's in the gates.

[John Collins]

It's a bigger list.

[Tim Mackie]

Bigger list.

[John Collins]

More animals in this list.

[Tim Mackie]

Yes. Yeah, exactly. Yes.

[John Collins]

And there's nine now there's nine in

[Tim Mackie]

the list of Deuteronomy 5 instead of seven in Exodus. Yeah.

[John Collins]

Okay.

[Tim Mackie]

So Basically, we've added donkey or any animal.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

So Exodus 20 only had your cattle, like your ox, oxen.

[John Collins]

Okay.

[Tim Mackie]

Which apparently is meant to stand for all your animals. But Deuteronomy 5 comes and fills that out. Your ox, your donkey, any of your animals.

[John Collins]

Okay.

[Tim Mackie]

Deuteronomy 5 continues on and gives a reason so that your male slave and your female slave may rest just as you rest. So that reason, Deuteronomy, stands in the place of the reference to the seven day creation narrative in Exodus 20. So Exodus 20 is six days you labor, seventh day, you Shabbat. Why? Because in six days, God made everything, and then on the seventh day, he rested. That's the rationale.

[John Collins]

Yeah. It gets cosmic.

[Tim Mackie]

Gets cosmic Here in Deuteronomy 5, six days you do your work. Seventh day, you Shabbat, so that your slaves can get the same rest that you. And the implied you there is a slave owner.

[John Collins]

So it gets very civil versus cosmic.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, yeah. Your slave is not your slave on the Shabbat, as it were. Your slave gets the same rest from work.

[John Collins]

It's treated the same.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. Yes. There's an equality to the seventh day. And then you go back to that list and you're like, oh, yeah, your son or your daughter, slaves, animals, immigrants, everybody becomes an equal, as it were, on the day of Shabbat. This is like, has kind of a social angle to it as opposed to a cosmic angle. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Now, this social angle of social equality, the Sabbath, is about a temporary pause in, what do you say, social hierarchies of power and labor. Everybody just stops and rests. And then verse 15 of Deuteronomy 5 comes and provides a reason for all this that is also different from the Exodus version. Verse 15 reads, and you will remember that you all were slaves in the land of Egypt. And Yahweh, your Elohim brought you out with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm. Therefore, Yahweh, your Elohim commanded you to keep the Shabbat. So you used to be slaves in Egypt.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

And you were laboring without any rest all day, every day, no rest. Yeah.

[John Collins]

How'd you like that?

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. That was terrible. That was dehumanizing. So we're recalling Pharaoh's brutal enslavement of the Israelites. And then also, you know, there was that moment after Aaron and Moses confronted Pharaoh. And then Pharaoh's like, more bricks, less straw. Like, keep meeting your quota, he just turns it up. And no rest, no Shabbat. So that type of maximizing Profit at the expense of human life and flourishing is viewed as a chaotic death force in the world. And Yahweh liberated his people from that. And so now the weekly Shabbat is a way of reenacting. This is like a liberation day.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

Every seventh day is a liberation day.

[John Collins]

Okay. To press. It could have gone farther at this moment. It could have been actually, you know what? This whole slave ownership thing.

[Tim Mackie]

Totally.

[John Collins]

What a farce.

[Tim Mackie]

Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[John Collins]

You know what, actually, let's not participate in it at all.

[Tim Mackie]

At all. Yeah, sure. That's right. So you can see a trajectory headed that direction every seventh year. The scaled up annual version of the seventh year was about the forgiveness of debt and the release of slaves, Israelite slaves. Not non Israelite slaves, but Israelite slaves. And then the Jubilee was about forgiveness of debts, release of slaves. And anybody who lost land in the last 49 years gets that returned back to them too. Which was often, of course, something that caused people to sell themselves into slavery, was they lost their family land. So I guess what you can say is, yeah, God didn't work within human history to drop the conviction of what took humans, many later generations to own as their own conviction. He didn't like drop that back in history, but he did set.

[John Collins]

Set it in motion.

