In exploring the Sabbath in the texts of the Synoptic Gospels, we enter terrain that is both foreign and familiar. These texts were written for an ancient audience and deal with concerns and expectations that belong to a different cultural world. At the same time, with a sense of the value of the Sabbath day and the importance of honoring it, we peer into these records hoping both to understand more of those ancient people’s experience and to find messages that resonate with our lives. In these texts we can see the wisdom of keeping commandments and hear a warning against resisting the one who is the Giver of the command.

The first and central part of this chapter will focus on the texts of the Synoptic Gospels and their presentation of the Sabbath, followed by reflection on what we might learn from these accounts. This is primarily a textual rather than a historical endeavor, but if we are to better understand these texts, it helps to spend a little time on context. It is important to remember that these Gospels were written in an early Christian period. While they do capture some of the experience of Judaism in the Second Temple period, those glimpses are filtered through the concerns of the early Christians. Since most of the early Christians were Jews, their relationship to the Sabbath was shared with the Jews in many ways. Yet the depiction of the Sabbath in these texts also suggests a point of contrast between Christian and Jewish self-understanding.

The importance of the Sabbath to first-century Jews becomes clear when we recognize their context within a larger Hellenistic culture for several hundred years. Divisions among the Jews at this time were precipitated by increasing pressure from the spread of Hellenism. Some Jews were more integrated than their compatriots with the then-dominant culture of the eastern Mediterranean. Adopting the values and norms of Greek culture that took root in the wake of Alexander the Great’s conquests in the fourth century BC, these Jews left behind distinctive practices such as Sabbath observance. Others, seeking to preserve their identity and covenant faithfulness to the God of Israel, paid close attention to the biblical requirements about the Sabbath and were actively thinking through how to apply the commandment to keep the Sabbath in their new cultural and political context. Many—perhaps most—of the Jews of this era were somewhere in between. They found themselves in a world shaped by both a larger Hellenistic culture and their desire to maintain their distinct identity as the covenant people who belonged to both worlds.

Even Jews who were deeply connected with Hellenistic thought, such as Philo of Alexandria in the first century BC, used Sabbath observance as an identity marker.[1] Although there were differences in interpretation as to how to apply the biblical regulations, Yonatan S. Miller observes that “Jewish writers in the Second Temple period accorded the Sabbath the sanctity with which it is consistently recorded in Scripture, and they understood the profaning/defiling of the Sabbath as an offense that violated the day’s sacred/pure nature.”[2] It is important, however, to recognize that the intertestamental period was characterized by a wide range of views within Judaism and a debate over what was appropriate on the Sabbath. As discussed elsewhere in this volume, these views are represented in different texts that include Josephus, 1–2 Maccabees, the Damascus Document of the Qumran community, Jubilees, and Philo.[3]

Given this variety, the teachings of Jesus about the Sabbath as found in the Synoptic Gospels are now seen to fit within the intertestamental “range of views” about Sabbath observance. This is in contrast to John’s Gospel, in which Christ’s command for a healed man to carry a burden (his bed) would have been understood by all to be a command for the man to work on the Sabbath (see John 5:8).[4] In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus’s similar actions on the Sabbath day generally elicited some controversy, but the focus in those accounts does not seem to directly challenge the shared religious expectations of the Sabbath. However, the early Christian communities for whom these texts were important may, like their Jewish contemporaries, have been thinking through what was appropriate on the Sabbath day.[5]

Many scholars believe that “the Christian communities represented by the Synoptic Tradition” were those who were still keeping the law of Moses or who at least “held on to some Jewish observances, but did not insist on circumcision.”[6] For these Christians, keeping the Sabbath and the regulations regarding Sabbath worship would not have been controversial. The accounts in the Synoptic Gospels may have helped them think through what they should do in order to keep the Sabbath as disciples of Christ.

Noncontroversial Sabbath Texts in the Synoptic Gospels

The noncontroversial Sabbath texts include accounts of ordinary life shaped by the Sabbath and accounts of Christ’s passion, burial, and resurrection. The ordinary life events that are recorded in several Gospels describe Christ as following a regular Jewish pattern of gathering to a synagogue on the Sabbath. It is on these regular occasions that we find him both teaching and healing on the Sabbath. Near the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, we see that “they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath day he entered into the synagogue, and taught” (Mark 1:21). In Luke 4:16 we see Jesus joining those in his hometown for scripture study on the Sabbath: “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.” After this account of his experience in Nazareth, we are told that Jesus “came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the sabbath days” (v. 31), illustrating his regular pattern of Sabbath synagogue attendance. Both Mark and Matthew also describe Christ as teaching in the synagogue in “his own country,” meaning his hometown (Matthew 13:54), but only Mark mentions that this occurred on the Sabbath day: “When the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished” (Mark 6:2). It is possible that this detail was not specified in the Gospel of Matthew because Matthew’s audience would have assumed that this teaching took place on the Sabbath day.

Likewise, there are times when Christ’s healing ministrations on the Sabbath are mentioned in passing but are not a source of controversy. One such account is in Mark 1:21–28, where after Christ finishes his teaching on the Sabbath day, a man in the synagogue possessed by an unclean spirit cries out, “Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.” In rebuke Jesus says, “Hold thy peace, and come out of him.” The account continues: “When the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him” (vv. 24–26). In response to this healing, the people “[a]re all amazed” and wonder, “What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him” (v. 27). But there is no discussion or controversy about this event happening on the Sabbath. Luke 4:31–37 has a similar account of this event in the synagogue on the Sabbath, and here again the response to Christ’s action seems positive: “What a word is this! for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out” (v. 36).

