What Does Deuteronomy 5:14 Mean?
But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work, neither you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your animals, nor the sojourner who is within your gates, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as you do.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.THE KEY
The seventh day’s cessation reaches everyone within the household, so one person’s rest does not depend on another person’s continued labor.
THE MEANING
The seventh day is a shared cessation before the LORD thy God. Its reach includes children, servants, resident strangers, and working animals; the servants rest as well as thou.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Rest belongs only to the powerful, while those who serve them must keep working.
THE ROOT
שַׁבָּת
shabbat
GROWS FROM
שבת
Cease, stop, or desist from activity.
The root presents Sabbath as a stopping, not merely a pause for recovery. Here that stopping includes every life within the household, not only the person who can decide when work ends.
ALSO GROWS
shavat: To cease or stop working
שָׁבַת
This verb makes the Sabbath’s core action visible: the work stops.
shabbaton: A sabbath rest, a solemn cessation
שַׁבָּתוֹן
This related word carries the root’s stopping into an observance that marks out a time of rest.
וְיָנוּחַ
wəyānûaḥ
GROWS FROM
נוח
Settle, come to rest, or be at ease.
The servants’ rest is expressed as a settling, and the verse makes it comparable to the reader’s own: they rest as well as thou. The wording places their rest inside the same day and within the same measure.
ALSO GROWS
menuchah: Rest or a resting place
מְנוּחָה
The shared root links the servants’ rest to a state of settled repose, not simply absence from a task.
hēnîaḥ: To set down, let settle, or give rest
הֵנִיחַ
This causative form adds the possibility of rest being granted, which echoes a day whose boundary includes those who serve.
עֶבֶד
eved
GROWS FROM
עבד
Serve or labor.
“male servant” in this verse is eved. The root ties the servant’s designation to the act of serving. This sentence places a limit around that service: the eved rests as the person addressed rests.
ALSO GROWS
avad: To serve or work
עָבַד
The verb makes the activity inside the servant’s designation audible in Hebrew.
avodah: Service or labor
עֲבוֹדָה
This noun connects the servant’s role with service and labor, the very activity the seventh day interrupts.
THE PATTERN
Sabbath cessation places a boundary around labor that reaches beyond the person with power to stop it.
And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had made, and he stopped on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.But in the seventh year there shall be a full stopping for the land, a stopping for the LORD. You shall not sow your field, nor prune your vineyard.He said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.THE THREAD
Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall stop, that your ox and your donkey may settle, and the son of your handmaid and the stranger may be refreshed.The Hebrew verb translated shalt rest is תִּשְׁבֹּת (tishbot), from the same שבת root carried by Sabbath here. It spells out the shared scope: cessation reaches working animals, a servant’s household, and the stranger too.
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