Sabbath day's journey

A Sabbath day's journey was the maximum distance that Jewish tradition permitted a person to walk on the Sabbath without violating the law's prohibition against work. Based on a combination of Exodus 16:29 ("let no one go out of his place on the seventh day") and Numbers 35:5 (which set 2,000 cubits as the pastureland around a Levitical city), the rabbis fixed the Sabbath limit at 2,000 cubits — approximately 3,000 feet or just under half a mile. Acts 1:12 uses this measure to describe the distance from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem: "a Sabbath day's journey away." This measurement had no explicit Mosaic authority but was developed by scribal interpretation to provide a practical rule. It could be extended by an eruv (literally "mixing"), a legal device by which depositing food at the 2,000-cubit boundary created a fictive "home," permitting travel an additional 2,000 cubits beyond. Jesus' disciples observed the Sabbath following the crucifixion without attempting to visit the tomb until Sunday (Luke 23:56).