Keluaran 35:2

35:2 In six days ¹  work may be done, but on the seventh day there must be a holy day ²  for you, a Sabbath of complete rest to the Lord. ³  Anyone who does work on it will be put to death.

Bilangan 15:32-36

15:32 When the Israelites were ⁴  in the wilderness they found a man gathering wood on the Sabbath day. ⁵  15:33 Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and to the whole community. 15:34 They put him in custody, because there was no clear instruction about what should be done to him. 15:35 Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man must surely be put to death; the whole community must stone ⁶  him with stones outside the camp.” 15:36 So the whole community took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, ⁷  just as the Lord commanded Moses.

[35:2]  ¹ tn This is an adverbial accusative of time.

[35:2]  ² tn The word is קֹדֶשׁ (qodesh, “holiness”). S. R. Driver suggests that the word was transposed, and the line should read: “a sabbath of entire rest, holy to Jehovah” (Exodus, 379). But the word may simply be taken as a substitution for “holy day.”

[35:2]  ³ sn See on this H. Routtenberg, “The Laws of the Sabbath: Biblical Sources,” Dor le Dor 6 (1977): 41-43, 99-101, 153-55, 204-6; G. Robinson, “The Idea of Rest in the Old Testament and the Search for the Basic Character of Sabbath,” ZAW 92 (1980): 32-43.

[15:32]  ⁴ tn The preterite of the verb “to be” is here subordinated to the next, parallel verb form, to form a temporal clause.

[15:32]  ⁵ sn For this brief passage, see A. Phillips, “The Case of the Woodgatherer Reconsidered,” VT 19 (1969): 125-28; J. Weingreen, “The Case of the Woodgatherer (Numbers XV 32-36),” VT 16 (1966): 361-64; and B. J. Bamberger, “Revelations of Torah after Sinai,” HUCA 16 (1941): 97-113. Weingreen argues that there is something of the Rabbinic method of setting a fence around the Law here; in other words, if this sin were not punished, the Law would have been violated in greater ways. Gathering of wood, although seemingly harmless, is done with intent to kindle fire, and so reveals a culpable intent.

[15:35]  ⁶ tn The sentence begins with the emphatic use of the infinitive absolute with the verb in the Hophal imperfect: “he shall surely be put to death.” Then, a second infinitive absolute רָגוֹם (ragom) provides the explanatory activity – all the community is to stone him with stones. The punishment is consistent with other decrees from God (see Exod 31:14,15; 35:2). Moses had either forgotten such, or they had simply neglected to (or were hesitant to) enact them.

[15:36]  ⁷ tn Heb “stoned him with stones, and he died.”