The role of the Sabbath in shaping Jewish life is reflected not only in accounts of Christ teaching and healing without controversy on the Sabbath, but also in texts concerning his death, burial, and resurrection. Mark emphasizes that Joseph of Arimathea asked for the body of Jesus “when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath” (Mark 15:42).[7] In the Gospel of Matthew, the disciples’ care in keeping the Sabbath right after the Crucifixion can be seen as subtly reflecting their piety, in contrast to the piety of those who were plotting against them. As Herold Weiss observes, “the evidence reviewed thus far would seem to indicate that the Christian communities that sustained the Synoptic tradition did observe the Sabbath, and some of them probably felt they were doing it even better than the Pharisees.”[8] In Matthew, the Pharisees are shown to make arrangements on the day after the day of preparation (i.e., on the Sabbath) to have the tomb sealed and guarded (27:62). By this means, Weissargues, the Pharisees are seen to be “inflagrant violation of the Sabbath while, by contrast, the Christian women, who were rather anxious to anoint Jesus’ body, wait until after the Sabbath to go about their business (28:1).”[9] In Luke we also see the careful observation that those same women “rested the sabbath day according to the commandment” (23:56). It was only “upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, [that] they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them” (24:1). The empty tomb on Easter morning was first witnessed by faithful women who had carefully kept the Sabbath.

Sabbath Controversy Texts

While the noncontroversial Sabbath texts do have a fair amount of overlap among the Gospels, it is notable that two striking accounts of Sabbath controversies are found in all three of the Synoptic Gospels and are given back-to-back. These accounts are (1) the story of Jesus and the Apostles picking grain on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:1–8; Mark 2:23–28; Luke 6:1–5) and (2) the story of the man with a withered hand being healed (Matthew 12:9–21; Mark 3:1–12; Luke 6:6–11). I will work through these shared controversial texts to identify nuanced differences among them. Then, I will examine two additional accounts that appear only in Luke.

Plucking Grain

The Gospel of Mark records that Jesus was seen “going along on the sabbaths through the [grainfields]—and his disciples began to make a way, plucking the ears” (Mark 2:23, Young’s Literal Translation).[10] The sense that reaping or plucking grain on the Sabbath would be a violation of Sabbath law “would not, in any way, be a distinctively Pharisaic rule,”[11] but rather would be a generally accepted sense of what was inappropriate on the Sabbath. Thus in each Gospel, the explanation of why Jesus permits the disciples to pluck the grain is an important statement, and in each Gospel the elements of that explanation differ.

In Mark this story does not specify that the disciples were hungry and picking food for immediate consumption—a detail that we do see in Matthew 12:1. By not mentioning eating, the text in Mark might be intended to put the emphasis on the disciples “making a way” for Jesus—a clear allusion to the beginning of Mark, which says: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” (Mark 1:3). This proclamation is actually a quotation from Isaiah, describing the followers of a king preparing the way for him.[12] The question of whether any consumption was implied in the disciples’ plucking of grain might be informed by one of Jesus’s statements in an earlier story. In Mark, there are two controversial stories about food back-to-back; in the earlier story, Jesus explains that his disciples do not fast because “as long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast” (Mark 2:19) and that “new wine must be put into new bottles” (v. 22).[13] This is not to say that the account of the disciples plucking grain was tied to fasting or not fasting, but the previous story might strengthen the theory that eating was a part of this account. In any case, this narrative sequence in Mark suggests that Jesus is introducing a new order of the kingdom of God.[14]

Whether or not there was eating involved in the Mark account, this action of plucking grain is clearly seen by the Pharisees as “reaping,” because they ask Jesus why the disciples are doing “that which is not lawful” on the Sabbath (Mark 2:24; compare Exodus 34:21). As we shall see, in giving the analogy of David eating, Christ does not say that the Sabbath command is done away. Rather, he shows that there is a precedent for the disciples’ action in David’s action of eating “the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests” (Mark 2:26).[15] So, as Robert A. Guelich notes, the Markan text, rather than being “an apology for the disciples’ . . . sabbath conduct, . . . makes a Christological statement about Jesus and his ministry.”[16] Mark’s account shows that Jesus was a king with the Davidic authority to sanction the disciples’ actions.

Luke’s account of this event does mention that the disciples ate the kernels of grain as they went: “One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels” (6:1, NIV).[17] In Luke, as in Mark, this account directly follows the story in which Jesus explains why the disciples do not fast and introduces the metaphor about putting new wine into new bottles.

In Matthew, however, the account of plucking grain includes a mention that the disciples were hungry: “At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them” (12:1, NIV). Matthew’s account directly follows Christ’s invitation (11:28–30): “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew’s description emphasizes the hunger of the disciples, seemingly emphasizing that they picked the grain to ease a burden of hunger that they were experiencing. Christ’s promise of rest clearly expands beyond merely lightening the regulations around the Sabbath, but this particular story of Christ making sure the disciples were fed might connect the rest that Christ offers with the rest that the Sabbath was meant to give.

