As I was listening to another message by Pastor Mel Caparros of Living Word Christian Church–today’s sermon was about the heavy burden of the Pharisees. This topic made me think of where a man was stoned for gathering sticks (Numbers 15:32-36). The Pharisees did place very incredibly unreasonable orders during the Sabbath. Just thinking how they forbade medication beyond a certain amount, how they forbade the disciples from gathering corn to eat, and they were not wrong at all.
I think this can be very tricky. Is it ignoring that Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath? I decided to get into some explanation from CARM which writes the following:
Gathering sticks in itself is not wrong. It could be for the purpose of providing fire for warmth or cooking. The problem is that a man was deliberately and flagrantly gathering sticks in the open on the Sabbath day when God had commanded that no work be done on the Sabbath. This was a direct challenge to God’s authority.
Exodus 31:14, “Therefore you are to observe the Sabbath, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people.”
Apparently, this was the first public offense against the newly revealed law of God. It was, essentially, being tested. Therefore, the severity of the punishment was to demonstrate to all of Israel the necessity of obeying the Law of God.
What we realize is that a man was already in blatant defiance. I doubt that, like the disciples, it was done out of necessity. The disciples had to pick heads of grain to eat. To deny them food was a cruel act. The Sabbath was made for man. It wasn’t unlawful to heal a man on the Sabbath. After all, the Sabbath is rest. Though, it seems something else the man did that caused the stoning.
The unidentified man doesn’t seem to be like the disciples who picked the heads of grain. The man didn’t look like that it was most likely a presumptuous sin. The man was most likely had a selfish motive and therefore made an affront of the Sabbath as a holy day. It didn’t look like the man was taking care of his needs either. I decided to get some extra commentaries. I did read through the Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible for a bit more information. The following may explain why the man was stoned to death and justly so:
This incident is evidently narrated as an instance of presumptuous sin. The mere gathering of sticks was not a sinful act and might be necessary for fuel to warm him or make ready his food. But its being done on the Sabbath altered the entire character of the action. The law of the Sabbath being a plain and positive commandment, this transgression of it was a known and wilfull sin, and it was marked by several aggravations. For the deed was done with open defiance of the divine authority–in flagrant inconsistency with His religious connection with Israel, as the covenant people of God and it was an application to improper purposes of time, which God had consecrated to Himself and the solemn duties of religion. The offender was brought before the rulers, who, on hearing the painful report, were at a loss ot determine what ought to be done. That they should have felt any embarassment in such a case may seem surprising, in the face of the Sabbath law (Exodus 31:14). Their difficult probably arose from this first public offense of the kind which had occurred; and the appeal might be made to remove all ground of complaint–to produce a more striking effect, so that the fate of this criminal might be a beacon to warn all Israelites in the future.
Meanwhile, the disciples when they were picking ears of corn to eat were another issue. Jesus’ disciples were breaking an artificial Sabbath restriction by the Pharisees and not a prohibition from the Law of Moses. True, David sinned by eating the showbread. Jesus did mention that David ate the showbread that was offered to him. The Apologetics Press also does say this concerning David’s eating of the showbread:
The fact is, Jesus rightly and masterfully pointed out the unlawful actions of David to a group of hypocritical Pharisees who apparently had overlooked their beloved David’s blatantly sinful actions in 1 Samuel 21. Yet these same Pharisees wrongly criticized Jesus and His apostles for breaking the Sabbath. In truth, the only “law” Jesus’ disciples broke (at least on this occasion) was the Pharisaical misinterpretation of the law (which seems to have been more sacred to the Pharisees than the Law itself).
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