4. CORN ON THE SABBATH Mark 2:23-28 (Matthew 12:1-8; Luke 6:1-5) 23 And it came to pass, that he was going on the sabbath day through the grainfields;--Sabbath was the seventh day or our Saturday. A day of rest for both man and beast of burden. The name is derived from a Hebrew verb, meaning to rest from labor, to cease from action. In Judea, grain begins to ripen around the first of May. It was at this time Jesus and his disciples were going through the grainfields. Matthew says: "They walked." They were fields sown with wheat or barley. and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears.--[Several months have been passed over and we are now in the early summer of the second year of the public ministry of Jesus. The corn mentioned here is wheat or barley. Wheat can be rubbed out in the hand and eaten, and will satisfy hunger, while it is fairly palatable. This must have been when the wheat was ripe, yet in the fields, either before it was cut or while in the shock. This is too late for the harvest of the first year, so must be in the summer of the second year of the public ministry of Jesus. They began to gather the wheat heads and rub out the wheat in their hands (Luke 6:1) and eat. It was not wrong, according to the Jewish law, for men to take enough of the fruits or the grain to satisfy hunger. They could take nothing away. (Deuteronomy 23:24.) The disciples did not violate this law, but the point raised by the Pharisees, was it a violation of the Sabbath law to gather and eat the grain on the Sabbath day?) 24 And the Pharisees--The Pharisees were a kind of Jewish Puritans, but had in our Savior's time degenerated into a sect of formalists, who paid more attention to outward forms than to inner life. They were very scrupulous in observing ceremonies, very orthodox, but were filled with spiritual pride and thought themselves wise. They soon became strong opposers of Christ. said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful?--An exclamation of surprise expressed to Jesus by the Pharisees. They desired to direct his attention to something strange and unexpected. Here a fourth charge or ground of opposition, on the part of the more scrupulous and rigid Jews, was brought against Jesus, namely, suffering his disciples to do what was unlawful. They demand with what right, or by what authority, he allowed them to do this. The question implies censure. They considered plucking the heads was a kind of reaping, and rubbing out the grain, a kind of threshing, and this they considered unlawful. It was doing work, namely, harvesting on the Sabbath. The disciples really transgressed, not the divine law of the Sabbath, but the Pharisaical interpretation of that law. [All the Jews, in theory at least, held the law of Moses in reverence. The Pharisees were especial sticklers for the observance of all the forms of the law to the neglect of the spirit. The Sabbath had been very sacred by the enactment of Moses and the teaching of succeeding prophets. The Pharisees were shocked that the disciples of Christ should violate the law concerning the Sabbath and made complaints to Jesus. It was done in a fault-finding spirit with Jesus.] 25 And he said unto them, Did ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was hungry, he, and they that were with him?--Note the emphasis on need and hungry. His followers, too, were hungry; but it is on the act of David, as one of the most eminent of the Jews, that our Lord concentrates attention. [David (1 Samuel 21:1-6) had come to the priest at Nob hungry and wearied; had asked for bread. The priest said: "There is no common bread." So the priest gave him hallowed bread, "for there was no bread there but the showbread, that was taken from before Jehovah, to put hot bread in the day when it was taken away." The showbread was replaced with fresh bread every Sabbath. The priest then ate the old.] David and his followers under necessity took and ate the showbread which was lawful for priests only to eat. Necessity rose higher than ceremonials. 26 How he entered into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the showbread,--The tabernacle was at Nob, an eminence near Jerusalem; on the north probably within sight of the city. The showbread was the bread that was kept on the golden table in the Holy Place. which it is not lawful to eat save for the priests, and gave also to them that were with him?--David and those that were with him entered into the tabernacle and ate the showbread. David took, ate, and gave to his companions. Whatever may have been the meaning of this singular observance, it was certainly a necessary and divinely instituted part of the tabernacle service, resting on the same authority, though not on the equal moment with the Sabbath. [The tabernacle was movable as long as the children of Israel were wandering and unsettled; but as soon as they had taken full possession of the promised land, which was not till the reign of David, and in the reign of Solomon, the portable tent was exchanged for a permanent substantial dwelling.] To do good was made lawful by Moses without distinction of days but the Pharisees had denied its lawfulness on the Sabbath day. Christ shows them from their own law, and by the example of David, that it was not unlawful to do good on the Sabbath day. [This showbread was kept before the Lord seven days; it was then replaced with fresh bread, and the old was eaten by the priests. David, being hungry, ate of it and gave it to his companions. The meaning of it was that David, a servant of God, was permitted, in case of necessity, to eat of this bread that was lawful only for the priests.] 