Exodus 31:16

16 And the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations -- [it is] an everlasting covenant.

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, therefore; for it is holy unto you; every one that profaneth it shall certainly be put to death: yea, whoever doeth work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his peoples.

15 Six days shall work be done; but on the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, holy to Jehovah: whoever doeth work on the sabbath day shall certainly be put to death.

16 And the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations -- [it is] an everlasting covenant.

17 It shall be a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever; for [in] six days Jehovah made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.

18 And he gave to Moses, when he had ended speaking with him on mount Sinai, the two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.