No Buying or Selling on a Sabbath
In Nehemiah, he shares with us his concern about people doing business on the Sabbath.
He was zealous to have no business done on the Sabbath. In Chapters 10-13 he records other nations bringing their wares into the city for trade on the Sabbath. He was greatly opposed to this and put a stop to it. So much so that he even extended the borders at the city gates so as not to even see them outside just waiting to come in and get back to business.
Remember the Sabbath day and set it apart.
During Winter, sunset can be at 4:42pm but some may still be working until 5 pm. This becomes a time of testing. Will you keep the Sabbath Holy, or will you work on it just a little bit or buy the milk on the way home after the Sabbath has begun? It is a time of testing. The exact same way the manna was used to test the people in the wilderness.
Exodus 16:4 MKJV
Then Jehovah said to Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from the heavens for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain amount every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My Law or not.
The question you need to determine is if you have past the test this week or failed it again.
Sukkot is one of the first places that the Sabbatical years are mentioned in the bible and it is in direct comparison with the weekly Sabbath in Exodus 23.
Exodus 23:10-12 MKJV
And you shall sow your land six years, and shall gather in the fruits of it.
(11) But the seventh year you shall let it rest and let it alone, so that the poor of your people may eat. And what they leave, the animals of the field shall eat. In the same way you shall deal with your vineyard and with your oliveyard.
(12) You shall do your work six days, and on the seventh day you shall rest, so that your ox and your ass may rest, and the son of your handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.
The Sabbatical years were every 7th year. The same as the weekly Sabbath is every 7th day, week after week with no added extra days. It is always the 7th day and it is always the 7th year.
But something I had not realized was WHY? Why was Yehovah comparing the weekly Sabbath to the Sabbatical years?
Nehemiah 10:28-31 MKJV And the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple-slaves, and all those who had separated from the people of the lands to the Law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters (everyone who had knowledge, and who had understanding),
(29) were holding fast to their brothers, their honoured ones. And they entered into a curse and into an oath, to walk in God’s Law which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to be careful to do all the commandments of Jehovah our Lord, and His judgments and His statutes.
(30) And we swore that we would not give our daughters to the people of the land nor take their daughters for our sons.
(31) And if the people of the land should bring goods or any food on the Sabbath day to sell it, that we would not buy it from them on the Sabbath or on the holy day, and that we would leave the seventh year, and the interest of every debt.
The above passage, along with Nehemiah 13:15-21, are very clear passages that show, at minimum, that there is something about buying and selling on the Sabbath day that Judah believed was wrong.
Now, the question is, why did they believe that buying and selling were things that they could not do?
We can look through the whole Torah (first 5 books of the Bible) and not find anything that specifically addresses buying or selling on the Sabbath.
Yet, in verse 29, we see that they are talking about entering into an oath, or a vow, to walk in the Torah. Then, they listed three things that they were going to change:
- They would no longer intermarry with nations that Yehovah had forbidden to marry
- They would no longer buy nor sell anything on the Sabbath (note: the word for “wares” is literally related to “buying” in the sense that it means anything that can be bought)
- They would obey the commands for the Sabbatical years.
Proving the first and third items is pretty easy: Intermarriage is covered in the following verses: Exodus 34:12-16, Deuteronomy 7:1-5, and Deuteronomy 23:2-4. Basically, it was forbidden to intermarry with the Ammonites and Moabites, and even the children of those marriages down to the tenth generation were prohibited from coming into Israel. That is why they had to be removed from Israel in Nehemiah 13 and Ezra 9-10. Those nations were specifically prohibited from being intermarried with.
The Sabbatical year requirements are also very clearly laid out in the Law in several places: Exodus 23:10-11, Leviticus 25:1-7, and Deuteronomy 15:1-6.
So, why is it wrong to buy or sell on the Sabbath?
Let’s look a little more closely at some of the Hebrew words used in Nehemiah 10:30. They are:
- ware (maqqachah – #4728) “From H3947; something received, that is, merchandise (purchased):—ware.” Note that “maqqachah” comes directly from 3947, the word in the same verse used for “buy!”
- buy (laqach – #3947) “A primitive root; to take (in the widest variety of applications):—accept, bring, buy, carry away, drawn, fetch, get, infold, X many, mingle, place, receive (-ing), reserve, seize, send for, take (away, -ing, up), use, win.” This is literally the action of taking something from another person. In context with merchandise (ware), it is specifically to buy something — anything!
