Page 81 - Pentateuch

to God is less about what they do for him than what God does for them. He gives food and light. They come
because he is great. He does not need their coming.

Strangely, Moses includes at this point another historical event in the middle of all this instruction. A man
blasphemes God’s name. He is put in custody until God speaks. The response comes, “Anyone who curses
their God will be held responsible; anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD is to be put to death.
The entire assembly must stone a blasphemer (24:15-16). Additional instructions are given to put this
command into the context of the death penalty and the law in general (24:17-22). Then the penalty is
carried out.

As with the incident with Nadab and Abihu, we are stunned. Besides the ordination of Aaron, these deaths
are the only events recorded in Leviticus. They punctuate with an exclamation mark the importance of the
instruction given just before and after them. With Nadab and Abihu, the point had to do with a priest
approaching God. How do we come into his presence? With this son of Shelomith taking God’s name in vain
(v. 11), the point has implications for the Sabbath. One who blasphemes does not want to rest in YHWH in
any sense. He does not find God great. He wants to rely on himself instead. The theological teaching on an
unforgivable sin in the NT is very close to these illustrations. “How much more severely do you think
someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an
unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace (Heb.
10:29)?”

Sabbath instruction is resumed after this Sabbath event. For six years, Israel could plant and harvest. In the
seventh year, the land was to lie fallow (25:1-7). Seven cycles of Sabbath years, 49 years total, would pass,
and the fiftieth year would be another, deeper Sabbath (25:8-55). For two years in a row, the nation has to
trust God for enough to eat. In addition, in this Year of Jubilee, all property that had been sold during the
previous 49 years is to be returned to the original owner. The Sabbath jubilee includes freedom for
someone sold to pay a debt. A variety of additional instructions are given about foreigners and Levitical
towns, and dealing with one another kindly. The main point is to rest in God. He owns the land. He owns
the people. He redeemed Israel from Egypt. They are never to forget this basic truth.

“The Sabbath Year reminded them that the land was not their land but God’s and that they had the
responsibility to ensure that all people shared in his bounty. It taught the people that they had to trust the
LORD’s provisions during the year in which they could not work the fields…For at least one year out of
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seven, the devout relived the experience of their parents in the Garden of Eden.”

The Sabbath is an eternal principle. It was never intended to be a burden, a tool to earn God’s favor. “The
Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). As with the other laws, the Sabbath has
often been made into work rather than a rest. Later, Jewish writers, trying to protect the Sabbath, added
numerous boundaries. “On the Sabbath, they taught, a man may not carry a burden ‘in his right hand or in
his left hand, in his bosom or on his shoulder.’ He may carry it ‘on the back of his hand, or with his foot or
with his mouth or with his elbow, or in his ear or in his hair or in his wallet (carried) mouth downwards, or
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between his wallet and his shirt, or in the hem of his shirt, or in his shoe or in his sandal’ (Sabbath 10:3).”

The Sabbath reminds us of our need to rely on God for everything in life. The heart of rest is Jesus. We
cannot earn our way into God’s presence. No amount of work will win him. We are instructed to rest in him
not only for food and clothing and work and health and everything of a practical nature. If even these daily

97 Ross, Holiness, p. 454
98 Leon Morris, Luke (Grand Rapids: Erdmann, 1984), pp. 205-206.
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