Exodus 20:9

9 Sixe dayes mayst thou laboure ad do al that thou hast to doo:

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 Thou shalt not take the name of the Lorde thy God in vayne, for the Lord wil not holde him giltlesse that taketh his name in vayne.
8 Remebre the Sabbath daye that thou sanctifie it.
9 Sixe dayes mayst thou laboure ad do al that thou hast to doo:
10 but the seuenth daye is the Sabbath of the Lorde thy God, in it thou shalt do no maner worke: nether thou nor thy sonne, nor thy doughter, nether thy manservaunte nor thy maydeservaunte, nether thy catell nether yet the straunger that is within thi gates
11 For in sixe dayes the Lorde made both heauen and erth and the see and all that in them is and rested the seuenth daye: wherfore the Lorde blessed the Sabbath daye and halowed it.
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