LESSON IX.--NOVEMBER 27.

JESUS AND THE SABBATH.--MATT. 12:1-14.

      GOLDEN TEXT.--It is lawful to do well on the Sabbath day.--MATT. 12:12.
      TIME.--A. D. 28. It must have been the early summer, as the ripe ears of corn (wheat) were in the field.
      PLACE.--Capernaum and its vicinity.
      HELPFUL READINGS.--Mark 2:23-28; 3:1-5; Luke 6:1-11.
      LESSON ANALYSIS.--1. The Sabbath Day; 2. The Lord of the Sabbath; 3. Doing Good on the Sabbath.

INTRODUCTION.

      The plucking of the ears of corn follows close after the healing of the paralytic and call of Matthew, for it must have been while the grain was growing in the early summer. If the time given by Luke (6:1), "the second Sabbath after the first," means the first Sabbath after Pentecost (Andrews), then it occurred the 19th May, A. D. 28. The healing of the withered hand was soon after.

      The storm of opposition was gathering against Jesus, even in the height of his popularity. The new teacher disappointed the false hopes of the Pharisees as to the Messiah. He smote their prejudices right and left with his clear words of truth. He trampled on their rules and customs, in which they had intrenched and smothered their religion. These Pharisees, therefore, were watching closely that they might find some way of stopping his prosperous career. The found every fault possible: they searched carefully for some mistake or error of his which would put him under the ban of Jewish or Roman law, or the passions of the mob, and thus put an end to this dangerous teaching. The lesson for to-day furnishes further examples of this increasing storm of opposition.

      1. THE SABBATH DAY.--1. Jesus went on the Sabbath day through the corn. It is said that the incidents which follow took place "at that time." No particular time is mentioned, but it was probably several weeks before the above conversation with John's disciples, and in the early summer during the ripening harvest (see Time). The narrative seems to imply that the ears which the disciples plucked and rubbed were ears of wheat, not of barley. Now, the first ripe sheaf of barley was offered at the passover (in spring), and the first ripe wheat-sheaf at Pentecost, fifty days later (middle of May).--Cambridge [322] Bible. Through the corn. We see Jesus walking along by the margin of extensive stretches of standing grain. These stretches, spreading far and wide over the plain of Gennesaret, come down, on either side, close to the path on which our Lord and his disciples, and a miscellaneous troop of others, are leisurely and gravely walking along in the stillness of the Sabbath. It is an unenclosed path, a mere track, such as is common in the same district at the present day. It leads right through the standing grain.--Morison. Corn. Grain, wheat, or barley. Indian corn, which we call corn, was not known to them. On the Sabbath day. The Jewish Sabbath--now our Saturday. His disciples . . . began to pluck the ears of corn. Literally, began to make their way, plucking the ears of corn.--Alford. "Pluck the ears of corn." Because, as Matthew says, they were hungry. It was no wonder both he and the disciples were hungry; for no Jew could break his fast till, after the morning service at the synagogue, or take supper till after the evening service.--Geikie.

      2. When the Pharisees saw it. The Pharisees were ever around, watching for some error or mistake on the part of Jesus. Matthew, in his "began to pluck," shows how eagerly and instantly the Pharisees clutched at the chance of finding fault. We must picture then, to ourselves, the Savior going along through the corn-fields. His disciples are with him, and a group of others, inclusive of a band of disputatious and censorious Pharisees. They are on their way to or from some adjoining synagogue. Conversation and lively disputation go on all along the way. Thy disciples do that which is not lawful on the Sabbath day. Now, there was no harm whatever in plucking the ears; that was not only sanctioned by custom, but even distinctly permitted by the Mosaic law. But the heinous fact was that this should be done on a Sabbath!--Farrar. The law and practice of Palestine continue to be this day what they were so many thousand years ago (Deut. 23:25). The law allowed them to pluck the grain to appease hunger, but not to apply the sickle to another man's standing grain. "So, also, I have often seen my muleteers, as we passed along the wheat-fields, pluck off ears, rub them in their hands, and eat the grains unroasted, just as the apostles are said to have done."--Dr. Thomson. The point was this: Since the Law had said that the Jews were "to do no manner of work" on the Sabbath, the Oral Law had laid down thirty-nine principal prohibitions, which were assigned to the authority of the Great Synagogue, and which were called abhoth, "fathers," or chief rules. From these were deduced a vast multitude of toldoth, "descendants," or derivative rules. Now, "reaping" and "threshing" on the Sabbath day were forbidden by the abhoth, and by the toldoth, it was asserted that plucking corn-ears was a kind of reaping, and rubbing them a kind of threshing. The vitality of these artificial notions among the Jews is extraordinary. Abarbanel relates that when, in 1492, the Jews were expelled from Spain, [323] and were forbidden to enter the city of Fez lest they should cause a famine, they lived on grass; yet even in this state "religiously avoided the violation of their Sabbath by plucking the grass with their hands." To avoid this they took the much more laborious method of grovelling on their knees, and cropping it with their teeth.--Cambridge Bible for Schools. To break the Sabbath, rather than suffer hunger for a few hours, was guilt worthy of stoning. Was it not their boast that Jews were known, over the world, by their readiness to die, rather than break the holy day? Every one had stories of grand fidelity to it. The Jewish sailor had refused, even when threatened with death, to touch the helm a moment after the sun had set on Friday, though a storm was raging; and had not thousands let themselves be butchered rather than touch a weapon in self-defence on the Sabbath? The "new doctrine" of Jesus would turn the world upside down if not stopped!--Geikie. The act of the disciples, strictly and technically speaking, rendered them liable to death by stoning.--Farrar.

