Biblical Context: Sabbath

Jesus tells him, “Get up, pick up your cot, and walk.”

Immediately the man got better, and he picked up his cot and walked.

Now that day was the Sabbath and the Jews were telling the man who was healed, “It’s the Sabbath, so you’re not allowed to carry your cot.”

— The Story of Jesus 8.1 

[adapted from Jn 5:8-10]

After worshiping him, they returned from the mountain called Olive, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath’s journey away.

— The Story of Jesus 37.8 

[adapted from Luke 24:52; Acts 1:12]

Genesis records that God created the world in six consecutive days, then rested from his work on the seventh. Thus the Sabbath (meaning “cease”) became a Jewish day of rest and worship every seventh day. Keeping or observing the Sabbath became law for all Israel when Moses delivered the Ten Commandments shortly after they left captivity in Egypt:

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. You’ll work and do all your business in six days, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Do not do any work on it, not you, your son or daughter, your slave or maid, your animals, nor any foreigner living in your towns. Because the Lord made the skies, the earth, the sea, and everything in them in six days, but he rested on the seventh day. So the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy .”

– Exodus 20:8-11

Failing to observe the Sabbath, or even speaking against it, was punishable by death accord­ing to Hebrew Law. Jeremiah, a prophet before and during Israel’s exile to Babylon, taught that God would bless or destroy Israel for simply keeping or disregarding the Sabbath.

Jewish tradition held various criteria for the definition of work, which was divided into 39 general activities. It included: farming (planting, plowing, reaping, threshing), sorting, food preparation (kneading, baking, killing animals), making clothes (spinning wool, dyeing, weaving more than two threads, sewing more than two stitches, washing), tying and untying, writing and erasing, building and destroying, lighting and extinguishing a fire, and finishing anything. Based on Old Testament passages about the restriction of work on the Sabbath, a Sabbath’s journey was no more than 2000 cubits (1000 yards, ½ mile, 0.9 kilometers). All preparations for the Sabbath were done the day before and all work stopped from sundown on Friday until the appearance of three stars on Saturday night. The only way the Sabbath could be broken was if a human life was in danger, in which case a Jew was not only free from the Sabbath restrictions, but required to act.

The Sabbath was also every seventh year, where any farmed field was to remain fallow until the next year. Furthermore, every seventh Sabbath year (every fiftieth year) was to be a year of jubilee, where everyone was to return to their own land and all debts were to be forgiven. 

After worshiping him, they returned from the mountain called Olive, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath’s journey away.

— The Story of Jesus 37.8 

[adapted from Luke 24:52; Acts 1:12]

Based on Old Testament passages about the restriction of work on the Sabbath, a Sabbath’s journey was no more than 2000 cubits (1000 yards, ½ mile, 0.9 kilometers). 

It was the preparation day for the Sabbath, a big preparation. The Jews asked Pilate that their legs be broken so they could take the bodies away, that they wouldn’t stay on the cross for the Sabbath.

— The Story of Jesus 34.4

[adapted from Jn 19:31]

Preparation was made every sixth day of the week so no work would be done on the Sabbath. On the day before the Passover Sabbath, it was an exceptionally big preparation, due to the nature of the weeklong feast when all work was banned.

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