Exodus 20:9

9 Six days you will work, and you will do all your work.

Exodus 20:9 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 20:9

Six days shalt thou labour
This is not to be taken for a precept, but a permission; not as a command enjoining men to work and labour with their hands, to provide for themselves and families things useful and necessary, and honest in the sight of God; but as a grant and allowance of so many days to employ themselves in, for their own profit and advantage, and that of their families; the Lord only reserving one day out of seven for his service, which ought to be looked upon as a singular favour, that he required no more of their time for his use, and the rest they might spend as they pleased, so that they did not indulge themselves in sin. It is required indeed of all men to labour in some sort and way or another, with their heads or with their hands; though all are not obliged to labour in the same way, or to the same degree, for he that will not work ought not to eat; but this law is not an injunction of that kind, only a toleration of labour on the six days of the week, if proper and necessary, when it is forbidden on the seventh:

and do all thy work,
which is incumbent on a man, he is called unto, and is necessary to be done for the good of him and his family; particularly care should be taken, that all should be done on the six days that could possibly be done, and nothing left to be done on the seventh.

Exodus 20:9 In-Context

7 "You shall not {misuse the name of Yahweh your God}, because Yahweh will not leave unpunished [anyone] who {misuses his name}.
8 "Remember the day of the Sabbath, to consecrate it.
9 Six days you will work, and you will do all your work.
10 But the seventh day [is] a Sabbath for Yahweh your God; you will not do any work--you or your son or your daughter, your male slave or your female slave, or your animal, or your alien who [is] in your gates--
11 because [in] six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that [is] in them, and on the seventh day he rested. Therefore Yahweh blessed the seventh day and consecrated it.
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