      II. THE LORD OF THE SABBATH.--3. Have ye not read? Many of our mistakes would be rectified, and our unjust censures of others corrected, if we would but recollect what we have read in the Scripture; appeals that are most convincing.--M. Henry. David . . . an hungered. Necessity freed him from fault and blame in eating the consecrated bread, which none but the priests might lawfully eat. For in cases of necessity a ceremonial precept must give way to a moral duty. Works of mercy and necessity for preserving our lives, and for the better fitting us for Sabbath services, are certainly lawful for the Sabbath day.--Burkitt. They that were with him. In Samuel, Ahimelech is represented as asking, "Why art thou alone, and no man with thee?" but verse 4 of 1 Sam. 21, shows clearly that he was not absolutely alone, only, for a king's son, comparatively unattended.

      4. How he entered the house of God. The account will be found in 1 Samuel 21:1. And did eat the shew-bread. This consisted of twelve loaves placed fresh every Sabbath day on the table in the sanctuary (Exod. 25:23-30; 39:36). It could be eaten only in the sanctuary and by the priests (Lev. 24:5-9). Observe that fresh bread had just been put upon the table when David arrived (1 Sam. 21:6), he taking that which was carried away. The day was therefore the Sabbath (Lev. 24:8).--Abbott. Thus David had violated the letter of the law with the full sanction of the high priest under the plea of necessity. [324]

      5. Have ye, not read . . . the priests . . . profane the Sabbath? Christ adds another argument, that every Sabbath the priests in the temple break the ordinary Sabbath law, the Sabbath being their busiest day; and yet it was right, "because the greater duty of temple service set aside the law of Sabbath rest. Compare John 7:22, 23."

      6. But I say unto you, that in this place is one greater than the temple. The reference, though they probably did not understand, is to himself, the Lord of the temple. The thought is: If priests in the service of the temple can break the letter of the law and be blameless, how much more can the disciples of him who is Lord of the temple do so in his service and by his authority?

      7. But if ye had known what this meaneth. They ought to have known, for they professed to be interpreters of the law, but in their slavery to forms and traditions, they had been blind to the spirit of the Scriptures. I will have mercy and not sacrifice. The argument is, that mercy toward these hungering disciples was more acceptable to God than sacrifices at the altar; though sacrifice was the crown of all the Jewish rites. The quotation is from Hosea 6:6, and is also quoted in Matt. 9:13. It shows that all our forms, rites and ceremonies are worthless before God unless we have kind and merciful hearts.

      8. For the Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath day. Because the Sabbath is made for humanity, the Lord of humanity is Lord of the Sabbath. Observe, is Lord of the Sabbath. He does not, then, abolish it, but has the right to make any change in it, in the interest of mankind, that seems to him wise. That is, he has authority and power, both as God and as Mediator, to institute and appoint a Sabbath, to alter and change the Sabbath, to dispense with the breach of it upon a just and great occasion.--Burkitt. Our Savior takes all occasions to insinuate to the Jews that he was more than man. He does it here in two instances. "If I, who am 'greater than the temple,' and 'Lord of the Sabbath,' do not reprove them, why do ye?"--Bonnell.

      9. When he was departed thence. From the place in the fields where this [325] conversation occurred. He went into their synagogue. Evidently he, his disciples and these Pharisees, were on the way to it when the conversation took place. It was probably at Capernaum.

      III. DOING GOOD ON THE SABBATH.--10. A man which had his hand withered. That is, dried up from a deficient absorption of the nutriment. Luke says his "right hand." The disease here indicated results in a loss both in size and in power of the arm; for it there is no remedy known to man.--Abbott. Brethren, pray God that the shame of such weakness be found in the synagogue only. Let none in the Church be found with a hand dried up through self-love, contracted through avarice, weakened through plunder, and through a grasping tenacity diseased; but should this happen, let it hear the Lord speak, and be forthwith stretched out in good works, and made soft by the influence of mercy.--Pet. Chrysol. And they asked him. Luke says it was the scribes and Pharisees. Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day? In the opinion of the Pharisees, to kindle or extinguish a fire on the Sabbath was a great desecration of the day, nor was even sickness allowed to violate rabbinical rules. It was forbidden to give an emetic on the Sabbath, to set a broken bone, or put back a dislocated joint, though some rabbis, more liberal, held that whatever endangered life made the Sabbath law void, "for the commands were given to Israel only that they might live by them." One who was buried under ruins on Sabbath might be dug for and taken out, if alive, but, if dead, he was to be left where he was till the Sabbath was over.--Geikie. That they might accuse him. Not in conversation merely, but before the local judges, who were probably identical with the elders or rulers of the synagogue, or at all events present at the stated time and place of public worship.--J. A. Alexander.

