Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a sabbath of rest to the LORD: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death.
On the seventh day ... a sabbath of rest ... whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death. The violation of the rest of the Sabbath was not only an act of impious audacity against the Creator, but of direct rebellion against the theocratic Sovereign of Israel. It is as a breach of the civil law of the kingdom that the infringement of sabbatic rest is here proclaimed a capital crime.