We can see another subtle difference between the Synoptic Gospels in the Pharisees’ reactions to the event. In Mark and Matthew, the Pharisees ask Jesus about his disciples’ behavior. Consider these verses: “The Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful?” (Mark 2:24); and “when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day” (Matthew 12:2). In Luke, however, the question is asked of Jesus more directly, even though it is his disciples that are described as picking the grain: “One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels. Some of the Pharisees asked Jesus, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” (Luke 6:1–2, NIV). Herold Weiss argues that “like Matthew with his comparison of Jesus and the temple, by singling out Jesus’s activity as unlawful, Luke is giving prominence to the story’s secondary Christological significance.”[18] François Bovon reveals another dimension to the question being addressed to Jesus: “What is presupposed is the relationship of Jesus to his disciples as a teacher to his students. He is responsible for their actions.”[19] The disciples’ obedience to Jesus highlights his new form of obedience to the law in which “the nearness of the kingdom and the relationship of the Sabbath to God’s will at creation are the theological basis of their freedom, and of the new attitude,” in contrast to the Pharisees’ observance, which (in order to keep people from slipping into sin) prohibited the plucking of grains “to prevent harvesting on a Sabbath.”[20]

In all three Gospels, Jesus cites the precedent of David eating temple shewbread, asking, “Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him? How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him?” (Mark 2:25–26).[21] Jesus’s response points to the analogy of David eating shewbread that was lawful only for the priests to eat. This response, found in all the Synoptic Gospels, does not speak to the Sabbath directly but is, as Lutz Doering notes, “an inference from the infringement of holy things (perhaps on the Sabbath) to the violation of a Sabbath regulation” and “implies a (typological?) correspondence between David and Jesus: Like David earlier, Jesus has the authority to cover for an exceptional transgression caused by hunger.”[22] David had the authority to partake of food that normally would have been off-limits, and that same kingly authority is being invoked by Jesus for the disciples crossing the boundary of what would normally be considered work on the Sabbath.

Jesus’s next comment explaining the action of plucking grain is found only in Mark: “And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath” (2:27). This line of thinking, in which the Sabbath has the role of serving human beings, is also seen in the rabbinic tradition in a statement from the late second century attributed to R. Shim‘on ben Menasya in the Mekilta: “To you the Sabbath has been delivered, and not are you delivered to the Sabbath.”[23] This pattern of thought emphasizes that the Sabbath is the servant of human beings and not the master of them.

It is generally understood that the Gospel of Mark was a source for the other Synoptic Gospels, but the Gospels of Matthew and Luke exclude this statement in their accounts. This exclusion has been explained as showing how later Gospels used this story “to establish the lordship of Christ, something which is tangential to the questions of lawful Sabbath conduct.”[24] It has been suggested that the removal of the phrase “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath” in Matthew and Luke also removes ambiguity from the statement about the Son of Man being Lord of the Sabbath. Doing so would avoid a potentially generalized reading in which the term “son of man” is referring to all of humanity (i.e., any man) as lord of the Sabbath, instead putting the focus more directly on Jesus (the Son of Man).[25] In Luke the statement about Christ being the Lord of the Sabbath is in the very next verse after the discussion of David in the temple; in Matthew, however, two other statements expand on the principle of things taking precedence over the temple.

In the Gospel of Matthew alone, Jesus’s statement about David is followed by his question as to whether the Pharisees have “read in the law” that “priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless” (12:5). This question is then followed with a declaration: “But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple” (v. 6). The biblical requirement that priests work on the Sabbath would have been known to ancient readers. There was a specific sacrifice the priests performed on the Sabbath: they took “two lambs of the first year without spot, and two tenth deals of flour for a meat offering, mingled with oil, and the drink offering thereof: This [was] the burnt offering of every sabbath, beside the continual burnt offering, and his drink offering” (Numbers 28:9–10).[26] Like all of Israel, priests were to keep the Sabbath holy and not work, but they also had a particular kind of work in the temple that they were commanded to do. Thus, it could be said that on the Sabbath the “priests in the temple profane the sabbath and are blameless.” Donald A. Hagner observes, “The priests are about the work of God and thus are not bound by the normal regulations concerning the sabbath. So too it is implied by an a fortiori argument (or in rabbinic idiom, qalwāḥŏmer) that Jesus and his disciples constitute a special instance and thus are not bound.”[27] If it is true for something lesser (the priests who worked in the temple on the Sabbath), it would certainly be true for something great (Christ, who is greater than the temple and the priests and who could authorize work on the Sabbath).

Another way in which the precedent of the priests working on the Sabbath would be relevant to David eating the shewbread was that the Sabbath was the day upon which the bread in the Holy Place was changed and eaten by priests: “Every sabbath he shall set it [the bread] in order before the Lord continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant. And it shall be Aaron’s and his sons’; and they shall eat it in the holy place” (Leviticus 24:8–9). This verse might further explain the reference to David: he was doing what the priests did on the Sabbath.[28] These details might also illustrate Christ’s lordship as both king and priest.[29]

Thus, while the idea of the temple being greater than the Sabbath finds support in the fact that its priests worked there on the Sabbath, the statement “That in this place is one greater than the temple” (Matthew 12:6) makes it clear that Christ is greater than the temple.[30] Like the rabbinic parallel of the statement in Mark about the Sabbath being made for humans and not humans for the Sabbath, there is also a rabbinic parallel for reasoning about the temple being greater than the Sabbath and something else having precedence over temple worship;[31] it is recorded that Rabbi Akiba taught, “If punishment for murder sets aside Temple worship, which in turn supersedes the Sabbath, how much more the duty of saving life supersedes the Sabbath laws.”[32] In both lines of thinking, it is clearly understood that the temple is greater than the Sabbath and that something else can be seen as greater than the temple.

