LETTER TO THE EDITOR

The Sabbaths

This is an Excerpt from the Book of Jubilees 50:5-12.

Behold the commandment regarding the Sabbaths - I (Moses) have written (them) down for you - and all the judgements of its law.

Six days shall you labor, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of Aheyeh your king. In it you shall do no manner of work, you and your children and your men-servants and your maid-servants and all your livestock and also the sojourner who is with you.

And the person that does any work on the Sabbath shall die: Whoever desecrates that day, whoever lies with (his) wife, or whoever says he will do something on it, so that he will set out on a journey thereon in regard to any buying or selling: And whoever so draws water thereon which he had not prepared for himself on the sixth day and whoever takes up any burden to carry it out of his tent or out of his house shall die.

You shall do no work whatsoever on the Sabbath day except what you have prepared for yourselves on the sixth day, so as to eat and drink and rest and guard the Sabbath from all work on that day and to favor Aheyeh your king, who has given you a day of feast and a set-apart day: This day is a day of the set-apart kingdom for all of Yeshurun forever.

Because great is the honor which Aheyeh has given to Yeshurun that they should eat and drink and be satisfi ed on this festival day and rest thereon from all their labor which belongs to the labor of the children of men except for the burning frankincense and bringing oblation and sacrifices before Aheyeh for feast days and for Sabbaths.

This work only shall be done on the Sabbath-days in the sanctuary of Aheyeh your king; so that they may atone for Yeshurun with continual sacrifice from day to day for a memorial well-pleasing before Aheyeh and that He mayreceive them always from day to day just as you have been commanded.

And every person who does any work thereon the Sabbath, or goes on a journey, or cultivates (his) farm, whether in his house or any other place and whoever strikes or kills anything, slaughters a beast or a bird, or whoever catches an animal or a bird or a fish, or whoever fasts or makes war on the Sabbath:

The person who does any of these things on the Sabbath day shall die. So shall the children of Yeshurun observe the Sabbaths according to the commandments and regarding the Sabbaths of the land, as it is written in the tablets, which He gave into my hands so that I should write out for you the laws of the appointed times and the set quarterly seasons according to the division of their days.

BOYD MCNIEL Pea Ridge, Ark.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 06/19/2013