And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day.
Read Chapter 15
Basil the Great
AD 379
I find, in taking up the Holy Scripture, that in the Old and New Testament stubbornness toward God is clearly condemned not in consideration of the number or heinousness of transgressions but in terms of a single violation of any precept whatsoever, and, further, that the judgment of God covers all forms of disobedience. In the Old Testament, I read of the frightful end of Achar and the account of the man who gathered wood on the sabbath day. Neither of these men was guilty of any other offense against God, nor had they wronged others in any way, small or great. But the one, merely for his first gathering of wood, paid the inescapable penalty and did not have an opportunity to make amends. By the command of God, he was forthwith stoned by all his people. .
Wilderness of Pharan, if this crime were committed soon after the murmuring of the people, or in some other part of the desert. This example tends to show the severity and extent of the former precept. The law had condemned the breaker of the sabbath to be put to death. But Moses consulted the Lord, to know in what manner; or perhaps there were some circumstances attending the offender, which extenuated or enhanced his crime. Some of the Rabbins have unjustly aspersed the character of Salphaad, as if he were the person, because it is said that he died in the desert in his own sin, chap. xxvii. 3. (Calmet)
Those who transgress with full knowledge, deserve to be severely chastised; (Luke xii. 47,) and this is the more necessary, when the law has been lately promulgated, to restrain the insolent. (Haydock)
God generally makes an example of those who first transgress his laws, as he did of our first parents, of Cain, the Sodomites, the worshippers of the golden calf He punished thus the ...
We have in fact noticed that even for less serious faults some people have suffered the very sentence of death by which those who we said were the authors of sacrilegious prevarication were also punished. This happened in the case of the man who had been collecting wood on the sabbath, as well as in that of Ananias and Sapphira, who by their misguided faithlessness kept back a little bit of their property. It is not that these sins were equally grave but that when these persons had been found committing a new offense, they had to furnish a kind of example to others of the penalty and terror of sinfulness. Thus, from then on, whoever was tempted to do the same thing would know that at the future judgment he would receive the same condemnation as the others, even if in this life his punishment was deferred. .
The law, if it arrests a murderer, puts him to death. The gospel, if it arrests a murderer, enlightens and gives him life. And why do I cite a murderer? The law laid hold on one that gathered sticks on a sabbath day and stoned him. This is the stark import of “the letter kills.”
Why was he punished just for gathering sticks? Because if the laws were obstinately despised even at the beginning, of course they would scarcely be observed afterwards. For indeed the sabbath did at the first confer many and great benefits. It made them gentle toward those of their household and humane. It taught them God’s providence and the creation, as Ezekiel says; it trained them by degrees to abstain from wickedness and disposed them to regard the things of the Spirit.
When a man of the Israelite community gathered wood on the sabbath, he was killed, and this by the judgment and order of God, a judge most loving and merciful and who doubtless preferred to spare rather than kill him if the reason for severity had not overcome the reason for mercy. One man who was more unmindful perished, lest many be undone afterwards through lack of caution. .