Matthew contains another detail not included in the other two Gospel accounts of this event. After the discussion of the priests being blameless in working on the Sabbath (Matthew 6:5), it is only in Matthew that we find the reference to Hosea 6:6: “But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless” (Matthew 12:7). Here again something is being put above the temple and, by extension, above regulations about the Sabbath: mercy. Elsewhere in Matthew, Jesus also used the Hosea passage’s point about mercy being above temple sacrifice to explain to the Pharisees why he was eating with people who were ritually unclean (see Matthew 9:11–13), something that the Pharisees would have seen as violating the principles of temple holiness associated with their practice of table fellowship. In this context of the disciples and the grain, Jesus implies that “had the Pharisees understood the meaning of Hosea, they would not have pronounced judgment upon the innocent (τοὺς ἀναιτίους) (12:7)”—the disciples who were as blameless (ἀναίτιοί) as the priests laboring on the Sabbath (v. 5).[33]

While each of the Synoptic Gospels takes a different route following the initial discussion of the precedent of King David eating temple shewbread, they all end with the same conclusion about the lordship or kingship of Jesus: the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:28; Matthew 12:8; Luke 6:5).[34] In the texts of Mark and Luke this statement certainly would have been “new wine” to put in a “new bottle,” and it might also connect the disciples’ eating of grain with the question of why Jesus’s disciples did not fast—they had the Bridegroom with them, and he was changing the structure and focus of Sabbath worship. A new era can be seen, as Joel Marcus notes: “Jesus restores the compassionate aspect of the original Sabbath, which in the interim has been effaced by a human hard-heartedness that has transformed the good Sabbath into a source of destruction.”[35] As the Lord and messianic king, the Son of Man “acts as the final and infallible interpreter of the will of God as expressed in Torah and sabbath commandment.” [36]

In Matthew, the dimension of the Sabbath as a day of rest (see Exodus 16:23) brings another aspect to this concluding statement that the “Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day” (Matthew 12:8). Just as we saw in Mark, the text before this story in Matthew may help us understand its meaning. Given the Matthew 11 text that precedes this story of the disciples plucking the grain, this statement of Jesus’s messianic lordship over the Sabbath can be seen as connecting the rest given by the Sabbath to the rest that Jesus promised to give to those who come unto him and learn of him (Matthew 11:28–30).[37] Donald A. Hagner summarizes this connection well: “The rest and rejoicing symbolized by the sabbath find fulfillment in the kingdom brought by Jesus.”[38]

It has also been argued that in the Gospel of Matthew these accounts of Sabbath controversies are strategically placed after the Sermon on the Mount, in which Christ states that instead of destroying the law, he is asking for greater righteousness (see Matthew 5:17–20).[39] Thus the Gospel of Matthew declares Christ as the Lord of the Sabbath, fulfilling the law and the prophets and asking for greater righteousness in how the Sabbath is observed. From this perspective, the Hosea 6:6 reference, with its emphasis on mercy over temple sacrifice, points to that “greater righteousness” and clarifies the purpose of the Sabbath as a day of rest in allowing those who are hungry to eat.

Unlike Mark and Matthew, the Gospel of Luke includes no commentary between the comparison to David and the statement that “the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath” (Luke 6:5). Lutz Doering gives a possible explanation for this difference: “The justification of the disciples’ transgression, more directly [in Luke] than in Matthew, focuses on the sovereign authority of the Son of Man, who is presented as the divinely authorized Lord (κύριος) of the Sabbath.”[40] All three Synoptic Gospels end with this point, but because there is variation in the rhetorical journey that each Gospel takes from the statement about David in the temple to this final point, the nuances of the message are unique in each of these texts.

Man with a Withered Hand

Like the account of the disciples plucking grain on the Sabbath, the account of Christ healing the man with a withered hand is found in all Synoptic Gospels directly after the previous controversy account (Matthew 12:9–21; Mark 3:1–12; Luke 6:6–11). This story is framed with Jesus being watched to see “whether he would heal [the man with the withered hand] on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him” (Mark 3:2). This act seems to have been viewed as helping someone with a chronic condition rather than as saving life on the Sabbath, the latter of which would have been unquestionably acceptable. The early Jewish sources are not clear on the broader context for how healing those with chronic conditions was understood in those times. There are no pre-Tannaitic sources other than the Gospels that say healing per se was forbidden on the Sabbath, but it is also not clear that it was approved Sabbath activity.[41] Doering concludes that “it is very likely that Pharisees in the first century would have considered healing such ailments forbidden on the Sabbath, no matter how they were carried out in detail.”[42]

In Mark, explaining his invitation to the man with the withered hand to rise and be healed, Jesus seems to be expanding the sense of “lifesaving” to include changing the quality of life of one with a chronic condition. He asks the broader question, “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill?” (Mark 3:4). Guelich notes that “Jesus’ question and the opponents’ response only become intelligible when set against the broader scope of Jesus’ ministry” of proclaiming the coming of the kingdom of God (1:15). “‘To do good’ and ‘to save a life’ takes on the eschatological ring of the coming of the day of salvation, the fulfillment of God’s promised activity in history, . . . which Jesus came to announce and effect.”[43] In the Markan account there is no response to Jesus’s question from those in the synagogue who are opposed to his action. We read that Jesus tells the man in need of healing to stretch forth his hand, and as he does so “his hand [is] restored whole as the other” (3:5). It is a sad irony that the Pharisees responded to Jesus’s doing good and saving a life by counseling with the Herodians on how to destroy him.

