Neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the
sabbath day
Not of dirt and soil only, as some restrain the sense; but of any ware or merchandise, in order to be sold in the city or elsewhere: neither do ye any work;
any servile work, any kind of manufacture, either within doors or without; or exercise any kind of trade, or barter and merchandise, or do any sort of worldly business; nothing but what was of mere necessity, for the preservation of life; see ( Exodus 20:10 ) ; but hallow ye the sabbath day;
or, "sanctify it" F2; by separating it from all worldly business, and devoting it to the worship of God in public and private, spending it wholly in acts of religion and piety: as I commanded your fathers;
not Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; but those that came out of Egypt, to whom, and to their posterity after them, this commandment was enjoined, ( Exodus 20:8-10 ) ( 31:13-17 ) ; so that this was not a novel injunction, but what was commanded from the beginning of their civil and church state; from the time of their coming out of Egypt, and becoming a separate people and nation, under a theocracy, or the government of God himself; being chosen and set apart to be a special, peculiar, and holy people to himself, of which the sanctification of the sabbath was a sign; and was to be observed unto the Messiah's coming, the sum and substance of it, ( Colossians 2:16 Colossians 2:17 ) .