Parashat Va-etchanan (Deut 3:23–7:11)

The Sabbath in Stereo

This week’s reading is the one that contains Moses’ repetition of the Ten Commandments, and I'm going to look at one of the ten, the Sabbath commandment, and compare it (as our traditional commentators love to do) with the Ten Commandments as they are recorded in Exodus 20.

There's a quite significant difference in the reason that's given for the Sabbath in those two versions. It’s already unusual that a reason is given at all. Nobody tells you why “thou shalt not” murder or commit adultery, but for observing the Sabbath they do.

In Exodus, the original version, the reason that's given is this:

^{Exod 20:11} For in six days YHWH made the Sky and the Earth and the Sea and everything that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day. That is why YHWH blessed the Sabbath and sanctified it.

In Deuteronomy, the reason that's given for the Sabbath is this:

^{Deut 5: 14} The seventh day is a Sabbath to YHWH, your God. You must not do any work — neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your slave, nor your ox or your donkey or any of your animals, nor the stranger in your city — so that your slave may rest as you do. ¹⁵ Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and YHWH, your God, brought you out of there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. That is why YHWH, your God, commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

In this version of the Sabbath commandment, two reasons for it are given:

• You were a slave and you know what it's like to be to be forced to work without rest. and that's why you must observe the Sabbath and let those who work for you do so.

• YHWH brought you out Egypt. He therefore has the right to command you to observe the Sabbath.

It's very well known that Deuteronomy has an extremely strong focus on social justice, a special concern for the poor: widows, orphans, the Levites (who would lose their jobs in Deuteronomy’s one-Temple-fits-all system), and anyone who was needy. Most certainly this would apply to people who were enslaved.

Exodus, on the other hand, is giving a cosmic reason: the Sabbath is built into the structure of the universe. God made heaven and earth in six days, and on the seventh day, as an integral part of the original creation, he rested from his work.

The combination of the two is expressed in the blessing we recite before sanctifying the day with a cup of wine on Friday nights, which invokes both ma’aseh bereshit ‘the work of creation’ and yetziat mitzrayim ‘the exodus from Egypt’.

All that, of course, is extremely, extremely interesting, but — in the famous words of Arlo Guthrie — that's not what I came to talk about today. What I came to talk about is the beginning of the commandment in each version, the command word that introduces each one. (Technically each is a Qal infinitive absolute used as an imperative; see Lesson 24 of my Hebrew course to learn about the infinitive absolute.)

In Exodus 20, the commandment is to “Remember [זָכ֛וֹר֩ zakhor] the Sabbath day” (v. 8); in Deuteronomy 5, to “Observe [שָׁמ֣֛וֹר shamor] the Sabbath day” (v. 12). There's a famous Jewish tradition, incorporated into the song L’kha Dodi, sung on Friday evenings to welcome the “Sabbath Queen” into the synagogue, that the reason these words are different is that God said (to quote the song) שמור וזכור בדיבור אחד shamor v’zakhor b’dibbur eḥad — ‘shamor and zakhor in a single utterance’. He said both words at once, as if he were speaking in stereo. Moses knew nothing about stereo recording and could not figure out how to write down both words simultaneously, so he put one in the Exodus version and one in the Deuteronomy version.

That’s different from the way many of the differences in the two versions of the Ten Commandments are explained. Since Moses himself speaks the Deuteronomy 5 version, one can imagine that, after four decades had passed and a new generation was about to cross into the promised land, he needed to focus on things in a somewhat different way than was appropriate at the time of the giving of the Torah.

The difference between “remember” and “observe” is not explained in this way, or in any other; what explains the difference is that God said both, simultaneously. I’m here to tell you that there is a difference between the commandment to “remember” the Sabbath day and the commandment to “observe” it, and that Deuteronomy — or, if you prefer, Moses — changed it deliberately from “remember” to “observe,” from zakhor to shamor. Here’s why.

If you read the book of Deuteronomy with attention, you'll realize that Deuteronomy has a tremendous focus on psychology. Deuteronomy cares not only what you do, but what you think. It’s very clear that making sure you think the right thing is a big part of what Deuteronomy is all about.

In this book, the verb זכר zakhar ‘remember’, the one that's used in the Exodus version of the Sabbath commandment, has a very specific meaning. You've heard it, because we saw it in the middle of Deuteronomy’s own Sabbath commandment:

Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt.

In Deuteronomy, “remembering” means being aware of the past, and having that awareness affect how you are going to operate in the future. If you constantly are aware of the fact that you were a slave, you'll remember what it was like to have been a slave, and you'll appreciate the Sabbath and make sure — as the rest of the commandment says — that your family, your slaves, and even your animals don't have to work on the Sabbath. You remember what it was like to be a slave, and you will not put them through that.

The verb שׁמר shamar ‘observe’ or more literally ‘keep’ is the word that Deuteronomy uses for what we might call remembering information — keeping track of things, making sure that you remember when the Sabbath is and how to observe it. Deuteronomy does not use zakhar for that kind of remembering, but shamar. You are guarding, keeping, protecting (all synonyms for שׁמר) the integrity of the information. That’s different from remembering what happened in the past.

What about the rest of the Bible? Do you “remember” the Sabbath or do you “keep” it? In fact, nowhere in the Bible but in the Exodus 20 version of the Ten Commandments, the original version, is there anything at all about “remembering” the Sabbath. “Keeping” the Sabbath is used nine other times in the Bible besides the Deuteronomy Sabbath commandment.

Three of them are in Isaiah 56, “Isaiah” of the Persian period. There more of them are in Leviticus, Lev 19:3 and 30 and Lev 26:2, close to the beginning and close to the end of what scholars call the Holiness Code, a priestly voice that (from my perspective and that of many others) wants to incorporate a Deuteronomic perspective into the priestly point of view. Finally, there are three more uses of it in Exodus 31. Israel Knohl, the “guru” of the Holiness School understanding of the Torah, marks these as “edited” by H. So presumably they too derive from the Deuteronomy version of the commandment. (You’ll find a similar strong psychological perspective in Leviticus 17–26, the “heartland” of H in the Torah, where in Lev 19:1 we are told to “be holy, for I, YHWH your God, am holy.” Have I mentioned that “YHWH your God” is a strongly Deuteronomic phrase?)

Exod 31:16 tells us that the Israelites must “keep” (וְשָׁמְר֥וּ ve’shamru) the Sabbath, the Deuteronomy way, but v. 17 goes on to give the Exodus explanation:

For in six days YHWH made the Sky and the Earth, and on the seventh day He sabbathed and caught his breath.

The presumption, I think, is that history is built into the universe. The cosmic sabbath and the social justice sabbath are one and the same. Exodus says one thing and Deuteronomy another, but only the Holiness perspective was able to combine shamor and zakhor into dibbur eḥad, a single utterance.

[Update: Read more about “Two Different Versions” in the Bible in this post.]