Matthew 12:1 – 8

1 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.

2 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!”

3 But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him:

4 how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?

5 Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless?

6 Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple.

7 But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.

8 For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

This is an event which happened on a Sabbath day as Jesus and His disciples traveled from one place to another.

They were walking through a field of wheat or barley, by the law given in (Deuteronomy 23:25) if they were hungry they could pull off some of the grain and eat it as they walked, but they could not use any harvesting tools, it had to be by hand. They did this as they traversed the field on the way to their destination.

The Pharisees are always looking for faults with either Jesus or His disciples. They could not accuse them of trespass or of stealing the grain because they knew the law mentioned. Evidently they could not accuse them of violating the Sabbath day's journey either or I am sure they would. So they accused them of violating the the Sabbath day by preparing their food as they walked, the Sabbath day's meals were supposed to be prepared the day before.

Jesus parries their accusation by bringing up David's actions in (1 Samuel 21). What David did broke the law, Jesus does not claim that because David broke the law, it is ok for His disciples to break the law also. The Pharisees for the most part are hypocrites, they are more than willing to accuse others of breaking the law, but are lax where their behavior falls. Jesus is exposing their hypocrisy because the Pharisees pretend to revel David and the other ancestors of theirs.

In 1 Samuel 21 it is recorded that while David was fleeing from King Saul, he and his men did not have food so he went to the priests at the tabernacle to ask for food. The only food they had was the showbread, but it was not the showbread which was on the table in the tabernacle, it was the previous batch which had been replaced by the fresh showbread. Even still it was supposed to be used by the priests, and not ordinary Jews. But it was an emergency as David's men did not have any food. The emergency allowed David and his men to eat.

In a sense Christ's disciples were also in an emergency state, away from their home and hungry, so it did not result in them breaking the sabbath law.

In verse 5 Jesus refers to actions by the priests in the temple which “profane” or make something holy into an ordinary secular use. The Sabbath day restricts the manual labor an individual can perform. But the priests have other laws which override the restrictions on manual labor on the Sabbath. Sacrifices are required on the Sabbath day (Numbers 28:9 – 10) and circumcision was done when needed regardless of what day of the week it was, even on the Sabbath. (John 7:22 – 23)

When emergencies or a positive command required manual work to be done on the Sabbath it does not require that the Sabbath day observance be kept.

The temple was holy, but Jesus was of greater importance as the Son of God, than the temple. Jesus and His disciples were of more importance than the sanctity of the sabbath day.

Jesus wants these Pharisees to regard the common people with mercy, they should not be charging them with baseless crimes against the law and then requiring sacrifices so that they can be made whole in the eyes of the priests, scribes, and Pharisees.

Jesus is the Son of Man in that He was born as a member of mankind, but He is also the only Son of God the Father. He was with the Father in all the works of creation (John 1:1 – 4) and in the issuing of all laws and commands for the conduct of mankind.

Because He was part of the Law making He is the Lord of the Sabbath, He has the authority to alter the laws if and when He sees fit to meet an emergency. Thus Jesus was within His rights during the incident in the field on the sabbath day.

In this passage the Pharisees accused the disciples of a sin which they did not commit, it was understood that emergencies were reason enough not to abide with the Sabbath observance. It was done by the priests in the temple. And their master is the Lord of the Sabbath, the One who wrote the law and has the right to excuse man from obeying the law if there is reason not to.