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A Sabbath Day's Journey

By: Rev. Paul Landgraf
What is a Sabbath day's journey? First of all, it is a Jewish expression. We measure distances in meters or yards. The Jews had a certain distance that they could walk on Saturday before it would be considered work. So their synagogues that they went to on Saturday could not be very far away. The word appears only in Acts 1:12 and indicates a distance of about three-quarters of a mile.

With that in mind, I think it is important to remember the origins of Christianity. Just because we have an Old Testament, it does not mean that we call it the 'Outdated Testament'. Much of the Old Testament has a literary structure that we are not aware of because of our modern emphasis on chapter and verse divisions. Within many of these blogs, I try to get the reader to see a bigger picture, a larger perspective that often includes the Old Testament and the environment that was present when the New Testament was seeing the Light of the day.

Second, a Sabbath day's journey is intentionally short. These 'journeys' with a text, almost always one of the three readings for that Sunday, are deliberately brief discussions. This blog was never designed to be a comprehensive look at any text. Sometimes a specific word is studied in detail. But, as a whole, a blog entry, by itself, is meant to be quite brief.

Finally, since the term 'Sabbath day's journey' appears in Acts, it is meant to appeal to a wide variety of people. This blog is meant for those who cannot come on Sunday mornings. And it is also for those who do come on Sunday mornings but would also like a further study of the text. It is also for those who live somewhere else in the world (besides Drake and Freedom, Missouri, USA) and would simply like a further study of the text. It was meant to get these different groups of people to start thinking about the biblical texts. Part of the reason for this blog is that I am not able to have a bible class on Sunday mornings with either congregation, and so, to have a blog like this seemed like a good idea. I hope it is helpful for you, in whatever situation you may be.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. And thank you for taking the time to read this!

August 31st, 2019

8/31/2019

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For the last few weeks we have been looking at the last chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews. And this week is the last week that the Epistle text will be from that work (13:1-17). Much could be said about the epistle’s title of a ‘word of exhortation (13:22)’, especially since that epistle contains a number of exhortations. So which ones are secondary?

I think, though, that the Book of Proverbs may be even more interesting than the Epistle to the Hebrews; and that book is only read from a very small number of times throughout the three-year series. And this Sunday is one of those times (25:2-10).
I remember, when I was young, my pastor led the congregation through that book in a bible class; it took a long time. And I thought it was worth it. I would highly recommend this book, especially for the younger generation.

At first glance, it seems to have no structure. I hope to dispel that myth.

Although I would like to look at the first verses of the book—which are often an indication as to the structure of the entire work—I would like to focus on an aspect which I think is extremely interesting.

The vast majority of the notes in the Concordia Self-Study Bible were not written by Lutherans, so I am usually very attentive for that note that has a cross at its beginning. The following note is one by a non-Lutheran, and I am very glad that I came upon it (page 959):

10:1 The proverbs of Solomon. The title of a collection of individual proverbs that extends through 22:16. The numerical values of the consonants in the Hebrew word for “Solomon” total 375—the exact number of verses in 10:1-22:16; 375 of Solomon’s proverbs were selected from a much larger number (cf. 1 Kings 4:32).

I guess that my only problem with that statement is that I have a hard time believing that these are ‘individual’ proverbs. I am seeing a contemporary problem with that word. Is there anyone or anything who/which is not connected to someone or something else? Besides, I am seeing a pattern within these proverbs.

Although a Hebrew literary structure may mean a lot of things (and this is one of the reasons that there is such great depth to the structure of the Gospel according to Matthew), one of the first things that comes to my mind is the importance of a middle point. When dealing with the number of 375, the middle point is essentially 187-188. And that is a middle point where the four previous proverbs/verses all have the name LORD (Yahweh) in them, and the four proverbs/verses which follow also have the same thing (15:33-16:7). And that extensive consistency is not found elsewhere within the work. The LORD is the turning point, and he is an appropriate one.

I also do not think it is a coincidence that the word ‘king’ comes up frequently after that middle point. It appears in chapter 16 in verses 10, 12, 13, 14, and 15. And the word ‘king’ comes up frequently also within our text (verses 2, 3, 5, and 6). Perhaps the writer/editor had this proverb in mind: ‘My son, fear the LORD and the king…(24:21).’
​

The importance of a king is unknown to most of Western culture (and we are certainly losing the importance of the LORD within our modern culture), and the idea that words can also equal numbers is also unknown. We have letters for words and numbers for amounts, and, at least in our part of Western culture, those two groups are usually quite unrelated. But what would we do if we did not have numbers to tell us some amounts? That would make for an interesting language. And we might learn something more about the language of the bible.
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