Exodus 31:16

16 And the children of Israel shall keep the sabbaths, to observe them throughout their generations.

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 And ye shall keep the sabbaths, because this is holy to the Lord for you; he that profanes it shall surely be put to death: every one who shall do a work on it, that soul shall be destroyed from the midst of his people.

15 Six days thou shalt do works, but the seventh day is the sabbath, a holy rest to the Lord; every one who shall do a work on the seventh day shall be put to death.

16 And the children of Israel shall keep the sabbaths, to observe them throughout their generations.

17 It is a perpetual covenant with me and the children of Israel, it is a perpetual sign with me; for in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth, and on the seventh day he ceased, and rested.

18 And he gave to Moses when he left off speaking to him in mount Sina the two tables of testimony, tables of stone written with the finger of God.