27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, --For man's whole body, for body and soul, for physical rest, for mental and social improvement, for his spiritual and moral growth, and for his eternal salvation. They treat man as nothing but an animal who advocate the use of the Sabbath for mere physical recreation and pleasure. The Sabbath was not made for man's physical body only, but for man, his whole nature. And it was made for man as man, that is, all men; and it was to be so kept so as not to take it away from others. Christ's principles carried out would have brought a perfect keeping of the Sabbath. It was made for man's benefit and happiness. It was created for his use and intended for his highest spiritual good. To keep it holy--that is, the manner of keeping it, must be in accordance with its design. It was for his rest from toil, the cares and anxieties of the world, to give an opportunity to call off his attention from earthly concerns, and to direct it to the affairs of eternity. It was a kind provision for man that he might refresh his body by relaxing his labors; that he might have undisturbed time to seek the consolation of religion to cheer him in the anxieties and sorrows of a troubled world; and that he might render to God that homage which is most justly due to him as the Creator, Preserver, and Benefactor. The Sabbath here mentioned is the seventh day Sabbath and the Jews were to keep it in remembrance of their deliverance from bondage in Egypt. The Sabbath day and the first day of the week are two separate and distinct days and we ought not to confound the two. The Lord came from the grave on the first day of the week, making it possible for us to be delivered from the bondage of sin through his blood. For this cause the early Christians observed this day--they assembled around the Lord's table and partook of the Lord's Supper and carried out all the Lord's directions concerning that day. It was never called the Sabbath day in the New Testament and the name ought not to be applied to it now. The first day of the week is called the Lord's day (Revelation 1:10), but never the Sabbath day. No day has been more blessed to man's welfare than the first day of the week--the Lord's day. To that day we owe more than to any other day, the peace and order of civilization. Where there is no Lord's day, there is ignorance, vice, disorder, and crime. On that day, man may offer his praises to the Giver of all good, and around the Lord's table seek the blessings of him whose favor is life. When that day is observed as it should be, order prevails, morals are promoted, the poor are elevated in their condition, vice flies away, and the community puts on the appearance of neatness, industry, morality, and religion. not to be injured and his true interests destroyed for the sake of any law or any day. [It was made to bless and benefit man, and when the good of man demanded it the stringency of its law might be relaxed, or itself might be taken out of the way, as those concerning the eating the showbread had been for David. Matthew (Matthew 12:5-6) adds: "Or have ye not read in the law, that on the sabbath day the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are guiltless? But I say unto you, that one greater than the temple is here." The law of God was, "Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day" (Exodus 35:3), and they were to do no cooking, yet in the temple service they cooked the showbread on the Sabbath. This was done by the order of God, and the point Jesus makes is that God, for the sake of the temple service, set aside the Sabbath law, and here is one greater than the temple, and who has the authority to repeal or supersede the Sabbath law. He acted by the authority of God, and being divine could set the law of the Sabbath aside. But he did not deny they broke the Sabbath law.] The argument here is the law of the Sabbath is to bend to the highest interest and happiness of man, and not the highest interest and happiness of man to the Sabbath. The Sabbath laws must not, by a superstitious observance, be perverted to the exclusion of mercy and necessity. The Sabbath was not first made, and then man made to fit the Sabbath. Man was made first, and then the Sabbath was made to fit the man. Since it was intended for his good, therefore, the law respecting it must not be interpreted so as to oppose his real welfare. It must be interpreted in consistency with a proper attention to the duties of mercy to the poor and the sick, and to those in peril. 28 so that the Son of man is lord even of the sabbath.--He ordained the Sabbath; he instituted the law; he knew its full meaning and object and value, and therefore had a right to interpret the meaning of the Sabbath law. [If they could set aside the law for David, in reference to the showbread, because he was hungry, or if God would change the Sabbath law to have the bread cooked on the Sabbath, he was Lord of the Sabbath to modify its laws for his disciples. The whole argument is an assertion of his power to supersede or set aside the law of the Sabbath. Necessity freed David from fault and blame in eating the showbread, for in cases of necessity a ceremonial precept must give way to a moral duty. Works of mercy and necessity for preserving life, and for better fitting men for Sabbath services, were certainly lawful on the Sabbath day. The passage teaches, then, not that men might violate the law of the Sabbath when their welfare seemed to them to demand it, but that Jesus could set it aside, as he afterward did, when his own judgment of man's welfare required him to do so. He made it clear on this occasion that said law was not to be so construed as to prevent men from providing necessary food on the Sabbath day.]