Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G MessageThey held him in custody, because it was not yet clear what should be done to him.
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.GThey held him in custody, because it had not been made clear what was to be done to him.
KJV
King James VersionAnd they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him.
BSB
Berean Standard Bibleand because it had not been declared what should be done to him, they placed him in custody.
Footnotes
The editorial note that the community did not know what was to be done is puzzling, since Exodus 31:15 had already declared the death penalty for Shabbat violation. Commentators have proposed several readings: perhaps the specific mode of execution (stoning) had not yet been specified; perhaps there was genuine uncertainty about whether gathering sticks constituted prohibited labour in the relevant sense; or perhaps the text is modelling that even capital cases required direct divine adjudication rather than communal assumption. Most significantly, this episode is placed immediately after the *beyad ramah* passage (vv. 30–31), functioning as a concrete narrative case study in deliberate covenant defiance—the raising of a hand against YHWH's explicit Shabbat command. The text does not call the man's action a *shegagah*; the context implies wilful violation. Both translations render this straightforwardly; the theological weight lies entirely in the structural juxtaposition.
