There
is great wisdom in this. I feel that when members understand and love
the Sabbath day, they will have habits and attitudes that will help
them keep growing in the Gospel and continue nurturing their
relationship with the Lord even when it might be easy to drift
away.
As we work to teach more about the Sabbath day, I expect
we will also have some intriguing discussions about the connection
between the Sabbath and the temple. The temple, after all, is the
place of God's rest, and the place where we prepare to enter into the
rest of the Lord.
It
is expressly called a "house of rest" in 1 Chronicles 28:2,
and the symbolism of its construction in the Old Testament is rich
with Sabbath themes.
For
example, it took Solomon seven years to complete it (1 Kings 6:38),
following the Jewish agricultural law in Lev. 25:1-7 that included a
cycle of six years of work and one of rest, with the seventh year
called "a sabbath of rest" (v. 4).
Solomon
dedicated the temple during the festival of tabernacles, a seven-day
feast in the seventh month (Deut. 16:13 and I Kings 8:2). Jewish
scholar Jon Levenson (currently at Harvard) points out additional
connections to the theme of rest linking Solomon's temple and the
Sabbath:
His
speech on that occasion [the festival of tabernacles] includes a
carefully constructed list of seven specific petitions (1 Kings
8:31–53) [for details, see Jon Levenson, "The Paranomasia
of Solomon's Seventh Petition," Hebrew Annual Review 6
(1982) 131-35, as cited by Levenson].
In
short, both the appurtenances of the Temple and the account of its
construction reflect the character of the acts of creation narrated
in Gen 1:1–2:4a.
Since the creation of the world and
the construction of the Temple are parallel, if not identical, then
the experience of the completed universe and that of the completed
sanctuary should also be parallel.
In
fact, the two entities share an interest in rest as the consummation
of the processes that produced them. In the case of creation, God
“rested” on the seventh day, the primordial Sabbath,
after he had completed his labors (wayyanah, Exod 20:11), and
he commands his servants to rest in imitatione Dei in similar
language [e.g., Exod. 23:12 and Deut. 5:14,each with yanuah].
The same root (nwh) describes his experience in the Temple as
well:
13 For YHWH has chosen Zion,
He has desired it for his seat:
14 “This is my resting place (menuhati) forever;
Here I shall be enthroned, for I desire it.” (Ps 132:13–14)
The
book of Chronicles goes so far as even to say that Solomon, and not
David, would build the Temple because the former is a “man of
rest” (menűhâ) and of peace (šalôm)
, as his name (šelomoh) would imply (I Chr 22:9). [Jon
Levenson, Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible
(Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1985), p. 144.]
Levenson
then summarizes the relationship:
The
Sabbatical experience and the Temple experience are one. The first
represents sanctity in time, the second, sanctity in space, and yet
they are somehow the same.
The
Sabbath is to time and to the work of creation what the Temple is to
space and to the painful history of Israel which its completion
brings to an end, as God has at last given Solomon “rest from
all his enemies round about” (1 Chr 22:9).
“The
seventh day is,” in Abraham Joshua Heschel’s splendid
phrase, “like a palace in time with a kingdom for all. It is
not a date but an atmosphere.” [Levenson, p. 145]
The
temple is a house and a sacred mountain, a sacred space, for entering
into the presence of God as Moses did on Sinai and for making sacred
covenants to advance us in that cause. The Sabbath is a sacred time
for drawing closer to the Lord and for remembering and renewing
covenants.
Of particular importance on the Sabbath is
partaking of the sacrament, where we witness that we are willing to
take the name of the Lord upon us. There is great significance in
this act, and part of the significance points to the blessings of the
temple, where we most fully take on the name of the Lord.
This
point was beautifully explained by Elder Dallin H. Oaks in his April
1985 Conference talk, "Taking
Upon Us the Name of Jesus Christ."
One of many great resources to discuss and contemplate as we
strengthen our approach to the Sabbath day.
I would welcome
your thoughts on the meaning of the connections between the Sabbath
and temple, along with suggestions on how we can better help members
appreciate the beauty of the Sabbath day.
Jeff Lindsay has been defending the Church on the Internet since 1994, when he launched his
LDSFAQ website under JeffLindsay.com. He has also long been blogging about LDS matters on
the blog Mormanity (mormanity.blogspot.com). Jeff is a longtime resident of Appleton,
Wisconsin, who recently moved to Shanghai, China, with his wife, Kendra.
He works for an Asian corporation as head of intellectual property. Jeff and Kendra are the parents of 4 boys, 3 married and the the youngest on a mission.
He is a former innovation and IP consultant, a former professor, and former Corporate Patent
Strategist and Senior Research Fellow for a multinational corporation.
Jeff Lindsay, Cheryl Perkins and Mukund Karanjikar are authors of the book Conquering
Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009).
Jeff has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and is a registered US
patent agent. He has more than 100 granted US patents and is author of numerous publications.
Jeff's hobbies include photography, amateur magic, writing, and Mandarin Chinese.