In Matthew, rather than focusing on Jesus’s explanation first, the story is framed with the onlookers asking Jesus the narrower question, “Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him” (12:10). Jesus draws a parallel between the man’s need and an animal falling into a pit on the Sabbath day. His response echoes a view that saving life on the Sabbath would be acceptable, a belief shared by those who followed the Pharisees.[44] The stricter, isolationist group associated with the Damascus Document would have had a more extreme view in which leaving animals or perhaps even people in pits would be required to keep the Sabbath, but Jesus’s listeners likely would not have condoned this practice.[45] Doering suggests that this more widely shared attitude toward animals (and people) in pits on the Sabbath “might reflect pragmatic rural legal practice, perhaps of Galilean provenance.”[46]

In the Matthean account, Jesus then completes his explanation with a broad conclusion: “Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days” (12:12). This extension of the idea of saving life to include helping those in need might be seen as an extension of the earlier discussion about plucking of grain on the Sabbath day, driving home the principle of mercy overriding exact obedience to the law.[47] Keeping the Sabbath is still expected, but this interpretation broadens the sense of lawfulness to include helping and caring for those in need, demonstrated here in the healing of the man with the withered hand.[48]

In Luke’s account it is stated that this was “another sabbath” (i.e., not the same day as the grain controversy) when Jesus met the man with the withered hand in the synagogue, and this Gospel specifies that the man’s right hand was the withered one (6:6). Here again Jesus asks a question before the healing takes place: “I will ask you one thing; Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it?” (v. 9). Doering notes that in Luke’s account, the responses of those opposed to Jesus have been seen as “more moderate and less violent than in the other synoptics, thereby remaining closer to likely reactions to Sabbath infringement in ancient Judaism.”[49] To be fair, however, the scribes and Pharisees as depicted in Luke were still seeking to find an accusation against Jesus before the healing (see v. 7), and after he healed the man, we are told that the Pharisees and the teachers of the law “were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus” (v. 11, NIV). François Bovon suggests that in Luke’s account “Jesus is not satisfied with the mere healing of the sick man, because the attention of his opponents is an expression of a counterfeit faithfulness to the law: an observance of the Sabbath that incites people to wait for their neighbor to stumble is no longer obedience to the will of God.”[50]

Two Additional Controversy Stories in Luke

Luke includes two stories of Sabbath controversy over healing on the Sabbath that are not found in either of the other Synoptic Gospels: the stories of the bent woman (13:10–17) and the man with dropsy (14:1–6). In the story of the woman healed in the synagogue, Jesus is there teaching when he encounters this woman, who is bent and cannot lift herself up. Jesus proclaims that she is “loosed” from her infirmity, lays hands on her, and “immediately she [is] made straight, and glorifie[s] God” (13:13). The controversy begins because the archisynagogus, the head of the synagogue, speaks to the people, applying the Sabbath-day prohibition of work to condemn what Jesus has done: “There are six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the sabbath day” (v. 14). In defense of his healing, Jesus asks the people, “Doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering?” (v. 15) Then he asks, “Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?” (v. 16).

James G. Crossley observes that Jesus’s explanation provides a kind of Halakic argument, first framing the woman as being in bondage of Satan and needing to be loosed, then comparing that to “untying animals and leading them to water [and] assum[ing] a position which was held by legal interpreters from different perspectives.”[51] While there was debate in Jewish law about how far cattle should be allowed to travel on the Sabbath, the premise of loosing them to lead them to water was accepted even by the strict provisions found in the Damascus Document.[52] This “loosing” of the woman can be seen as a fulfilment of the messianic role of Jesus: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed” (Luke 4:18, NIV).[53]

In the story of healing the man with dropsy (a medical symptom involving retention of a large amount of fluids), Jesus is carefully observed by the Pharisees while eating at one of their houses on the Sabbath. Here again, as in the Lukan account of the healing of the withered hand, Jesus asks a question before performing the healing: “Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?” (Luke 14:3). After receiving no response, Jesus “t[akes] him, and heal[s] him, and let[s] him go” (v. 4), then continues to explain his actions with reference to the analogy of how people would treat their animals: “Which of you shall have an ass [or son] or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?” (v. 5). [54] And again, “they could not answer him again to these things” (v. 6). Some texts have a reading of υἱός (son) in this verse, making it an even stronger case for intervention in such a circumstance. But since having a chronic condition was not life-threatening, the comparison between saving a life and helping someone who could be helped on another day is not a direct parallel. Lutz Doering suggests that one could read Jesus’s explanation “with its emphasis on loss and rescue” in the context of the parables in Luke 15, “reflecting God’s salvific attention to the ‘lost ones’ of Israel.”[55]

Conclusion: Relevance for Our Lives

In this chapter we have looked at the Sabbath texts in the Synoptic Gospels, texts that were written for ancient audiences about early events.[56] Even though they describe elements of the life of Christ and the context for his death, burial, and resurrection, these expectations and debate belong to a world that we can only partly reconstruct. So what do they have to tell us about our lives and the world we live in? What can we learn from them?

