Exodus 35:3

_YE SHALL KINDLE NO FIRE THROUGHOUT YOUR HABITATIONS UPON THE SABBATH DAY._ Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day. The Sabbath was not a fast day. The Israelites cooked their victuals on that day, for which, of course, a fire would be necessary; and this view of the institution is supported by the conduct of our Lord (Luke 14:1). But in early times the Israelites, while sojourning in the wilderness and subsisting on manna, received a double supply on the sixth day, which they cooked also on that day (see the note at Exodus 16:23), so that a fire for culinary purposes was entirely unnecessary on the Sabbath day. As the kindling of a fire, therefore, could only be for secular purposes, the insertion of the prohibition in connection with the work of the tabernacle

1-3 The mild and easy yoke of Christ has made our sabbath duties more delightful, and our sabbath restraints less irksome, than those of the Jews; but we are the more guilty by neglecting them. Surely God's wisdom in giving us the sabbath, with all the mercy of its purposes, are sinfully disregarded. Is it nothing to pour contempt upon the blessed day, which a bounteous God has given to us for our growth in grace with the church below, and to prepare us for happiness with the church above?...

Verse Exodus 35:3. _YE SHALL KINDLE NO FIRE_] The Jews understand this precept as forbidding the kindling of fire _only_ for the purpose of _doing work_ or _dressing victuals_; but to give them _light_ and _heat_, they judge it lawful to light a fire on the Sabbath day, though themselves rarely kindle it - they get _Christians_ to do this work for them....

This prohibition is here first distinctly expressed, but it is implied Exodus 16:23....

THE CONSTRUCTION AND UPREARING OF THE TABERNACLE. EXPOSITION ITERATION OF THE LAW CONCERNING THE SABBATH. The work commanded during the time of Moses' first stay upon Sinai (ch. 25-31.), and hindered first by the infraction (Exodus 32:1.), and then by the renewal (Exodus 33:1; Exodus 34:1.) of the covenant, was now about to commence under the direction of Moses, who alone knew what was to be constructed. Before giving his orders upon the matter, he assembled the people ...

YE SHALL KINDLE NO FIRE THROUGHOUT YOUR HABITATIONS UPON THE SABBATH DAY. This law seems to be a temporary one, and not to be continued, nor is it said to be throughout their generations as elsewhere, where the law of the sabbath is given or repeated; it is to be restrained to the building of the tabernacle, and while that was about, to which it is prefaced; and it is designed to prevent all public or private working on the sabbath day, in anything belonging to that; having no fire to heat their tools or melt their metal, or do any thing for which that was necessary; for it can hardly be thought that this is to be taken in the strictest sense, as an entire prohibition of kindling a fire and the use of it on that day, which is so absolutely useful, and needful in various cases, and where acts of mercy and necessity require it; as in cold seasons of the year, for the warming and comforting...

6. THE BUILDING OF THE TABERNACLE CHAPTER 35 The Commandments Concerning the Tabernacle Remembered and the Offerings _ 1. The Sabbath law emphasized (Exodus 35:1)_ 2. The offerings restated (Exodus 35:4) 3. The tabernacle and its furniture restated (Exodus 35:11) 4. The offerings given (Exodus 35:20) 5. The workmen and the teachers (Exodus 35:30) It is interesting to review the events and steps which lead to this consummation in Exodus, the setting up of the tabernacle. After Jehovah had redeemed His

EXODUS 35-40. P S. THE CONSTRUCTION AND ERECTION OF THE SACRED TENT. This division of the book is generally recognised as coming from the latest stratum in the Hexateuch. This conclusion can be denied (as recently by A. H. Finn in JThS 16:449- 481) only by those who ignore the number, variety, and independence of the converging lines of proof which point to it. The clearest and most specific ground for it is that the later elements in the appendix (Exodus 30 f.) to Exodus 25-29 are here redistributed and put in their proper places. Further, the radical differences of order, and astonishing omissions as, in places, of the incense altar and the laver (both among the supplements in Exodus 30) in LXX require the assumption that the Gr. translators had the material before them in an earlier and less well-arranged draft of the Heb. text. It does not follow that all differences are due to this...

Command to observe the sabbath. A repetition of the substance of Exo Exodus 31:12-17 (note that _v._2 is in the main identical verbally with Exodus 31:15), placed here apparently as a reminder to the Israelites that the sabbath must not be broken even for sacred purposes....

YE SHALL KINDLE NO FIRE THROUGHOUT YOUR HABITATIONS— This seems only to be a specification of the general prohibition, _Thou shalt do no manner of work:_ importing, that all menial offices should cease on the sabbath; that the servants, as well as others, might enjoy the blessings of religious rest....