Exodus 31:16

16 The Israelites must keep the Sabbath, celebrating it as a permanent covenant for the generations to come.

Exodus 31:16 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 31:16

Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath,
&c.] On whom the sabbath of the seventh day was only enjoined, as well as that of the seventh and of the fiftieth years, being all ceremonial and shadowy:

to observe the sabbath throughout their generations;
so long as the Mosaic dispensation lasted, and their civil polity and church state continued, even until the Messiah came, when all those Jewish shadows, rites, and ceremonies, fled away and disappeared,

for a perpetual covenant;
just in the same sense as circumcision was, ( Genesis 17:13 ) .

Exodus 31:16 In-Context

14 Keep the Sabbath, for it is holy to you. Anyone who profanes it must surely be put to death. Whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from among his people.

15 For six days work may be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of complete rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must surely be put to death.

16 The Israelites must keep the Sabbath, celebrating it as a permanent covenant for the generations to come.

17 It is a sign between Me and the Israelites forever; for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, but on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.’”

18 When the LORD had finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, He gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.