The Sabbath for Man
The Sabbath for Man
`The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath; so the Son of man is lord even of the sabbath' (Mark 2:27-28)
This is the second occurrence of the designation `the Son of man' in Mark's Gospel - one of the two occurrences which he places before the Caesarea Philippi incident. (For the first see p. 26.) The words were the conclusion of Jesus's reply to those who criticised his disciples for plucking ears of grain as they walked through the fields one sabbath and then (according to Luke 6:1) eating the grain when they had rubbed the ears in their hands to separate the kernel from the husk. Harmless enough actions, it might be supposed today (unless the owner of the crop complained that he was being robbed), but plucking the ears was technically regarded by the interpreters of the law as a form of reaping, and rubbing them to extract the kernel as a form of grinding, and reaping and grinding were two kinds of work that were forbidden on the sabbath. Probably, in addition to the expressed criticism of the disciples, there was an implied criticism of Jesus for allowing them to break the law in this way.
Jesus first invoked a precedent: in an emergency David had been permitted by the priest in charge of the sanctuary at Nob (perhaps on Mount Scopus, near Jerusalem) to have some of the holy bread (the `shewbread' or `bread of the [divine] presence') for himself and his followers to eat, although it was laid down in the law that none but priests should eat it (1 Sam. 21:1-6). The point of Jesus's argument here seems to be that human need takes priority over ceremonial law; it is relevant to recall that in traditional interpretation (though not in the Old Testament text) the incident from the life of David took place on a sabbath (the day when, according to Leviticus 24:8-9, the old bread was to be removed, to be eaten by `Aaron and his sons ... in a holy place', and replaced by new bread, `set in order before the Lord').
But Jesus went on to invoke an earlier and higher precedent (see p. 45). The sabbath was instituted by God; what was God's purpose in instituting it? If that can be discovered, then the sabbath law is best kept when God's purpose in giving it is best fulfilled. In Genesis 2:2-3, God is said to have `rested' on the seventh day when he had finished the creative work of the six preceding days, so he `blessed the seventh day and hallowed it'. The Hebrew verb translated `rest' is shbbath, which is given here as the explanation of the word `sabbath' (Hebrew shabbath). Neither Jesus nor his critics thought that God needed to rest on the seventh day because he was tired after a hard week's work. He `ceased' or `desisted' from his work. Why, then, did he `bless' the sabbath day and `hallow' it? Not for his own sake, but for the sake of his creatures who, he knew, would certainly need to rest after a hard week's work. This is implied in the Genesis narrative itself. The fourth commandment, in the form which it is given in Exodus 20: 8-11, bids the Israelites sanctify the seventh day by refraining from work, because God sanctified it by ceasing from his work after the six days of creation. But in the form which this commandment is given in Deuteronomy 5:12-15 it is made explicitly clear that the sabbath was given for the sake of those who need to rest after hard work: `that your manservant and your maidservant may rest as well as you'.
The sabbath day was instituted, then, to meet a human need, and the day is best sanctified when human need is met on it. Expositors regularly quote as a parallel the words of Rabbi Simeon ben Menasya preserved in a rabbinical commentary on Exodus 31:14: `The sabbath is delivered to you; you are not delivered to the sabbath."
But the real problem of Jesus's saying is the significance of the'so' or `so that' introducing the next words: `the Son of man is lord even of the sabbath'. How does it follow from the fact that the sabbath was made for man that the Son of man is lord of the Sabbath? In one way, this would not have been so much of a problem for those who first heard Jesus speak the words. Since `man' was regularly expressed in Aramaic by the idiom `son of man', the literal translation of the saying would have been: `The sabbath was made for the son of man, not the son of man for the sabbath; so the son of man is lord even of the sabbath.' The question that would rise in the hearers' minds was: `In what sense is the son of man lord of the sabbath? Does he mean that humanity in general is lord of the sabbath?' This question confronts us too, but we have a further question to think about: why did Mark use the simple noun `man' (human being, or the human race) in the first two clauses, but the locution `the Son of man' in the third? He must have intended the subject of the third clause to mean something more than man in general. If so, what was that something more? Jesus probably meant that he who is lord of the sabbath, he who has the sovereign authority to interpret the sabbath law in accordance with the divine purpose in instituting it, is the representative man, and that is the role which he now discharges. Since the sabbath was made for man, he whom God has ordained to be man's representative before him is authorised to dispose of the sabbath at his own discretion.