First, from the Jews of that era we can learn the importance of being faithful and keeping the commandments as we have them. Covenant faithfulness, specifically with respect to keeping the Sabbath, is a “sign” between us and God, as President Russell M. Nelson has reminded us.[57] The Jews in the late Second Temple period were aware of how powerful their contemporary cultural forces were. They realized how easily they could be moved away from God and a life of covenant faithfulness. Their desire to be obedient to the command to keep the Sabbath day holy shows great wisdom in prioritizing their covenant relationship with God. This is true for both the Pharisees and the disciples of Christ. We can learn from all the Jews of this time who made the Sabbath a priority. The women disciples who wanted more than anything to finish preparing the Savior’s body for burial waited until Sunday morning when the Sabbath was over, at which time “they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment” (Luke 23:56). Commandments provide boundaries, and our obedience in staying within those boundaries shows God that we remember him and are faithful to him and to our covenants. Even if the specifics of a commandment may later change, we are responsible to keep the commandments we are given right now. In time, the Sabbath for Christians would be observed on Sunday rather than on Saturday, but the followers of Jesus were faithful to what they were given at that time.

Second, we can recognize the importance of other people and their needs as we think about what we choose to do on the Sabbath. In his actions and explanations, Christ was not saying that the command not to work was lifted, but he shifted the priority from the rule itself to the careful consideration of each person’s situation. The Jewish range of interpretation of how to properly keep the Sabbath in the late Second Temple period also recognized human needs as justification for actions that might normally be considered work, and so in some ways, Jesus’s actions and explanations in the Synoptic Gospels are not out of place. At the same time, these texts show a consistent interpretive pattern. Christ’s interpretation of what is lawful is always in relation to the needs of the people with him. Whether it was the disciples in the field, the man with the withered hand, the bent woman, or the man with dropsy, Christ proritized their well-being in his actions and in his proclamations about what was permissible on the Sabbath. His interpretive standard of “doing good” on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:12; Mark 3:4) showed that both sustaining and improving human life were part of his work of salvation, rather than the narrower standard of preserving life. As the lawgiver, Christ was the one to determine how the law should be interpreted and followed in each situation.

Finally, while seeing this broad principle of mercy and compassion informing each of Jesus’s choices in how to help those whose lives he could bless, I would suggest that the principle of mercy that informed his actions did not become a new rule replacing the need for the Sabbath and its boundaries. Instead, this principle shows us Jesus’s nature and disposition. To find the rest that he offers, Jesus invites us to take his yoke upon us and learn of him (see Matthew 11:29). He models a way of being in which a compassionate and helpful disposition toward other people informs our choices. Rather than extracting the above principle and making it our lord, part of taking Jesus’s yoke upon us is learning to watch ourselves and to beware of putting rules and principles above the authority of Christ, as this could diminish our ability to learn of him. Loving our neighbor does not eliminate the need to love God. We show God our love both by keeping the commandment of the Sabbath and by being loving and aware of others’ needs on that day.

In finding our way through the complexities of living a faithful life, we can develop or adopt a range of principles that enable us to live up to our ideals. Determining how to keep the law of Moses in a Hellenistic cultural context was difficult for ancient Jews, and they adopted many different strategies, splitting off into partisan groups. In the first century, these partisan groups included the Pharisees, who wanted to keep themselves separate from the uncleanliness of the world by establishing many rules and regulations for personal conduct; the Sadducees, who navigated being in power and collaborating with political oppressors while still retaining their heritage and temple worship; the Zealots, who believed that only political independence would allow them to truly be the people of God; and those in the Qumran community, who took themselves out of society and rejected all the other Jews, whom they saw as collaborators with worldly influences and powers.

We can recognize the good that each group sought, but we must also look back and see the limitations and shortcomings of each of these religious perspectives. Just as different groups of Jews during the intertestamental period settled on a variety of different approaches to keeping covenant and being faithful to God, we also adopt and can potentially get locked into partisan perspectives. Those in each group listened to different leaders who offered them a way to be confident about how they were living. Their confidence in their own interpretation of what was appropriate to do on the Sabbath led the Jewish leaders in the Synoptic Gospels to criticize the Savior and his disciples. In our day, the same confidence—based on political affiliation or social principles—can sometimes lead us to criticize the Lord’s apostles and Church when what is taught does not match what we are hearing from partisan voices.

One of the most powerful messages for me in these encounters between Christ and those who criticized his actions based on external principles is the ease with which these Jewish leaders became convinced that having principles and regulations made them the judges, thereby forgetting where real authority lies. Christ’s response to each individual and each situation was varied and personal, ultimately showing that he is the standard—the only true judge. Those who criticized Jesus for his actions on the Sabbath wanted to be right. They were convinced they were right because of rules and principles they had developed.

Similarly, having principles in our lives can make us feel that we are the masters and judges of any given situation. But these records of encounters with Jesus reveal that he can see more than we can see, and he will judge more rightly that we can judge. Making ourselves “judges” of him and his work through his ordained servants is a misguided effort to find the truth somewhere other than in the one who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6) of the world. As we become willing to leave behind our prideful confidence in partisan systems of belief built up into ideological “temples” at which so many people worship today, we will find that “in this place [where Christ is in his Church] is one greater than the temple” (Matthew 12:6). Recognizing that his authority has been bestowed upon his servants can give us confidence to accept their judgment of a situation, even—perhaps especially—when it does not match our own.

Notes

[1] James G. Crossley, The New Testament and Jewish Law: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 20. While Philo saw the law of the Sabbath allegorically, he also believed it needed to be observed with the body: “For although the seventh day is a lesson to teach us the power which exists in the uncreated God, and also that the creature is entitled to rest from his labours, it does not follow that on that account we may abrogate the laws which are established respecting it, so as to light a fire, or till land, or carry burdens, or bring accusations, or conduct suits at law, or demand a restoration of a deposit, or exact the repayment of a debt, or do any other of the things which are usually permitted at times which are not days of festival. . . . But it is right to think that this class of things resembles the body, and the other class the soul; therefore, just as we take care of the body because it is the abode of the soul, so also must we take care of the laws that are enacted in plain terms: for while they are regarded, those other things also will be more clearly understood, of which these laws are the symbols.” On the Migration of Abraham, 89–93.

