How to keep the Sabbath

[John317]

Sabbath is a verb.

Sabbath is actually a feminine noun. See the Hebrew & English lexicons. The American dictionary also says "Sabbath" is a noun.

To "sabbatize" is a verb, but when the commandment says to "remember the Sabbath," it uses a Hebrew word, shabbath (Strongs #7676), which is a noun. The "Sabbath" = "the seventh day", and both of these are nouns.

However, when Genesis 2: 2 says God "rested," the Hebrew uses the verb, shavath (Strongs #7673).

Genesis 8:22 uses the verb,shavath, in its most basic meaning--

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease."

Exodus 5: 5, significantly, uses shavath similarly:

And Pharaoh said, "Behold, the people of the land are now many, and you make them rest[sabbatize] from their burdens!"

[BobRyan]

Ex 20 "Remember the Sabbath day to keep IT Holy" --

When God Himself spoke His Law - the Sabbath was given in the form of a proper noun.

So also in Isaiah 66 "From Sabbath to Sabbath" all mankind is to come before God and worship.

in Christ,

Bob

[BobRyan]

Quote:

You love your ease too well. You are not painstaking enough. Constant effort is required, constant watchfulness and earnest, fervent prayer. Keep the mind in a praying mood, uplifted to God; be not slothful in business, but fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. {2T 701.2}

You have failed in your family to appreciate the sacredness of the Sabbath and to teach it to your children and enjoin upon them the importance of keeping it according to the commandment. Your sensibilities are not clear and ready to discern the high standard that we must reach in order to be commandment keepers. But God will assist you in your efforts when you take hold of the work earnestly. You should possess perfect control over yourself; then you can have better success in controlling your children when they are unruly. There is a great work before you to repair past neglects; but you are not required to perform it in your own strength. Ministering angels will aid you in the work. Do not give up the work nor lay aside the burden, but take hold of it with a will and repair your long neglect. You must have higher views of God's claims upon you in regard to His holy day. Everything that can possibly be done on the six days which God has given to you, should be done. You should not rob God of one hour of holy time. Great blessings are promised to those who place a high estimate upon the Sabbath and realize the obligations resting upon them in regard to its observance: If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath [from trampling upon it, setting it at nought], from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. {2T 701.3}

As you read the inspired statement above - which part seems to jump out at you?

It seems logical to conclude that those who do not take the Sabbath seriously today - will be even less inclined to do so when ever increasing monetary fines are imposed for keeping it.

in Christ,

Bob

[Overaged]

Sabbath is a verb.

Tom; can you explain why you think it's a verb?

[Overaged]

quote=Tom Wetmore]Sabbath is a verb. /quote]

Sabbath is actually a feminine noun. See the Hebrew & English lexicons. The American dictionary also says "Sabbath" is a noun.

To "sabbatize" is a verb, but when the commandment says to "remember the Sabbath," it uses a Hebrew word, shabbath (Strongs #7676), which is a noun. The "Sabbath" = "the seventh day", and both of these are nouns.

However, when Genesis 2: 2 says God "rested," the Hebrew uses the verb, shavath (Strongs #7673).

Genesis 8:22 uses the verb,shavath, in its most basic meaning--

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease."

Exodus 5: 5, significantly, uses shavath similarly:

And Pharaoh said, "Behold, the people of the land are now many, and you make them rest[sabbatize] from their burdens!"

[Tom Wetmore]

What I should have said was to think of the Sabbath as a verb. (Sorry that some can't find their way out of the box of literalism...)

We are so keen on pegging it as a noun we create a static object and only concern ourselves with getting the right day instead of getting the day the right way. It is the difference between passive and active, static and dynamic, noun and verb.

If you are determined to see it as a noun, it is a static object of our admiration to remember, like a pretty picture of a far off land we hang on the wall that is a fixed memory of something in our past. It is just there, hanging, doing nothing but reminding us. it is easily contained in a small frame or box of precious mementos.

If we think of Sabbath as a verb, it comes to life, there is something dynamic, vibrant and hard to contain. It is active. It calls for something to be done.

The day is intended to bring to mind two hugely dynamic actions taken by God. Exodus says it reminds us that God created life. And Deuteronomy says it was to remind us that God redeems, rescues for a new life. Sabbath is about life, really living.

And if one explores the root Hebrew meaning, the noun is derived from the verb. It started when God stopped (verb) and smelled the roses he had created. God wasn't tired. He was finished. So he rested (also a verb). But rest for God wasn't passive. He just stopped creating life to let it live. He stopped to enjoy and savor the joy of the life he had created. That was the beginning of the rest of life.

Yes, Sabbath was meant as a verb... Why do we work so hard to suck the life out of it?

[John317]

...Nothing personal meant here my friend; but it is becoming noticable in this thread that we cannot even tell for sure whether the Sabbath is a verb or noun or something inbetween. The church obviously has varied opinions.

"To rest", "keep sabbath", and "to sabbatize" are all verbs, but there's no question that "sabbath" is a noun.

"The Lord's Day" and "the Sabbath" are both referring to the same day of the week. They're both nouns. What we do on that day, of course, is a verb.

