31:14,15. put to death. The extreme punishment of execution for violation of the Sabbath must be understood in the context of the singular importance of the Sabbath: as sign of the covenant and as imitatio Dei—see the previous comment. Also, as I discussed in my comments on Genesis 1, the special place of the Sabbath in the creation of the universe marks it as having cosmic significance as well as historical significance. Combining the cosmic with history, it sets the history of human events that begins with Genesis 1 in the context of the very nature of the universe. And it makes time holy.
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