(cf. Exodus 35:2-3). God concludes by enforcing the observance of His Sabbaths in the most solemn manner, repeating the threat of death and extermination in the case of every transgressor. The repetition and further development of this command, which was included already in the decalogue, is quite in its proper place here, inasmuch as the thought might easily have occurred, that it was allowable to omit the keeping of the Sabbath, when the execution of so great a work in honour of Jehovah had been commanded. "My Sabbaths:" by these we are to understand the weekly Sabbaths, not the other sabbatical festivals, since the words which follow apply to the weekly Sabbath alone. This was "a sign between Jehovah and Israel for all generations, to know (i.e., by which Israel might learn) that it was Jehovah who sanctified them," viz., by the sabbatical rest (see at Exodus 20:11). It was therefore a holy thing for Israel (Exodus 31:14), the desecration of which would be followed by the punishment of death, as a breach of the covenant. The kernel of the Sabbath commandment is repeated in Exodus 31:15; the seventh day of the week, however, is not simply designated a "Sabbath," but שׁבּתון שׁבּת "a high Sabbath" (the repetition of the same word, or of an abstract form of the concrete noun, denoting the superlative; see Ges. 113, 2), and "holy to Jehovah" (see at Exodus 16:23). For this reason Israel was to keep it in all future generations, i.e., to observe it as an eternal covenant (Exodus 31:16), as in the case of circumcision, since it was to be a sign for ever between Jehovah and the children of Israel (Ezekiel 20:20). The eternal duration of this sign was involved in the signification of the sabbatical rest, which is pointed out in Exodus 20:11, and reaches forward into eternity.

Exodus 32:5 Parallel Commentaries

Aaron

1 Samuel 14:35 And Saul built an altar to the LORD: the same was the first altar that he built to the LORD.

2 Kings 16:11 And Urijah the priest built an altar according to all that king Ahaz had sent from Damascus...

Hosea 8:11,14 Because Ephraim has made many altars to sin, altars shall be to him to sin...

made proclamation

Leviticus 23:2,4,21,37 Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, Concerning the feasts of the LORD, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations...

1 Kings 21:9 And she wrote in the letters, saying, Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people:

2 Kings 10:20 And Jehu said, Proclaim a solemn assembly for Baal. And they proclaimed it.

2 Chronicles 30:5 So they established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beersheba even to Dan...

a feast

Exodus 32:4 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a engraving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said...

Exodus 10:9 And Moses said, We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters...

Exodus 12:14 And this day shall be to you for a memorial; and you shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations...

1 Kings 12:32,33 And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like to the feast that is in Judah...

1 Corinthians 5:8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness...