Exodus 35
Exodus 35:2, The seventh day…shall be…a set-apart day.In our journey through the Torah, YHVH keeps interjecting instructions concerning the seventh day Sabbath. Why is this? Obviously this an important subject to YHVH, and was to be pivotal component in the life of his people—one that could be easily overlooked, forgotten or profaned.
When YHVH instructed his people in Exodus 20:8 to “remember the Sabbath day to keep it set-apart (Heb. kadosh),” he was reminding the Israelites so they would not forget it! But this command has two parts: first, do not forget the Sabbath, and second, do not profane it, that is, keep it holy or set apart or holy by not polluting it with secular activities such as work and normal routine and daily activities. This day is to be special and different from all other days.
But there’s more.
With each reminder to keep the Sabbath, the Creator gives additional instructions about how to keep the Sabbath set-part (see Gen 2:2–3; Exod 16:23–30; 20:8–11).
In this passage, YHVH adds to the list of forbidden Sabbath-day activities not to kindle a fire as a requirement for properly observing the seventh day Shabbat. But the fire YHVH mentions here was not was not just any kind of fire, but a certain type of fire, as we will discuss below. Additionally, keeping the Sabbath was so important to the spiritual welfare of YHVH’s people that he prescribes the death penalty for those who worked on this day. And work is the operative issue, here, when it comes to not building a fire on the Sabbath.
Why is Sabbath-observance so important to YHVH? This is because keeping the Sabbath is a crucial element in helping YHVH’s people to maintain a right relationship with their Creator. Those who observe Sunday as the “Lord’s day” and fail to rest on the seventh day are oblivious to this truth sadly to their own loss and detriment. Sabbath observance, if done according to Scripture, demands that one stop their weekly work routine, take a selah moment (that is to pause and to reflect), and to look heavenward for an entire 24-hour period. This is hardly the case for the majority of Sunday-keepers, who go to church for a couple of hours on that day and for the rest of the day it is more or less business as usual as they indulge in their carnal pursuits.
Much more could be said about the critical value of the Sabbath that helps to keep YHVH’s people lined up spiritually with him and one’s fellow saints, but we discuss this in more detail elsewhere. Suffice it to say here, YHVH never sanctified (made holy or set-apart) or blessed the first day of the week, only the seventh day Sabbath (Gen 2:3). This speaks volumes about the importance the Creator, who never changes, placed and still places on the Sabbath. This day is foundational and axiomatic to the life of YHVH’s people, and when it is neglected or totally forsaken, they deprive themselves of an invaluable gift that heaven has graciously and beneficently bestowed upon work-weary man for his restful rejuvenation and spiritual edification.
On the supreme importance of the Sabbath, the religious Jews have a poignant adage that speaks volumes concerning how this day acts as a spiritual glue that helps to affix YHVH’s people him as well to hold the nation together in the midsts of the swirling toilet bowl of this world. They say, “It’s not that the Jews have kept the Sabbath over the millennia; it’s that the Sabbath has kept the Jews.”
Exodus 35:3, Kindle no fire…on the Sabbath day.
Under What Circumstances Is Starting a Fire on the Sabbath Prohibited?
One of the Torah’s commands regarding the observance of the seventh day Sabbath is the proscription about building or kindling a fire on this day (Exod 35:3). There are several prevailing viewpoints as to the exact meaning of this passage. Let us now explore them and discover the true meaning of this important command.
The Orthodox Jews take to the furthest extreme the Torah’s prohibition to kindle no fire on the Sabbath. As such, many Jews refuse even to turn on a light switch or start their cars (i.e., fire occurs in the vehicle’s spark plugs as they ignite the fuel-filled cylinders). They also leave their stoves on for 24 hours, and unscrew the lights in their refrigerators on the Sabbath for fear of violating this command. As a counterpoint this view, the Torah commands the priest to light the menorah in the tabernacle each morning, the Sabbath not excluded (Exod 27:21–21; 30:7), and to prepare meat for the daily offerings to YHVH on the altar of sacrifice requiring a cooking fire. So, for ministry purposes, lighting a fire was not prohibited.
