“Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
The call ‘come (deute) to Me' made to those who are labouring can be compared with Isaiah 55:3, where it is God Who speaks, and the aim there is that men might enjoy the life of the new age by entering into the everlasting Davidic covenant with Him. Here then is a call to men by the son of David to enter into covenant with Him, the covenant concerning which more detail will be given later (Matthew 26:28). But here it goes further for we have already been told that it is Jesus who make know to those who come to Him the truth about the Father (Matthew 11:27). Thus He is calling men to come and learn from Him.
This is similar to His words in John 7:37, ‘if any man thirst, let Him come to Me and drink' where the idea is of drinking of the Spirit. For the idea of ‘coming to Him' compare John 6:37, ‘all whom the Father gives to Me will come to Me', tying in with the idea that they will come because the Father has revealed to them His truth (Matthew 11:25).
‘Those who labour and are heavy laden.' This may well refer to those who are labouring (or weary) and heavy laden under the requirements and the burden of the Law, the yoke of the Law (contrast Matthew 11:27). For elsewhere we are told that heavy burdens are laid on men by the Scribes (Matthew 23:4; Luke 11:46), who in Jewish tradition are said to put on men the yoke of the Law. Compare Sir 51:26 which says, ‘Put your neck under the yoke, and let your soul receive instruction' (the yoke of the Torah. Compare Acts 15:10; Galatians 5:1 where the same thing was being done by the Judaisers). In chapter 12 these burdens are illustrated in two ways. Notice the double reference to ‘it is not lawful' (Matthew 12:2; Matthew 12:10). Regularly in his life a Jew seeking to live rightly would hear the stern words, ‘it is not lawful', and would discover yet another commandment that he had not known a bout. It was a warning. If he breached that warning he would be punished, But we need not limit Jesus' words to that kind of burden. For Jesus has the solution to all men's heavy weights and burdens of whatever kind (compare Galatians 6:2 where Christians are to bear one another's burdens and so fulfil the Law of Christ).
‘I will give you rest (anapauso).' Jesus may here have in mind creation, when God rested (katapauso) from His work, as expanded in the rest offered to all men through the Sabbath (from weary labour) when He said ‘you shall do no manner of work' (Exodus 20:10). The Sabbath (rest) was often translated as ‘anapausis' (see e.g. Exodus 16:23; Exodus 23:12). Such a rest was a theme in Isaiah (Isaiah 28:12; Isaiah 30:15) where the idea was of resting on the faithfulness of God which would bring them through to lives of peace and rest. In Isaiah 11:10 the nations will look to the root of Jesse (David's father) and he will offer glorious rest (LXX anapausis). In Isaiah 32:17 it is righteousness deliverance that brings rest. In contrast the wicked who are like the troubled sea find no rest (Isaiah 57:20).
In Hebrews 3-4 Israel in the wilderness wanderings are seen as an example of those who did not find rest (katapausis). They were unable to enter into his rest (into Canaan) because of unbelief (Hebrews 3:19 compare Psalms 95:11 - katapausis in LXX). But those who believe enter into rest (Hebrews 4:2) which is connected with God's rest in creation, ‘there remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God' (Hebrews 4:9). And the one who enters into that rest (katapausis) has himself rested from his works as God did from His (Hebrews 4:10).
Thus Jesus may well here be indicating entering into a spiritual Sabbath rest, a rest from labour and being heavy laden. This again ties in with Matthew 12:1-16 where Jesus relieves the burden of the Law by reversing the edicts of the traditions of the elders, and making the Sabbath a more genuine rest without it being a burden.