The Sabbath day was the seventh day of the week, which we call Saturday.
One sabbath day Jesus and the disciples walked by a field of ripe grain; the grain is here called “corn,” but that word long ago meant any grain. It may have been wheat or barley, as the disciples picked some and rubbed it in their hands to take off the chaff, and ate them as you may have done in a harvest time.
The people then were free to pick a small amount from their neighbor’s fields, but the Pharisees saw what the disciples did and said they were wrong to do that on the sabbath day. The law of God to Israel was that no work should be done on the sabbath, and the leaders had made their own laws as to what was work
What David’s Story Teaches
Jesus answered them with a story from the Scriptures of what David once did: the men thought highly of David, and Jesus asked them,
“Have ye not read ... what David did, when ... ahungered ... how he went into the house of God, and did take and eat of the showbread, and gave also to them that were with him?” (See 1 Samuel 21:6).
The “showbread” was the bread put in the house of God, fresh each sabbath, and the old bread could be eaten by the priests, but by no one else (Leviticus 24:5-95And thou shalt take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes thereof: two tenth deals shall be in one cake. 6And thou shalt set them in two rows, six on a row, upon the pure table before the Lord. 7And thou shalt put pure frankincense upon each row, that it may be on the bread for a memorial, even an offering made by fire unto the Lord. 8Every sabbath he shall set it in order before the Lord continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant. 9And it shall be Aaron's and his sons'; and they shall eat it in the holy place: for it is most holy unto him of the offerings of the Lord made by fire by a perpetual statute. (Leviticus 24:5‑9)). So it was not lawful for David to take the bread. But David was anointed of God to be king. King Saul was trying to kill him, so when he and his men were hungry they were kept alive by the holy bread.
Jesus was the Anointed by God, greater than David;all belonged to Him, yet people did not provide for Him and those with Him. If the Anointed One was not honored, the laws had no force or use. He told the men that He was Lord, or Master, also of the sabbath, so His disciples could take the grain for food on that day.
Good on the Sabbath
Another sabbath day Jesus was teaching the people in the synagogue, and there was a man with his right hand so withered that all could notice it, and the Pharisees, who said the disciples were wrong to take the grain on the sabbath, began to watch to see if Jesus would heal the man’s hand, so they could accuse Him of breaking the sabbath.
Jesus knew their thoughts against Him, and He told the man with the withered hand to stand up before the people where all could see his need, then He asked the question, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath days to do good, or to do evil ? to save life, or to destroy it?”
Jesus then told the man to stretch forth his hand; and as the man did so, his deformed hand became perfect as his other hand.
To see the Lord Jesus do this miracle by the power of His word, should have shown those men Who He was. But they still thought more of the law of the sabbath day, than of the power of God, which could do so wonderful a cure.
Further Meditation
1. How did God allow his showbread to be used in the time of David?
2. How do we react when the Lord Jesus teaches us something we don’t want to hear? The Pharisees were so pleased with their goodness in keeping the Sabbath in an outward way that they wouldn’t accept the one who came to do good on that day. What would have been an appropriate way for the Pharisees to react?
3. A comparison of the Sabbath for the Jew and the Lord’s Day for Christians can be enjoyed in The Sabbath and the Lord’s Day by C. Stanley.