But interestingly, the command not to build a fire on the Sabbath (Exod 35:3) is followed directly by verse four where YHVH gives the Israelites initial instructions on building the tabernacle. What is the significance of the juxtaposition of these two passages as it relates to observing the Sabbath? Much. From this we learn an important truth. All Scripture must be viewed in the context in which it is found. This is a fundamental principle of logic and biblical interpretation. When a Scripture is cherry picked out of its context (called proof-texting), one can easily twist the Bible to make it say whatever one wants. The Bible often places one passage next to another without overtly connecting the two via the use of grammatical connector words. This is not a matter of the Bible throwing disparate and random subjects onto its pages haphazardly. YHVH is not the author of confusion. He is a God of order and purpose. Rather, YHVH teaches his people in ways that invites reflection, meditating, pondering and investigation. This involces a person’s engagement and interaction with the Word of Elohim. In so doing, a person is exploring the mind of Elohim and discovering hidden gold veins of truth and unearthing precious nuggets of understanding. For example, when we read Yeshua’s red-letter Gospel words, many of his ministry episodes and teachings appear to be placed in random order without any connection to each other. But upon closer contemplative, Spirit-led examination, one discovers that when the dots are connected, deeper truths and expansive and panoramic pictures emerge from the supposedly confusing Gospel narratives.
An example in the Torah of juxtaposing two seemingly disparate ideas is the prohibition against the consumption of alcohol and the death of Nadab and Abihu, who offered strange fire in the tabernacle (Lev 10:1–7 cp. Lev 10:8–9). This teaches us that these two sons of Aaron were intoxicated when ministering in tabernacle thus causing them to err in judgment concerning following the strict protocols for coming into YHVH’s presence. We find another example of the Torah jusxtaposing two seemingly disparate topics in Exodus chapters 31 and 32. And the end of the former chapter, YHVH reaffirms the importance of the Sabbath as a sign of his covenant with his people, where they promised to worship him only and follow all of his Torah commandments. Then in Exodus chapter 32, the Torah recounts the Israelite’s declension into golden calf worship resulting in idolatry, debauchery and sexual licentiousness. As we have proven elsewhere, the placing of these two scriptures back-to-back obliquely teach us that the day of their idolatrous revelling and rebellion against YHVH occurred on the Sabbath—a direct violation of YHVH’s Torah-law at multiple levels. Had they adhered strictly to the Sabbath command, they would not have fallen into golden calf worship. Similarly and today, how many Sunday Christians ignore YHVH’s command to keep his Sabbath, while they are involved in the golden calf worship of working on the Sabbath to earn money and pursuing their own, often licentious, pleasures on this sacred and set-apart day?
Thus, the juxtapositioning of Scriptures without an apparent grammatical connection between them is a clever way that the Bible teaches truth, while hiding the deeper understanding of Scripture from the casual and superficial observer, while at the same time rewarding those who expend the laborious and diligent effort to dig out the diamonds and precious stones that lie just beneath the surface. This is a biblical, Hebraic way of teaching deeper truths through human engagement and investigation, and heaven is keen on rewarding those who diligently seek YHVH Elohim (Heb 11:6).
Thus, the immediate context of the Exodus 34 Sabbath-fire passage concerns starting fires that pertain only to one’s trade or job. In Israel’s case, their job was to build the mishkan or Tabernacle of Moses. Fires would have been needed for tanning hides, working with metal, and possibly bending wood and dying cloth along with other activities.
This we know for certain. On the Sabbath, YHVH’s people are not to bake, cook or prepare food from scratch (Exod 16:23), but Scripture does not prohibit reheating food—something that is even permitted in Orthodox Jewish circles today. What is the bottom line issue here? We are to cease our creative activities on the Sabbath, even as YHVH set us an example when he rested on the first Sabbath after having completed his creation activities (Gen 2:1–3). From this we learn that cooking food from scratch (as opposed to reheating), which changes the chemistry of the food, and thus constitutes creating something (i.e., transforming something from its original state into another state) is forbidden on the Sabbath. Thus food must be prepared ahead of time on the sixth day, but can then reheated on the Sabbath.