[2] Yonatan S. Miller, “Sabbath-Temple-Eden: Purity Rituals at the Intersection of Sacred Time and Space,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 9, no. 1 (January 2018): 136. Miller argues that the sectarian Jews had an even stronger sense of the Sabbath as a parallel in holiness to the temple and that later the rabbis moved away from this: “For the rabbis, the connection between Sabbath and Temple only went so far as generating lists of forbidden labors. Ironically, the notion—so artfully spoken of by theologians—of the rabbinic Sabbath as a ‘Temple in time’ best belongs to the world of the sectarians.” Miller, “Sabbath-Temple-Eden,” 138.

[3] See Gaye Strathearn, “Keeping the Sabbath Relevant in Late Second Temple Jewish Texts,” in this volume.

[4] Crossley, New Testament and Jewish Law, 43.

[5] Herold Weiss, “The Sabbath in the Synoptic Gospels,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 38 (1990): 22.

[6] Weiss, “Sabbath in the Synoptic Gospels,” 24.

[7] Joel Marcus observes that the term for “evening,” opsia, can designate late afternoon: a time when it is evening but not yet dark and therefore not yet the Sabbath. Mark 8–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, The Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 1070.

[8] Herold Weiss, A Day of Gladness: The Sabbath among Jews and Christians in Antiquity (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003), 90.

[9] Weiss, Day of Gladness, 89.

[10] There is a provision in the law that “if you enter your neighbor’s grainfield, you may pick kernels with your hands, but you must not put a sickle to their standing grain” (Deuteronomy 23:25, New International Version). This would not, however, have been seen as a permissible Sabbath activity.

[11] Lutz Doering, “Sabbath Laws in the New Testament Gospels,” in The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature, ed. Reimund Bieringeretal (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 213. While some commentaries have focused on later classifications seen in the rabbinic sources, Doering argues that this sense of reaping or plucking being unlawful would have been a widely shared perception.

[12] Marcus notes that the term for the disciples “making their way” through the field, hodon poiein, “usually signifies ‘to create a road.’ Mark may wish to play on this meaning. . . . If so, the disciples’ action would become a partial fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah that is cited in 1:3: they are preparing the way of the Lord. . . . It is appropriate in a pericope that hints at Jesus’ royal authority, since royal visits were often prepared for by roadworks.” Mark 1–8, 239.

[13] Marcus observes that “Mark 2:23–28 thus continues the eating motif of the last two passages, but an escalation of tension is evident: Jesus’ disciples are implicitly accused not just of a break with Pharisaic traditions of table fellowship and fasting but of a violation of the written Law’s injunction against working on the Sabbath,” Mark 1–8, 243.

[14] Robert A. Guelich notes that “the thrust of this pericope is clearly Christological. . . . The nature of Jesus’ ministry sets implicit claim to the presence of something new, the new age of salvation. . . . This theme continues in the following story of [the disciples’] behavior on the Sabbath.” Word Biblical Commentary: Mark 1–8:26 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1989), 117.

[15] Adela Yarbro Collins notes the emphasis that the Markan Jesus puts on the transgression of David to show that this is not rejecting the commandment, but rather providing “a criterion for interpreting that [biblical] prohibition.” Mark: A Commentary, ed. Harold W. Attridge (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 202–3.

[16] Guelich, Mark 1–8:26, 123.

[17] For a helpful discussion on the manuscript variations as to whether this was the second Sabbath, see François Bovon, Luke 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 1:1–9:50, ed. Helmut Koester, trans. Christine M. Thomas (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), 196.

[18] Weiss, Day of Gladness, 91–92.

[19] Bovon, Luke 1, 198.

[20] Bovon, Luke 1, 199.

[21] Bovon offers a very interesting reading of Luke’s version, suggesting that Luke frames this occurrence “from a eucharistic perspective: from the old temple comes forth the new Christian meal.” He notes that the language in Luke 6:4 (namely, that David “did take and eat . . . and gave”) “sounds liturgical; the old restriction, ‘the priests alone,’ has been lifted, and it is now permissible to eat the bread.” Luke 1, 200.

[22] Doering, “Sabbath Laws,” 215.

[23] Mek. Y., Šabbta, Ki tissa 1, on Exodus 31:12, 14; Horovitz-Rabin 341, line 3f, 14f, in Doering, “Sabbath Laws,” 216.

[24] Weiss, Day of Gladness, 92; see Bovon, Luke 1, 197.

[25] Crossley, New Testament and Jewish Law, 30.

[26] Crossley, NewTestament and Jewish Law, 36–37. It is possible that the use of fire was the part of the sacrifices considered “work,” as making fires normally would be prohibited on the Sabbath.

[27] Donald A. Hagner, Word Biblical Commentary: Matthew 14–28 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2000), 329.

[28] This connection between David and the priests was also mentioned in rabbinic literature (Yalq. to 1 Samuel 21:5 [§130]; b. Menaḥ. 95b). See Doering, “Sabbath Laws,” 214–15.

[29] Crossley, New Testament and Jewish Law, 37.

