1 Chronicles 23:31, commentary and pictures

This verse belongs to the prosperous years of David's reign and to the account of his plans and preparation for the service and worship of the house of God, including building the temple, in the last chapters of 1 Chronicles that lead to Solomon's accession under God's special blessing. It falls in the reading covering 1 Chronicles 21 to 25, within the history of David in Chronicles, which takes knowledge of the preceding books for granted and gives new facts about the temple service to be carried on by those whose hereditary duty it was.

After the temple was built the work of waiting on the priests in the sanctuary service was given to the Levites, so they burned the sacrifices for the Sabbaths, new moons, and appointed feasts in whatever number the priests ordered, besides preparing the showbread, often leading the singing, collecting the tithe, and doing much other work connected with the service of the Lord. In David's time the Levites began sanctuary service at twenty years of age, and at fifty years returned from the warfare of the service, not discharged but still having charge of the work without performing arduous duties.

The plural sabbaths here are ceremonial feast-day sabbaths connected with feasts, new moons, oblations, and all burnt sacrifices offered by number according to commanded order continually before the Lord, distinct from the weekly Sabbath of the Lord and the holy Sabbath. They belonged to the local festival days and typical service that expired by limitation and were due to cease with that service at the cross, as foretold through the prophets, while the holy Sabbath never ceases but remains perpetual forever. The burnt offerings on the Sabbath belong to the ceremonial law introduced because of the fall and form no part of the original Sabbath institution made before the fall. While those rites were in force they connected the Sabbath to some extent with the Jewish festivals where the same kind of offerings were made, and when the ceremonial law was nailed to the cross all the festivals ceased and the rites appended to the Sabbath were taken away, leaving the original Sabbath exactly as it came at first from its Maker.

The listing of sabbaths with new moons and set feasts uses the same three terms as Colossians 2:16, which proves that sabbath days means the weekly Sabbath exclusively, with the seven annual sabbaths included in and described by the term holy day. The enumeration of sabbaths, new moons, and set feasts is the same as in Leviticus 23:3 and Colossians 2:16, and the verse uses the definite article where Colossians 2:16 omits it, proving that in such enumeration the article may or may not be used at the writer's option and its presence or absence has no bearing on the argument about the Sabbath in Exodus 16. The Levites' work, largely confined to the court, typified the work of the gospel ministry of the present day.