Exodus - 35:3



3 You shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations on the Sabbath day.'"

Verse In-Depth

Explanation and meaning of Exodus 35:3.

Differing Translations

Compare verses for better understanding.
You shall kindle no fire in any of your habitations on the sabbath day.
Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your dwellings upon the sabbath day.
ye do not burn a fire in any of your dwellings on the sabbath-day.'
No fire is to be lighted in any of your houses on the Sabbath day.
You shall not kindle a fire in any of your dwelling places throughout the day of the Sabbath."
Ne accendatis ignem in omnibus habitaculis vestris die Sabbathi.

*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.


Historical Commentaries

Scholarly Analysis and Interpretation.

This prohibition is here first distinctly expressed, but it is implied Exodus 16:23.

Ye shall kindle no fire - The Jews understand this precept as forbidding the kindling of fire only for the purpose of doing work or dressing victuals; but to give them light and heat, they judge it lawful to light a fire on the Sabbath day, though themselves rarely kindle it-they get Christians to do this work for them.

Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day. This law seems to be a temporary one, and not to be continued, nor is it said to be throughout their generations as elsewhere, where the law of the sabbath is given or repeated; it is to be restrained to the building of the tabernacle, and while that was about, to which it is prefaced; and it is designed to prevent all public or private working on the sabbath day, in anything belonging to that; having no fire to heat their tools or melt their metal, or do any thing for which that was necessary; for it can hardly be thought that this is to be taken in the strictest sense, as an entire prohibition of kindling a fire and the use of it on that day, which is so absolutely useful, and needful in various cases, and where acts of mercy and necessity require it; as in cold seasons of the year, for the warming and comforting of persons who otherwise would be unfit for religious exercises, and on the account of infants and aged persons, who could not subsist without it; and in cases of sickness, and various disorders which necessarily require it; and even for the preparation of food, which must be had on that day as on others, the sabbath being not a fast, but rather a festival, as it is with the Jews; and yet this law is interpreted by them in the most rigorous sense: they put kindling a fire among the principal works forbidden on that day (x), and that not only to bake bread and boil flesh, as Aben Ezra interprets it here, but to warm themselves with; nay, they think it unlawful to touch an hearth, or a coal of fire, or a firebrand, or anything that may give them any warmth in a cold season; and if, for the sake of infants or aged persons, there is need of a fire or heating a stove, they hire a Christian to do it, or so prepare and order matters the day before that it kindle of itself (y); and so Leo Modena (z) says,"they do not meddle with any fire, nor touch any wood that is on fire, nor kindle any, nor put it out; nor do they so much as light a candle on the sabbath day: and if the place be cold where they dwell, except they have any stoves, or hot houses, or else have some one that is no Jew to kindle a fire for them; or had so ordered the matter before hand that the fire should kindle of itself at such a time; they must even be content to sit in the cold all that day:''but here they nicely distinguish and observe, that it is said:
throughout your habitations; their private dwellings, but not the habitation of the Lord, or the house of the sanctuary; and on this score they allow of kindling a fire in Beth Moked (a), an apartment in the temple, where a fire was constantly kept for the priests that kept watch to warm themselves at.
(x) Misn. Sabbat, c. 7. sect. 2. (y) Buxtorf. Synagog. Jude. c. 16. p. 361. (z) History of the Rites, &c. of the Jews, par. 3. c. 1. sect. 3. (a) T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 20. 1.

Ye shall kindle no fire - For any servile work, as that of smiths or plumbers. We do not find that ever this prohibition extended farther.

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