And God spoke all these words, saying,
Exodus 20:8-11 LEB
(8) Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
(9) Six days you will work, and you will do all your work.
(1)0 But the seventh day is a Sabbath for Yahweh your God; you will not do any work—you or your son or your daughter, your male slave or your female slave, or your animal, or your alien who is in your gates—
(11) because in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and on the seventh day he rested. Therefore Yahweh blessed the seventh day and consecrated it.
Why would God be so adamant that we give Him one day? God wants us to devote some our time with Him because He knows we need something unknown to us that He can impart to us on that very day if we totally connect with Him. He is trying everything to have us come around: even capital punishment threat. But, somehow, there is that power that is trying his best to not let us connect on Saturday sabbath day to get what God is eager to impart to us. He gave us 6 days. He is willing to bribe us with perks to keep the Sabbath such as benedictions to get us to rest with Him, for our own good. However, we are still unwilling. If we are willing, we waste the time because we do not fully engage to get connected.
If the Sabbath was not important to God, why would He bring it to the attention of the Israelites to keep under the threat of death?
Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Exodus 31:14 KJV
Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Exodus 31:15 KJV
Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a sabbath of rest to the LORD: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death. Exodus 35:2 KJV
The seventh day was presented to the Israelites as being a HOLY day while none of the other days was connoted holy. The holiness of the day did not start on the promulgation of the ten commandments. The day was consecrated from the outset. The holiness of the day survived even the wicked generation before the flood, a generation that was so wicked that God decided to kill them all. That is to say that there is no condition on earth that can tarnish the holiness imparted to the day so that God can no longer call the day holy.
Jesus came down from Heaven in Israel where the Sabbath was still in force. Not only that He kept the Sabbath, He even said that He instituted in Genesis (Matthew 12:8, Mark 2:28, Luke 6:5, John 1:1-3). Can the holiness of the Sabbath be changed? Jesus declared in Matthew 5:17-18 that nothing in what is written in the Old Testament can or may change.
Some are teaching that the seventh day rest has been fulfilled at the cross. Right. That is pure nonsense because it is illogical. Look up the meaning of the verb 'to fulfill" in a dictionary.
Was the seventh day rest only required of the Israelites in the past and today? No. Whatever way we want to see ourselves affiliated to God, the seventh day is required to be kept holy by every one of us because of the sealing of Matthew 5:17-18 and the declaration found in the writings of the Prophet Isaiah 56 which calls on man in general and not the Israelites in particular.
Isaiah 56:1-12 KJ3
(1) So says Jehovah: Keep judgment and do righteousness, for My salvation is near to come, and My righteousness to be revealed.
(2) Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who lays hold on it; keeping sabbath, from defiling it; and keeping his hand from doing every evil.
(3) And do not let the son of the alien speak, he who joins himself to Jehovah, saying, Separating Jehovah separates me from His people; and not do let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dried up tree.
(4) For so says Jehovah to the eunuchs who keep My sabbaths and choose things I am pleased with, and take hold of My covenant:
(5) I, even I will give to them in My house and in My walls a hand and a name better than sons and than daughters; I will give them an everlasting name which shall not be cut off.
(6) And the sons of the alien who join themselves on Jehovah to serve Him, and to love the name of Jehovah, to be His servants, every one who keeps from defiling the sabbath, and takes hold of My covenant,
(7) and I will bring them to My holy mount and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be for acceptance on My altar, for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the peoples,
(8) a statement of the Lord Jehovah, who gathers the outcasts of Israel; I will yet gather to him his gathered ones.
The Israelites dismissed the Sabbath of God. Prophets were sent to warn them to repentance, to compliance. They did not all care. We do not live in countries like Israel but, God (Jesus) expects us to follow the same rules of His sabbath wherever we are, even though sabbath is not the norm where we live.
Amos 8:1-7 Darby
(1) Thus did Jehovah shew unto me; and behold, a basket of summer-fruit.
(2) And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer-fruit. And Jehovah said unto me, The end is come upon my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more.
(3) And the songs of the palace shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord Jehovah. The dead bodies shall be many; in every place they shall be cast forth. Silence!
(4) Hear this, ye that pant after the needy, even to cause to fail the poor of the land,
(5) saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat? making the ephah small and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances for deceit:
(6) that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; and that we may sell the refuse of the wheat.
(7) Jehovah hath sworn by the glory of Jacob, Certainly I will never forget any of their works.
In the end, they got carried out of the land to never return because of abject idolatry.
2 Kings 15:29 Darby
(29) In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria came and took Ijon, and Abel-Beth-Maachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria.
2 Kings 17:6 Darby
(6) In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and by the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.