- sell (makar – #4376) “A primitive root; to sell, literally (as merchandise, a daughter in marriage, into slavery), or figuratively (to surrender):— X at all, sell (away, -er, self).”
Buying and selling, also known as trading, is where we need to start, to figure out the answer to this question. If we look at any dictionary definition of trading, or perhaps Wikipedia, we can see that trading is a type of commerce.
“Trade, also called goods exchange economy, is the transfer the ownership of goods from one person or entity to another by getting something in exchange from the buyer.”
“Retail trade consists of the sale of goods or merchandise from a very fixed location, such as a department store, boutique or kiosk, or by mail, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser. Wholesale trade is defined as the sale of goods that are sold merchandise to retailers, to industrial, commercial, institutional, or other professional business users, or to other wholesalers and related subordinated services.
More specifically, buying and selling can be related to sales.
“A sale is the act of selling a product or service in return for money or other compensation. Signaling completion of the prospective stage, it is the beginning of an engagement between customer and vendor or the extension of that engagement.”
“The seller or salesperson – the provider of the goods or services – completes a sale in response to an acquisition or to an appropriation or to a request. There follows the passing of title (property or ownership) in the item, and the application and due settlement of a price, the obligation for which arises due to the seller’s requirement to pass ownership. Ideally, a seller agrees upon a price at which he willingly parts with ownership of or any claim upon the item. The purchaser, though a party to the sale, does not execute the sale, only the seller does that. To be precise the sale completes prior to the payment and gives rise to the obligation of payment. If the seller completes the first two above stages (consent and passing ownership) of the sale prior to settlement of the price, the sale remains valid and gives rise to an obligation to pay.”
These are some very basically understood concepts about buying and selling. Note above that “goods or services” are what are actually being sold. Let’s dive into this a little more:
“In economics, goods and services are the outcome of human efforts to meet the wants and needs of people. Economic output is divided into physical goods and intangible services. Goods are items that can be seen and touched, such as books, pens, salt, shoes, hats, and folders. Services are provided by other people, such as doctors, lawn care workers, dentists, barbers and waiters. Consumption of goods and services is assumed to provide utility(satisfaction) to the consumer.”
None of this should be rocket science or “wow!” moments for anyone. This is all common sense; trading, bartering, sales: the same thing that has happened in human culture for thousands of years. There is a provider (the seller) and the consumer (the buyer). The provider is the one that provides the goods or services to the consumer, who has paid for those goods or services.
Let’s put that in biblical terms: In sales, the consumer is the master, and the provider is the servant. After all, if you are dissatisfied with the product you have purchased, do you not typically have the right to refuse payment? Or to return the item and get your money back? You are the master, when you are the customer.
There is a very common phrase in sales: The customer is always right. This is because the customer is the master in the sales master-servant relationship. When the master has given a directive to do something, the servant is obligated to obey that directive, unless it will cause them undue harm or loss. Even then, sometimes the master wins out, in the servant’s desire to please. This should ring a few bells, for we are literally bought-and-paid-for servants of our Father, and we have each made sacrifices in our lives to obey His instructions.
Biblically speaking, many people automatically think of slavery or “ownership” when they think of “servants.” Most people think that “ownership” is not something that really exists in today’s culture. However, that is really not the case. We might not call it “ownership” today when we have a business relationship with someone, but there are certain penalties that can happen when one does not live up to their side of the master-servant relationship, even today. They can even include jail!
Let’s ask a “modern” question: If you decided to stop paying your home mortgage and continued to live there, then refused to leave when evicted, what would happen to you? You would be thrown in jail. What would happen to your house? It would be lost back to the bank, would it not? The bank has provided a service, and you haven’t paid. They are the master of you, because you owe them. This is very similar to a biblical situation:
Matthew 18:28-30 MKJV
But the same servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. And he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me what you owe.
(29) And his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, Have patience with me and I will pay you all.
(30) And he would not, but went and cast him into prison until he should pay the debt.
While the larger context of this passage clearly shows this servant’s lack of appreciation of the blessing of his Master removing his debt, and a lack of compassion for his fellow servant… the point is, that the fellow servant is not owned by the servant that threw him in prison! Yet, it was still lawful to put that person in prison until he paid the debt (even though the first servant should have forgiven the debt instead). This is the same case that exists today in a master-servant relationship. Once money is owed for a service or product rendered, that money must be paid or there are consequences. As usual, there is nothing new under the sun.