      11. And he said, What man . . . shall have one sheep? etc. Such an act of mercy to a beast was allowed and usual then, but the Rabbins afterward, perhaps on account of this reply, forbade anything more than "to lay planks" so that the animal could come out of itself. The Talmud teaches: "An animal which had fallen into a well on the Sabbath is to be provided with food in that place, but if this is not possible, a bolster and cushion are to be laid, there whereby it can mount up; for torturing a beast is forbidden in the law."--Schaff. [326]

      12. How much then is a man better than a sheep? If a sheep can be lifted out of its suffering on the Sabbath, why not much more a man? Wherefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day. If the Sabbath day would preclude one from doing good, then it would be an evil. Christ assumes that if a man does not do good when he can, he does evil. To refuse to do good is to choose to do evil. There is doing in both cases. There is the outgoing of energy in volition; and thus, radically it is a question of doing right or wrong, and not merely of doing or not doing. There was the Sabbath law and the law of mercy, of which the latter was the higher, and they were not in conflict, for it was understood that the letter of the Sabbath law was to yield to the call of mercy.

      13. Stretch forth thine hand. As the cure is wrought only by a word, the Pharisees have no ground of accusation; there has been no infraction of the letter of even their own regulations. These two cases determine what may be done on the Sabbath. The one was a case of necessity, the other of mercy. The example of the Savior and his explanations show that these are a part of the proper duties of that holy day.

      14. Then the Pharisees . . . held a council . . . destroy him. These hypocrites, who, in their superstitious zeal for the Sabbath, were unwilling that our Lord should work a cure on that day, had no scruple whatever to take counsel for the murder of the innocent, and with that view to form a league with the declared enemies of God's people. Their real motive was hatred of the Lord; while their pretext was that he had broken the Sabbath. While professing to be very religious they were really the servants of the evil one.

PRACTICAL AND SUGGESTIVE.

      Forms are of no avail, except as they express the right spirit. We are not to do away with forms; but they are not unchangeable, and they must ever be adopted to express the living spirit of the gospel.

      An intolerant and censorious spirit in religion is one of the greatest curses a man can well fall under.

      The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath; hence any change that the good of man required could be made by the Lord of the Sabbath. It has been transformed into the Lord's day. [327]

      A religious observance of the Lord's day best rests the body, cultures the mind with the grandest thoughts on the noblest themes, and exalts and comforts the soul, and fits it for heaven.

      It should be made a joy, especially to children, and its very method of keeping should be such as to impress its delight upon them. It should be a day of doing good.

      A PRECIOUS GIFT.--Admiral Hall, of the British navy, says that while commanding a naval vessel at Hong-Kong, after divine service had been performed one Sunday on his ship, and the sailors were at rest, his intelligent Chinese pilot called his attention to the fact that work was going on on shore as usual, and said, "Your Joss [God] is better than our Joss; for he gives you holiday and rest one day in seven, and we have only one day in the year, on New Year's Day." The admiral, in a recent address to working-men, clinched the striking fact by adding, "And this is the case. Just picture working hard from, morning till night for 364 days, and only one day of rest; and then prize the Lord's day!" They who use the day of rest as a day of pleasure forget that when it ceases to be a day of rest it will soon become a day of toil; and then comes the ceaseless grind of care and labor which weakens the body and starves the soul.--Rev. Mr. Hastings.

POINTS FOR TEACHERS.

      1. Point out the circumstances; the Sabbath day; en route to the synagogue worship; pathway through a ripened harvest; the acts of the hungry disciples. 2. Note the presence of the fault-finding Pharisees; glad of a pretext for accusation; their complaint to Jesus. 3. Bring out how they are silenced by the example of David, their national hero-king and inspired hymn-maker. 4. Observe the entrance into the synagogue; the maimed man; the eager looks of the scribes and Pharisees; their question. 5. Bring out how they are again silenced. They hold it right to do an act of mercy to a beast; why not then to a man? 6. The main truth in to-day's lesson is THE RIGHT WAY OF KEEPING THE LORD'S DAY. (1) First, there is exemplified a general principle of the relation between form and spirit. (2) Then the Sabbath question is brought up by the action of the disciples,--an illustration of the Sabbath law. (3) Christ lays down the great principles of Sabbath-keeping, that the Sabbath is to be used for the good of man,--the whole man, and all men. Apply these two principles to modern ways of Lord's day keeping, showing what they allow, and what they forbid. (4) An example by Christ of the right use of the Lord's day. He attended church, and did good to the needy. (5) As he is Lord of the Sabbath he had the right to transform it, change the day and give it a new name. 7. Show that in the New Testament the Lord's day is never called the Sabbath, but distinguished from it, and that we ought to use the New Testament name. 8. Draw lessons as to our duties on the Lord's day. [328]

Source: Barton Warren Johnson. The Christian International Lesson Commentary for 1887. Des Moines, IA: