Epistle of Barnabas — Chapter 15 — The sabbath and the eighth day
15:1
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
15:1 Concerning the sabbath it is also written in the ten words, which He spoke face to face to Moses on Mount Sinai: “Sanctify the Lord’s sabbath with clean hands and a clean heart.”
Textual & reception notes
15:1 Text: “Ten words” preserves the designation of the commandments. The clean-hands and clean-heart language is part of the form Barnabas cites, not a newly inserted clause in Exodus’s Decalogue. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
15:2
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
15:2 Elsewhere He says: “If My children keep the sabbath, then I will place My mercy upon them.”
Textual & reception notes
15:2 Text: The promise has an explicit condition: the children keep the sabbath, then mercy is placed upon them. The precise source of the whole saying is not established by an approximate parallel alone. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
15:3
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
15:3 He speaks of the sabbath at the beginning of creation: “God made the works of His hands in six days, and finished on the seventh day, rested on it and sanctified it.”
Textual & reception notes
15:3 Text: The quotation says God finished on the seventh day after making His works in six. The next section speaks of finishing in six days; the distinct statements are preserved rather than harmonized. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
15:4
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
15:4 Attend, children, to what “He finished in six days” means. It means that in six thousand years the Lord will bring all things to completion, for a day with Him signifies a thousand years. He Himself bears witness to me, saying: “Look, a day of the Lord will be like a thousand years.” Therefore, children, in six days—in the six thousand years—all things will be completed.
Textual & reception notes
15:4 Text: The author interprets each day as a thousand years and infers six thousand years for completion. This is his numerical interpretation; the translation supplies no modern end-date calculation. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
15:5
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
15:5 “And He rested on the seventh day.” This means that when His Son comes, abolishes the time of the lawless one, judges the ungodly and changes the sun, moon and stars, then He will truly rest on the seventh day.
Textual & reception notes
15:5 Text: The Son’s coming, judgment, end of the lawless one’s time, and transformation of heavenly bodies precede the true seventh-day rest. The distinct events are not compressed into a single undefined catastrophe. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
15:6
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
15:6 Indeed He says: “You shall sanctify it with clean hands and a clean heart.” If anyone can now sanctify the day God sanctified, being clean in heart, then we have been deceived in everything.
Textual & reception notes
15:6 Text: The conditional argument challenges whether anyone can sanctify the day now with a clean heart. Its final admission of total deception is rhetorical and conditional, not a straightforward declaration that the author is deceived. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
15:7
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
15:7 See, then, that we shall truly rest and sanctify it when we ourselves are able, having been justified and received the promise, when lawlessness no longer exists and everything has been made new by the Lord. Then we shall be able to sanctify it, having first been sanctified ourselves.
Textual & reception notes
15:7 Text: Future sanctification follows justification, reception of the promise, and the removal of lawlessness. The readers must first be sanctified before they can sanctify the day in the intended sense. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
15:8
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
15:8 Indeed He says to them: “I cannot endure your new moons and sabbaths.” See what He means: “The present sabbaths are not acceptable to Me, but the one I have made, on which, after bringing everything to rest, I will make the beginning of an eighth day—that is, the beginning of another world.”
Textual & reception notes
15:8 Text: The rejection of present sabbaths leads to the eighth day as another world’s beginning. This is Barnabas’s interpretation of the Isaiah saying, not a substitute translation of Isaiah 1:13. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
15:9
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
15:9 Therefore we also celebrate the eighth day with gladness, on which Jesus rose from the dead and, after appearing, ascended into the heavens.
Textual & reception notes
15:9 Text: The author explicitly describes celebrating the eighth day. His compressed statement joins resurrection, appearance, and ascent; no interval is added to conform it to another book’s chronology. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.