[John317]

...The day is intended to bring to mind two hugely dynamic actions taken by God. Exodus says it reminds us that God created life. And Deuteronomy says it was to remind us that God redeems, rescues for a new life. Sabbath is about life, really living.

And if one explores the root Hebrew meaning, the noun is derived from the verb. It started when God stopped (verb) and smelled the roses he had created. God wasn't tired. He was finished. So he rested (also a verb). But rest for God wasn't passive. He just stopped creating life to let it live. He stopped to enjoy and savor the joy of the life he had created. That was the beginning of the rest of life.

All very true, Tom, and those are excellent points, but this can all be said and experienced without saying that "Sabbath" is a verb. You're right that the noun is derived from the verb. If we don't see clearly that Sabbath is a noun, however, we may begin to forget that the Sabbath is also a particular day of the week. We can't keep Sabbath (the verb) on any other day of the week.

Really, the Sabbath is holy time. It is holy because God is in it in a way that He is not in any other day. Humans don't have the ability to make a day or time holy, and only holy people can keep it holy. To keep the Sabbath holy requires us to be remembering the Sabbath all through the week.

[John317]

...We are so keen on pegging it as a noun we create a static object and only concern ourselves with getting the right day instead of getting the day the right way.

...If we think of Sabbath as a verb, it comes to life, there is something dynamic, vibrant and hard to contain. It is active. It calls for something to be done.

You're absolutely correct here. Getting the right day is definitely important, yet if that's all we did, the blessings of the Sabbath would be wasted.

What the Sabbath calls for is our personal participation in the holiness of God. The Bible says the Sabbath is a sign between God and His people that He is the One who sanctifies us-- all through the week. So the Sabbath becomes something like a celebration of what God has been doing in our lives during the other six days.

[BobRyan]

"To rest", "keep sabbath", and "to sabbatize" are all verbs, but there's no question that "sabbath" is a noun.

"The Lord's Day" and "the Sabbath" are both referring to the same day of the week. They're both nouns. What we do on that day, of course, is a verb.

All true John.

The problem as was pointed out in this link

http://www.clubadventist.com/forum/ubbth...html#Post481352

is not that some people trust the Bible too much or take its words too seriously. The problem is not that someone forgot to edit Exodus 20 into making Sabbath a verb vs a noun.

The problem as that link points out is the problem with "self" with seeking one's own pleasure instead of seeking after God.

in Romans 3 Paul says that among the lost "there is no one that seeks after God - no not one".

We have never claimed that everyone that names the name of SDA is saved. Salvation has always been a matter of accepting Christ, a matter of the new birth, a matter of "by the spirit putting to death the deeds of the flesh" Romans 8.

And Christ said in Matt 7 that even inside his church it is the "few" that are on the narrow road.

This is the "elephant in the living room".

in Christ,

Bob

[BobRyan]

The day is intended to bring to mind two hugely dynamic actions taken by God. Exodus says it reminds us that God created life.

Exodus says much more about Sabbath than "God did something" or "there is a God" or even "God created life". Exodus appeals to "the very details of the Gen 1:2-2:3 account" that a few of our TE friends are so reluctant to embrace. Ex 20 says that the 7th day only has meaning because in 7 days God created the earth itself and all life on planet earth. On days 1,2 and 4 - God "formats" the environment (no life created at all on earth on those days). On days 3,5 and 6 He created life on earth. And on day 7 He rested - thus making the 7th day a Holy Day according to Gen 2:3.

When we take time to honor His own Holy Day - we admit and proclaim the fact that He Created earth and all life on earth in 6 days and rested the seventh day. We submit to the day of His choosing and the method of honoring that day that is also of His choosing for the reasons he gives when He spoke His Law to mankind at Sinai - and as first given in Gen 2:3 on the day He made the Sabbath.

Deut 5 appeals BACK to the Ex 20 event saying that we are to keep the Sabbath Holy AS told to do it in that Ex 20 event where God Himself thundered His Law from Sinai.

In Christ,

Bob

[phkrause]

Exodus says much more about Sabbath than "God did something" or "there is a God" or even "God created life". Exodus appeals to "the very details of the Gen 1:2-2:3 account" that a few of our TE friends are so reluctant to embrace. Ex 20 says that the 7th day only has meaning because in 7 days God created the earth itself and all life on planet earth. On days 1,2 and 4 - God "formats" the environment (no life created at all on earth on those days). On days 3,5 and 6 He created life on earth. And on day 7 He rested - thus making the 7th day a Holy Day according to Gen 2:3.

When we take time to honor His own Holy Day - we admit and proclaim the fact that He Created earth and all life on earth in 6 days and rested the seventh day. We submit to the day of His choosing and the method of honoring that day that is also of His choosing for the reasons he gives when He spoke His Law to mankind at Sinai - and as first given in Gen 2:3 on the day He made the Sabbath.

Deut 5 appeals BACK to the Ex 20 event saying that we are to keep the Sabbath Holy AS told to do it in that Ex 20 event where God Himself thundered His Law from Sinai.

In Christ,

Bob

[12tribes]

To keep something means we already have it, so what is it we have? We have a day which God has blessed and made holy...

[Neil D]

To keep something means we already have it, so what is it we have? We have a day which God has blessed and made holy...

And to "remember" this is to remember what it was orgionally intended for....