John Gill Bible Commentary

Neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the sabbath day,.... Not of dirt and soil only, as some restrain the sense; but of any ware or merchandise, in order to be sold in the city or elsewhere: neither do ye any work; any servile work, any kind of manufacture, either within doors or without; or exercise any kind of trade, or barter and merchandise, or do any sort of worldly business; nothing but what was of mere necessity, for the preservation of life; see Exo 20:10; but hallow ye the sabbath day; or, "sanctify it" (b); by separating it from all worldly business, and devoting it to the worship of God in public and private, spending it wholly in acts of religion and piety: as I commanded your fathers; not Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; but those that came out of Egypt, to whom, and to their posterity after them, this commandment was enjoined, Exo 20:8; so that this was not a novel injunction, but what was commanded from the beginning of their civil and church state; from the time of their coming out of Egypt, and becoming a separate people and nation, under a theocracy, or the government of God himself; being chosen and set apart to be a special, peculiar, and holy people to himself, of which the sanctification of the sabbath was a sign; and was to be observed unto the Messiah's coming, the sum and substance of it, Col 2:16. (b) "sanctificate", Cocceius, Schmidt.