[Tim Mackie]

He did something in history that set in motion a trajectory, a liberationist trajectory that ended in the abolition of the slave trade in certain cultures. Of course, different forms of different slave trades still exist in the world today. But I just want to acknowledge your point, like it's super important. And that's an important thing to acknowledge that God's timeline for working out his redemptive purpose.

[John Collins]

It's back to this cosmic journey.

[Tim Mackie]

Much slower than we would prefer. Yeah. And that much slower has led to a lot of hurt and abused people and communities through history. And that's something each of us has to take up with God on our own journey. So thank you for bringing that up. That's important.

[John Collins]

Yeah. I'm always happy when God's slow with me.

[Tim Mackie]

That's a great point. Totally.

[John Collins]

Right?

[Tim Mackie]

Yes, that's right.

[John Collins]

Patient with me.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. And maybe that's a part of how these two work together. So God has enlisted humans as his partners in co creating and guiding creation on this journey to the ultimate seventh day rest. And that's kind of like the Exodus version.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

So every seventh day, remember that humans are not in charge. Your labor isn't determining the future of the universe. You can stop and rest. You're not a work machine. You're a human image of God, which means there is coming a time of rest. And you can stop and enjoy a taste of that future rest right here in the present. Yeah.

[John Collins]

Now we can, from our vantage in history, say, why didn't this go farther? We could flip it and we can acknowledge this actually is in the time and place. It was pretty radical.

[Tim Mackie]

Very radical. Yeah. Yes. And then the Deuteronomy version comes along and adds to the creation story, the Exodus story, and says the Exodus story is, in a way, God working to liberate his people so that they can enjoy this rest. And how remarkable that the foundation story of God's covenant people in the story of the Bible is God noticing the outcry of oppressed slaves, liberating them from an imperial oppressor and then elevating them to the role of his spouse and marrying a human community and appointing them as priests and rulers. Like, that is so such a remarkable story. And that is essentially a way of thinking about what the creation story is. God elevating a dust creature to a place of God's representative image and to be royal kings and queens over creation. But lest they forget that they are not God, the weekly Sabbath forces you to stop. So what I love is the Deuteronomy version kind of throws it in your face in a really communal way to say, like, during the six days, human communities, we tend to operate and make up stories about how you belong to me. I, you know, about how prophet positioned

[John Collins]

the name of the game. And prophet.

[Tim Mackie]

Yes. Yeah. And then at every seventh day, God says, stop it, stop it. Where this train's headed, that's not gonna matter. It's a universe of kings and queens, each sitting under their own fig tree, to use the language of the story of Solomon.

[John Collins]

So in Exodus 20 version, there's a cosmic rest coming. We get to taste it right now. In the Deuteronomy 5 version, there's this cosmic liberation coming, and we get to kind of taste it for a moment right now.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah, that's right. Yep. That's a good way of saying it. So Deuteronomy has a liberation from slavery emphasis, and the Exodus version has a cosmic participation type of emphasis. And just enjoy the good things that God's given me and not think that the universe rests on my labor. Within the Hebrew Bible. And then in Jewish tradition, the seventh day takes its cue from the Genesis narrative that the markers from the day start at evening to morning, day begins at sundown, which is crazy for modern Westerners because we think the day ends at sundown and begins at sunrise. That's not the conception of time in the seven day narrative. Okay, so this is why Jewish communities, as far back as we can tell, a seventh day begins on what today we call Friday at sundown. So from Friday to Saturday. And so this is still, you know, in the modern state of Israel. When the modern nation state of Israel was founded in 1948, that's how they created and instituted their calendar. And I'll never forget when I lived there during the school year, it took me so long to get used to it because Sunday was essentially what Monday is in Westernized or Christianized cultures. Okay, so this is interesting. In the earliest Jewish Messianic Jesus communities, so Israelite followers of Jesus as Messiah, Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday. So as the stories go, and there's some chronology issues you gotta work out between Matthew, Mark and Luke and John, but the basic shape of the story is such that he dies and he's in the tomb over the Sabbath, so that resurrection and the empty tomb happens on Sunday, which is in the day one day one of the new week. Mm. Yeah. So what happens then is you have Messianic Jewish followers of Jesus who are both observing Shabbat in the traditional way. But then all of a sudden they have Sunday, which is a huge day, a hugely important day because it marks the dawn of new creation and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

[John Collins]

So now there's two days to stop.

