What Does Exodus 31:15 Mean?
Six days work shall be done, but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, set apart to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the sabbath day shall surely die.
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
Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.THE KEY
The seventh day is defined by cessation so completely that this verse makes working on it a matter of life and death.
THE MEANING
Six days may hold work; the seventh is set apart to the LORD as Sabbath. Whoever works on that day, the verse says, is to be put to death, its boundary is expressed in the starkest possible terms.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that sacred time is only a symbolic distinction: it states that crossing this day’s boundary with work carries a death sentence.
THE ROOT
שַׁבָּת
shabbat
GROWS FROM
שבת
sh-b-t
To cease, stop, or desist from action.
“sabbath of rest” in this verse is shabbat. Cessation is built into the name of the day: the Sabbath is a stopping, not just a period called rest. Here that stopping is enforced as a life-and-death boundary.
ALSO GROWS
shavat: To cease or stop
שָׁבַת
In Genesis 2:2, this verb describes God ceasing from work on the seventh day, connecting the Sabbath’s name to the act of stopping.
shabbaton: A Sabbath rest or solemn cessation
שַׁבָּתוֹן
This related form appears in the phrase translated “sabbath of rest,” intensifying the day’s character as cessation.
קֹדֶשׁ
qodesh
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
To set apart as sacred or belonging to a distinct purpose.
“set apart” in this verse is qodesh. The verse sets the Sabbath apart as belonging to the LORD. That makes its limit more than a scheduling distinction: the work prohibition protects time designated as sacred.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart, sacred
קָדוֹשׁ
This adjective shares the root and describes what has been designated as distinct; here the seventh day is set apart to the LORD.
miqdash: Sanctuary, a set-apart place
מִקְדָּשׁ
The sanctuary is a place marked by the same root; the verse applies that language of sacred distinction to time.
qiddesh: To consecrate, set apart
קִדֵּשׁ
This verb names the act of setting something apart, clarifying the force of the Sabbath being holy to the LORD.
THE PATTERN
The seventh day is set apart through the cessation of work.
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 the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your livestock, nor your sojourner who is within your gates.He said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.THE THREAD
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.The word translated “rested” is וַיִּשְׁבֹּת (vayishbot), from שבת (sh-b-t), “to cease.” The same root names the Sabbath here, tying the day’s boundary to the cessation that follows work in the creation account.
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