The Sabbath School

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 14, 1881

The Sabbath School.

LESSON FOR PACIFIC COAST.—APRIL 16.

Christ Teaches the True Use of the Sabbath. Matt. 12: 1–15; Mark 2: 23–28; 3: 1–7. Luke 6: 1–11.

LESSON COMMENTS.

Free from his enemies, Jesus appears to have returned at once [from the second Passover] to Galilee, in the hope, perhaps, that there, far from Jerusalem, with its fierce religious fanaticism and malevolent hypocrisy, he could breathe more freely, in the still and clear air of the hills. But religious hatred is beyond all others intense and persistent. There were Rabbis and priests there, as well as in the South, and they watched his every step.

A fresh occasion for accusation could not be long of rising. He had left Jerusalem immediately after the Passover, and on the Sabbath after the second day of the feast—or, it may be, a Sabbath later—a new charge was brought against him. In the short distance which it was lawful to walk on a Sabbath—less than three-quarters of a mile—the path lay through ripening fields of barley—for Nisan, the Passover month, was the ancient Abib, or month of earing, and the first early sheaf was offered on the second day of the Passover. It was by the law, and by Eastern custom, free to all to pluck ears enough in a corn-field, or grapes enough from a vine, to supply hunger, and the disciples, as every Oriental still does in the same circumstances, availed themselves of this liberty, plucking some ears of the barley, and rubbing them with their hands as they went on. The field must have been near some town, most likely Capernaum, for a number of people were about, and among others, some spies. It was no wonder both he and the disciples were hungry, for no Jew could break his fast till after the morning service at the synagogue, or take supper till after the evening service, but he had sanctioned two offenses against the Sabbath laws. The plucking of the ears was a kind of reaping, and the rubbing was a kind of grinding or threshing. Besides, it was required that all food should be prepared on Friday, before sunset, and the rubbing was a preparation. On other days there would have been no cause of any blame, but to break the Sabbath rather than suffer hunger for a few hours, was guilt worthy of stoning. Was it not their boast that Jews were known, over the world, by their readiness to die rather than to break the holy day? Every one had stories of grand fidelity to it. The Jewish sailor had refused, even when threatened with death, to touch the helm a moment after the sun had set on Friday, though a storm was raging; and had not thousands let themselves be butchered rather than touch a weapon in self-defense on the Sabbath? The “new doctrine” of Jesus would turn the world upside down if not stopped!—Geikie’s Life of Christ, pp. 458, 454.