Thou shalt sanctify the holy day.
[Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.]


The word holy day (Feiertag) is rendered from the Hebrew word Sabbath
which properly signifies to rest, that is, to abstain from labor. Hence
we are accustomed to say, Feierbend machen [that is, to cease working],
or heiligen Abend geben [sanctify the Sabbath]. Now, in the Old
Testament, God separated the seventh day, and appointed it for rest,
and commanded that it should be regarded as holy above all others. As
regards this external observance, this commandment was given to the
Jews alone, that they should abstain from toilsome work, and rest, so
that both man and beast might recuperate, and not be weakened by
unremitting labor. Although they afterwards restricted this too
closely, and grossly abused it, so that they traduced and could not
endure in Christ those works which they themselves were accustomed to
do on that day, as we read in the Gospel just as though the commandment
were fulfilled by doing no external [manual] work whatever, which,
however, was not the meaning, but, as we shall hear, that they sanctify
the holy day or day of rest.

This commandment, therefore, according to its gross sense, does not
concern us Christians; for it is altogether an external matter, like
other ordinances of the Old Testament, which were attached to
particular customs, persons, times, and places, and now have been made
free through Christ. But to grasp a Christian meaning for the simple as
to what God requires in this commandment, note that we keep holy days
not for the sake of intelligent and learned Christians (for they have
no need of it [holy days]), but first of all for bodily causes and