Then Jesus added, “The Sabbath was made for people, and not people for the Sabbath;
sabbath is a sharing
a partnership
a time pause
an evaluationsabbath stands outside
ready to receive
a perspective
a resultsabbath is found
by G*D for G*D
by us for us
by me for mesabbath was not created
for purpose
for exploitation
for anythingsabbath is present
every seventh second
seventh decade
seventh era
Around we go. This is a good place to remind ourselves of the mystery of speaking multiple languages. A Translator’s Handbook on the Gospel of Mark by Robert G. Bratcher and Eugene A. Nida reports:
Such aphoristic expressions as occur in this verse are almost always difficult to translate because of (1) their shortness (much is left implicit), (2) the double meanings of words involved (it is one thing to speak of man being ‘made’, but for ‘a sabbath to be made’ is often quite a different matter), and (3) the somewhat tenuous relationship to the context. In this instance the context assists materially in the understanding of the passage, but this is not always true, and even in this instance what is evident to the translator may not be equally clear to the reader.
The Handbook was copyrighted in the United Kingdom in 1961. Translation relies upon time as well as conventions. Here the spelling is “sabbath” which today’s spell-checkers automatically change to “Sabbath”. Such a small question of jots-and-tittles brings a different feel to the relationship of “Sabbath” and “humans”. In some ways it would be much easier to read if the capitalization were “sabbath” and “Humans”.
Now we are beginning to step into the whole divine human (θεῖος ἀνήρ – theios aner) or G*D Partner or theosis drive which doesn’t fit particularly well with Mark but was alive and well in his era and has advocates in this time.
Given all the connections to this point about healing, exorcism, and teaching that occur on an important religious day—Sabbath—this question of Human/sabbath relationship is one that does call out for clarification.