If this hasn’t quite clicked for you yet, let’s make this very clear:
It is wrong to buy and sell on the Sabbath and Holy Days because buying and selling is a master-servant relationship.
Let’s prove this a little further. In Exodus 20:10, we know that we are not to work, nor our manservant, maidservant, animal, or even the stranger within our gates (obviously not your servant). The word for manservant is ebed (#5650). The root of ebed is abad(#5647) and abad is the root word of abodah (#5656), which is the word used in Leviticus 23 for all the Holy Days, except Sabbath and Atonement, as “servile”- it means work done by a servant.
Look at the definition for abad (#5647):
“A primitive root; to work (in any sense); by implication to serve, till, (causatively) enslave, etc.:— X be, keep in bondage, be bondmen, bond-service, compel, do, dress, ear, execute, + husbandman, keep, labour (-ing man), bring to pass, (cause to, make to) serve (-ing, self), (be, become) servant (-s), do (use) service, till (-er), transgress [from margin], (set a) work, be wrought, worshipper.”
This word is translated as “serve” more than any other meaning, 227 times in the KJV. But, does ebed (or its root, abad) exclusively connotate an owned servant giving that service? No!
In fact, Jacob called himself a “servant” (ebed) to Esau, as a measure of respect and submission:
Genesis 33:5 MKJV
And he lifted up his eyes, and saw the women and the boys, and said, Who are these with you? And he said, The boys with whom God has favored your servant.
Did Esau own Jacob? Obviously, not.
All of this is to point out that the 4th commandment’s prohibition of having male or female servants work for you is not isolated to a relationship where you “own” that person. Of course, if you just read the rest of the 4th commandment, it even mentions the “stranger within your gate,” which is clearly not someone you own.
Buying and selling, very simply, is a master-servant relationship, where goods or services are paid for and received. To do this on the Sabbath Day or on a Holy Day, where having servants work for us is clearly prohibited and is to profane the Sabbath by disobeying Yehovah’s direct instructions.
It has nothing to do with what is being bought or sold, nothing to do with how much is being bought or sold, and nothing to do with whether Nehemiah was dealing with a “going to the market day” type of situation, as many like to claim. Buying and selling anything on a Sabbath or Holy Day is wrong, because having a servant work for you on the Sabbath is wrong. We are supposed to remember that we too came out of Egypt and we should desire the same for anyone who would “serve” us, as well!
Deuteronomy 5:15 MKJV
And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Jehovah your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and with a stretched-out arm. Therefore Jehovah your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.
There are no degrees of “buying and selling.” This is exactly the same as with the seventh commandment — there is no “degree” of adultery that is OK.
Interestingly, this example in the book of Nehemiah is proof that some of Yehovah’s people DID understand some of the magnified intent of at least some of the Law, before the Messiah came and explained more about murder and adultery in Matthew 5.
The amazing part about all of this master-servant relationship understanding with buying and selling on the Sabbath is that it also is completely connected back to the Sabbatical years! Remember, out of three things Judah specifically listed that they were going to change, TWO of them have to do with no longer profaning the Sabbath (weekly and seventh-yearly), and it turns out that both of the two are related! Take a look at one of the things that was commanded to be done every seventh year:
Exodus 21:2 MKJV
If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years. And in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
Deuteronomy 15:1-5 MKJV
At the end of every seven years you shall make a release.
(2) And this is the manner of the release. Every man who has a loan to his neighbour shall release it. He shall not exact it from his neighbour, or from his brother, because it is called Jehovah’s release.
(3) You may exact it from a foreigner, but your hand shall release that which is yours with your brother,
(4) except when there shall be no poor among you. For Jehovah shall greatly bless you in the land which Jehovah your God gives you for an inheritance to possess it,
(5) only if you carefully listen to the voice of Jehovah your God to be careful to do all these commandments which I command you today.
See how this also ties in with the Sabbath commandment and Deuteronomy 5:15 above? “And you shall remember that you were a slave…” We literally, on a weekly basis, are picturing the seventh year as well, when we release all servants from their debts. And, of course, we’re also picturing the seventh millennium, when all mankind will be freed from the influence of Satan when he is placed in the bottomless pit for a thousand years.
Yehovah freed us from slavery to sin (Egypt), and we’re also to free all who would work for us on the seventh day, just like in the seventh year.
So, let’s continue and do a word study for Sabbath and Day to understand this further.
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