Does the Torah forbid the lighting of fires for heat and light? Some people would say yes, since part of preparing for the Sabbath involves insuring that your fire for heat and light must stay burning through the Sabbath without having to relight them. But, in reality, was this always possible in ancient times? That is a question we will now explore.
One thing is certain. It is doubtful that YHVH would have expected his hapless people to sit in the cold darkness on the Sabbath were their fire to have gone out—especially in the winter months when the days are shorter and colder, and when snow and cold rain are realities, even in the land of Israel. This would result in the loss of the delight of the seventh day, which, in itself, is a violation the Sabbath (Isa 58:13).
The harsh realities of life in a primitive agrarian culture are evident. The ancient Israelites, obviously, did not possess electric lights or furnaces that lit and heated their homes at the push of a button. If YHVH’s Torah forbad the Israelites from lighting a fire for heat and light purposes, then they would have had to start a fire on Friday before sundown, and then keep it burning all night and through the Sabbath day. This means that if the fire happened to go out during the night because someone slept too soundly and failed to wake up to stoke the fire or add olive oil to their small terra cotta lamps (which burned only for a short time), then they would have been either forced to sit in the cold and dark on the Sabbath, or they would have to fetch some coals from a neighbor, whose fire had not gone out, in order to relight their fire. The Israelite who lived in town had another option as well. Often, there were public ovens built into the earth with clay cooking tubes for baking bread. For those who lived nearby, they could bring back some embers from these public ovens to restart their home fires (Manners and Customs of Bible Lands, pp. 47–48, by Fred H. Wight). Regardless, letting one’s fire go out would have been a great inconvenience and diminished the joy of the Sabbath day.
In modern times, for those who heat their homes with a wood stove, the most energy efficient home-sized wood stove will burn only for six to eight hours if one has access to hardwoods (like oak, maple or fruit wood) as fuel. Despite one’s best efforts to keep their wood stove burning all night to keep the house warm, at times the fire goes out. In most of the land of Israel, large hardwood trees are not prevalent. In ancient Bible times with several million Israelites constantly foraging for hardwood to keep their fires burning, the land would have quickly been depleted of trees—especially in that arid land where trees grow slowly. In reality, the Israelites were more likely to have used sticks (1 Kgs 17:10), thorn bushes, bundles of dried grass (Matt 6:30; Luke 12:28), coals (or charcoal?; John 18:18; 21:9) or dried dung for fire fuel (Ezek 4:15; ibid., p. 30). Furthermore, warming fires were often built in courtyards (John 18:18). Such fires did not burn long. At the same time, making fire would not have been an easy process either before the invention of matches, since this was accomplished by rubbing sticks together or by striking flint and steel (ibid. p. 31).
For sure we know that in days before matches, lighters, push-button furnaces, lights and stoves, starting and maintaining a fire was not a simple task. At the same time, it seems that YHVH would not have expected the Sabbath to end up becoming a miserable, weekly lesson in wilderness survival by having many of his servants forced to huddle together freezing in the darkness on this day of joyful rest because their lights and fires had gone out. He did, however, expect his people to make every possible effort to prepare for the Sabbath ahead of time to keep it from being just another day of laborious work (Exod 16:23). However, it seems hard to believe that the Torah forbids starting a fire for heat and light if necessary—especially during the winter months. Therefore, it is logical to believe that starting fires for work purposes was forbidden, but for heat and light purposes, if unavoidable, was permitted.
Exodus 35:5, Whosoever is of a willing heart.In Hebrew, the word nadiyb/CHSB translated as willing means “noble, inclined, generous.” The heart attitude of those contributing to the building materials of the tabernacle was obviously of paramount importance to YHVH. The Torah mentions it again several more times later in chapter (see verses 21–22, 26, 29).
Exodus 36
Exodus 36:5–6, The people bring much more.
