Notes on Sabbath Observance

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

Notes on Sabbath Observance

NOTES.— A Sabbath day's journey was 2,000 cubits, which were reckoned equal to six stadia. A stadium was 606 feet 6 inches × 6 equals 3,639 feet equals 1,213 yards. No distance was spoken of by Moses, but it was commanded that no one should go outside the camp to get manna. The Levitical towns were to have a district of 2,000 cubits in breadth on all sides (Num. 35:5), and there was to be the same distance between the ark and the people of Israel in their march behind it. From this the Rabbins concluded that that was the distance between the Tabernacle and the edge of the camp, out of which no one was to go.—Winer, Sabbathweg.

Orientals rise very early, and the morning service was not over till the third hour—nine a. m.

The Jews could not, on the Sabbath, even lift up and eat fruit which had fallen from a tree.—Lightfoot.

The punishment for Sabbath-breaking was death by stoning.—Ex. 31:14; 35:2; Num. 15:32. Mishna Sanhed. 7:8. Jesus was, thus, in imminent peril.