[30] There is another reading of these texts that sees this argument setting mercy as greater than the temple. This leans heavily on the connection with the following verse (Matthew 12:7) from Hosea. See Ulrich Luz, Matthew 8–20: A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, ed. Helmut Koester, trans. James E. Crouch (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 181–83. Luz notes: “Matthew’s entire argumentation is in its depth very Jewish, but it has a new foundation. It is based on the reality that through the Son of Man Jesus the biblical command of mercy becomes the greatest command—greater than the temple” (183).

[31] Weiss, Day of Gladness, 91.

[32] Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishamel, ed. Jacob Z. Lauterbach (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2004), 2:494. See Weiss, Day of Gladness, 91; and Géza Vermès, Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels (New York: Macmillan Press, 1974), 181.

[33] Hagner, Matthew 1–13, 331.

[34] Guelich works through a possible reading of an original play on words between “man” in “the Sabbath is made for man” and “Son of man” in Mark 2:27–28. “By referring to the order of creation in 2:27, Jesus affirms the value of both ‘man’ and the ‘sabbath’ in light of creation but places the sabbath in the service of humanity.” In referring to himself in the third person “in 2:28 by virtue of the order of creation (‘so’), he, the ‘Son of man,’ claims the authority over the sabbath not for humanity in general (‘son of man’ meaning ‘man’) but for himself (‘Son of man’ meaning ‘I’).” Mark 1–8:26, 129.

[35] Marcus, Mark 1–8, 246.

[36] Hagner, Matthew 14–28, 331.

[37] François P. Viljoen, “Sabbath Controversy in Matthew,” Verbum et Ecclesia 32, no. 1 (2011): 4.

[38] Hagner, Matthew 14–28, 331.

[39] Viljoen, “Sabbath Controversy in Matthew,” 1–2.

[40] Doering, “Sabbath Laws,” 226.

[41] Doering, “Sabbath Laws,” 228.

[42] Doering, “Sabbath Laws,” 229.

[43] Guelich, Mark 1–8:26, 136. Guelich further states: “Rather than a casuistic justification for healing on the Sabbath or a programmatic annulment or reinterpretation of the sabbath law, Jesus’ question called for a decision regarding his person and ministry. Once again the focus of the pericope was ultimately Christological” (136–37).

[44] The background to saving a life as reason to justify breaking the Sabbath goes back to the Maccabean period, in which not fighting on the Sabbath proved disastrous, and so the decision was made to fight anyone who attacked on the Sabbath. This position to act defensively was not universally supported, but it seems to have been in force when the Romans attacked Jerusalem in 63 BCE. See Crossley, New Testament and Jewish Law, 38–39; 1 Maccabees 2:29–41; and E. P. Sanders, Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishna: Five Studies (London: SCM Press, 1990), 13.

[45] On the Damascus Document (a Dead Sea Scrolls text abbreviated CD) preserving a radical view on this point, see Crossley, New Testament and Jewish Law, 33. With regards to leaving an animal in a pit: “(. . .) and if it (sc. the animal) falls into a cistern (14) or a pit, he may not raise it up (or: “sustain it”—see below) on the Sabbath” (CD 11:13f.), quoted in Doering, “Sabbath Laws,” 232. Similarly, people were to be left in a hole if saving them could only be done with a ladder or rope (see CD 11:16–17).

[46] Doering, “Sabbath Laws,” 234; see Luz, Matthew 8–20, 187.

[47] Doering, “Sabbath Laws,” 235; see Luz, Matthew 8–20, 188.

[48] “While rabbinically saving a life is a boundary for the Sabbath commandment, in Matthew love becomes the commandment’s center. For Matthew this center is not something that is foreign to Jewish law.” Luz, Matthew 8–20, 188.

[49] Doering, “Sabbath Laws,” 237.

[50] Bovon, Luke 1, 203.

[51] Crossley, New Testament and Jewish Law, 39.

[52] “The various positions relating to cattle going out on the Sabbath [are] recorded in some detail (m. Shab. 5.1–4; m. ‘Erub. 2.1–4). In such passages we get mention or assumption of the reference to the Sabbath limit, which is mentioned elsewhere in ‘Erubin (4.5), and is 2000 cubits, approximately the equivalent of 1000 yards or 915 metres. . . . Even the stricter views from the Dead Sea Scrolls provide scope for cattle within the Sabbath limit: ‘No-one should go after an animal to pasture it outside his city, except for two-thousand cubits’ (CD 11.5–6).” Crossley, New Testament and Jewish Law, 40.

[53] John Nolland, Word Biblical Commentary: Luke 9:21–18:34 (Nashville: Word Books, 1993): 724.

[54] “It does assume a position with which Pharisees would have agreed. Here we are back in the realm of saving life overruling the Sabbath and how Jesus is presented as seeing his healings as a development of this principle.” Crossley, New Testament and Jewish Law, 41.

[55] Doering, “Sabbath Laws,” 238; see Mayer-Haas, Geschenk, 333f.

[56] While much of New Testament scholarship has moved away from seeing the Gospels as texts describing historical events, a helpful case for seeing eyewitness testimony in the Gospels is found in Richard J. Bauckham’s “The Gospels as Testimony to Jesus Christ: A Contemporary View of Their Historical Value,” in The Oxford Handbook of Christology, ed. Francesca Aran Murphy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 55–71. He observes: “These eyewitness testimonies speak to us from the inside of events, experienced by those who recognized the disclosure of God in them. Beyond the dichotomy of the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith, they offer us the Jesus of testimony” (69). A fuller discussion can be found in Bauckham’s volume Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Testimony (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017).

[57] Russell M. Nelson, “The Sabbath Is a Delight,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2015, 129–32.