[Tim Mackie]

So now there's. Well, and so it created a very blurry period. And I could do a lot more homework here. And anybody who wants to take a deep dive into this, there's a really helpful collection of essays by a whole host of scholars of Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism and New Testament. It's called from the Sabbath to the Lord's A Biblical Historical Theological Investigation that's put together by a scholar named D.A. carson. And what they're trying to track is how did you get from Sabbath being on Friday night for Messianic Jews who were all the first followers of Jesus, to later generations thinking of the Sabbath rest as being fulfilled or honored on Sunday by resting on resurrection day? How did that happen? And it didn't happen quickly. It didn't happen simply or everywhere all at once, because the Jesus movement was pretty decentralized and you had lots of people still honoring Shabbat and then also doing something in house. Church gatherings on Sundays, maybe after their workday, gathering in the evening on Sundays. And it became a really contentious thing in early church history, as you could imagine. But The Apostle Paul saw all this coming and he actually worked out in a few different house church communities, the churches of Rome and of Colossae and Galatia, where he talked about, hey, different ones of you are going to treat different days as sacred and holy. He's surely referring to the Sabbath. And he trusted that the Spirit of God would guide individuals and communities to use wisdom and to honor the days that they felt they needed to honor, to honor Jesus. So he said some might consider one day holy, that others might consider it another. And he didn't think it was something that should fracture the Christian community.

[John Collins]

I think the most righteous thing to do, take both days

[Tim Mackie]

to start your rest on Friday night and just keep it going. And keep it going all through Sunday.

[John Collins]

Yeah, till Sunday at Sunday.

[Tim Mackie]

And you're describing a version of the weekend of the European and American work week and probably Canadian and other Westernized cultures. I actually don't know the development of that, of the two day weekend. But yeah, just do it both. Yeah, yeah.

[John Collins]

Or is that a problem?

[Tim Mackie]

No, I think it's a good example actually of reading the Ten Commandments and the rest of the biblical story as wisdom literature, where we are trying to take the deepest insights about God, about reality, about ourselves from the biblical story. But also recognize I don't live in the ancient Near East. I'm not an ancient Israelite. I'm also not Jewish living in the second Temple period. I'm also not a Corinthian or a Roman. I'm living in my time and place. So what can I do to honor the wisdom of these commands? Now, you and I both know people who read the fourth command and they're like, God commands it.

[John Collins]

Yeah, let's do it the way it's commanding it.

[Tim Mackie]

So you better figure out what 24 hour period it's referring to and then do it. And then you better do it. And I totally respect that. But it seems to me that what Sabbath means is the most important thing. And I think that's honoring what Jesus said, which he says, the Sabbath is made for humans. Humans weren't made for the Sabbath. And so he began to press on

[John Collins]

what Sabbath for him, it wasn't about what day. No, but it was. What does it mean to rest?

[Tim Mackie]

What constitutes rest? Yeah, but there you see Jesus, what he's saying is that the meaning of the Sabbath is the important thing. And then Paul takes that another step further and says, you do it on that 24 hour period. That person does on that 24 hour period. Don't judge each other about how you're honoring Jesus in those different ways. So I guess the wisdom is to say it is super important for human images of God to not think that they are God, but rather that they're images of God. It's super important that we build into our lives rhythms where we remind ourselves of that, where we imitate God's rest and where we get a taste of the ultimate Eden rest that's coming for everybody and where all of the separations and hierarchies that we create in our patterns of work, all that just goes away and we just eat and rest for everybody. That's super important. And how you and I respond to that. Well, I think take a different cultural form than how the Roman churches responded that in Paul's day than how Galilean Jewish villagers, you know, responded to it, that Jesus was healing among. But I think the point is that we all are honoring the meaning of what the seventh day rest is about. That's currently where I'm at in thinking through the issue and well, there you go. There's more to be said. And I also recognize there may be people listening who passionately disagree. I wish I would just say, you know, have mercy on me and let's be generous to each other as we follow Jesus because I think what we all care about is the meaning of the Sabbath and that it should be honored in our life rhythms in some way.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

What do you think?

