I was always taught that the word sabbath means rest.
The root derivations of sabbath are unclear; but as I noted, sabbath is associated with a specific day of the week. Which is unequivocally 'Saturday' as evidenced by the Greek translation and the fact that when looking at a weekly calendar, Saturday is the last day of the week; from left to right, the week starts on Sunday and ends on Saturday.
Thus, if one is commanded or even encouraged to rest one day a week, it can be a day of ones choosing.
If you look at the commandment, it states the following:
quote:
"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy"
That to me indicates that god is referencing a specific day and asking people to keep that day holy. More details in Exodus are as follows:
quote:
"Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."
I don't see any interpretations indicating that the day is variable. It seems to be stipulating that a
specific day is honored as the sabbath.
And therein lies my point: if a book is so vague and open to interpretation, then how can it be a viable source of any ethical or moral standards? Even the commandments themselves are vague.