64 OBLIGATION OF THE SABCATH. 



The Sabbath, aud the " Shew-bread," not perfectly parallel. 



he says, " all fall within the legal construction of the prohibi- 

 tion.'^ (p. 26.) 



Had he put the word " unnecessary," which he prefixes 

 alone to ^' walking/' hefore the entire enumeratiorij he would 

 have stated the exact truth. But now it conveys a wrong and 

 injurious impressioDj injurious to the Jewish code, and injii- 

 rious to our Saviour. By a miracle, every week repeated in 

 the wilderness, God had made the gathering of food, the light- 

 ing of a fire, &c., on the Sabbath unnecessary. To do any of 

 these things in such circumstances was therefore justly con- 

 strued as a violation of the law. But when the Pharisees ap- 

 plied this construction to the act of the disciples, who plucked 

 the grain merely to satisfy the cravings of hunger, our Saviour 

 says justly that they " condemned the guiltless/' My friend 

 must be hard driven for evidence, when he infers from the case 

 of David eating the shew-bread, a perfect parallel between the 

 two laws. David did do in his necessity icliat loas imlawful 

 by the express terms of the ceremonial statute ; and necessity 

 alone excused him. But the disciples did not violate the Sab- 

 bath at all, for no "necessary'' work was forbidden, as. is clear 

 from the case of the priests in the temple. When our Saviour 

 says, '^ they profane the Sabbath, and are hlameless,^^ he evi- 

 dently means to confound the Pharisees on their oivn ijvincijjles 

 of construction. On any other view, the language would be 

 self-contradictory. On this view, it is perfectly in point. And 

 when he adds that " there is one present greater than the tem- 

 ple,^' meaning himself, he evidently claims that his authority 

 is paramount in settling the construction, and his decision final 

 in pronouncing his disciples "guiltless." 



To charge our Lord witli a " studied violation of the Sab- 

 bath," because he commanded the impotent man whom he had 

 healed on the Sabbath day to " take np his bed and walk," is 

 again to adopt the Pharisaic construction. — For the poor man's 

 bed was evidently nothing but x?a68atov Qcralhaton), a small 

 portable couch or mattress, such as travellers carried about 