[John Collins]

I just need to just practice it more with my family. We could level up and our purposefulness in marking this day as set apart. And it can get more cosmic in our imaginations.

[Tim Mackie]

Sure.

[John Collins]

And I think there's things we could do for that.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. Every person, community and family needs to find their way, but also not feel the burden to have to make it up yourself. There's 3,000 plus years of human communities in the Jewish and Christian tradition doing this and living by this wisdom. And there's so many wonderful ideas and examples to pull from.

[John Collins]

Yeah. Even so, it's surprisingly hard to get sticky.

[Tim Mackie]

Requires a lot of intentionality.

[John Collins]

It's a lot of intentionality.

[Tim Mackie]

It takes a lot of work to rest.

[John Collins]

Yeah.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah.

[John Collins]

Let's end with the observation that you drew attention to. These first four are all related to how you.

[Tim Mackie]

Thank you.

[John Collins]

Interact with God.

[Tim Mackie]

Yes. Yes.

[John Collins]

So I'm Yahweh, serve me only. Don't make any idols that replace me. So it's one and two and they're about how you relate to Yahweh.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah.

[John Collins]

Three is don't carry my name

[Tim Mackie]

in a Newgy way in a nugatory way for a futile purpose. Yeah. And then fourth is, remember the Shabbat. Remember, keep the Shabbat.

[John Collins]

And the Shabbat focus is my relationship with God.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. It's a way that you imitate God and that it clearly affects how you relate to people, because that whole list of people, we're all going to benefit from the rest together. Yeah. Commands one through four. The phrase Yahweh, your Elohim is repeated throughout all of the first four, and then it goes away in commands 5 through 10. So the first two commands. Yeah. About no other gods, no idols, are very clearly about how you relate to God, not carrying the name of Yahweh for a futile purpose. That's about honoring God by how you represent him. And then Shabbat is imitating God's own rest. But every one of those does have implications for how you treat other people.

[John Collins]

Right.

[Tim Mackie]

Idolatry has huge implications for how people treat people.

[John Collins]

Yeah. How you carry the name does.

[Tim Mackie]

Yeah. But they are primarily oriented in the human relationship to God. And that's gonna shift. Command five, the next one is honor your father and mother. And it is about humans relating to humans, but there's some deep connection between how children relate to their parents and then how humans relate to God. And so Command 5 is like a hinge, but we'll talk more about that. Great. But there you go. We just worked through commands one through four.

[John Collins]

That's great.

[Tim Mackie]

Good work, John. Let's take a rest. All right,

[John Collins]

thanks for listening to BibleProject Podcast. Next week, we'll move on to the Fifth Command. Honor your father and mother. And we'll see that this command is closely linked with honoring God himself.

[Tim Mackie]

How I relate to somebody who generated and sustained my existence, that's a unique relationship and that needs to be treated in a special way. And that special way is called honor.

[John Collins]

Bibleproject is a crowdfunded nonprofit. We exist to experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. And everything that we make is free because of the generous support of thousands of people just like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.

[Laurina Siatavicus]

My name is Laurina Siatavicus. I'm from Lithuania. I'm a Lithuanian language advisor, and I've been working with the Bible Project for over five years, probably. I like to think of myself as like the last filter of everything. So whenever we receive the materials from the voiceover artists, I try to make sure that it's culturally not only acceptable, but kind of understandable. I first heard about the Bible Project around seven years ago through an email of a friend and yeah, and been involved with it ever since. I love the slogan the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. Also, the visual element is extremely appealing. This is what, in Lithuania, at least, the Bible Project is known for, and also all the scholarship work that goes into it. So I think I just like the whole package

[Tim Mackie]

Bible Project. Sam.