What Does Exodus 23:5 Mean?

"Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your Ox and your Donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed." The weekly Sabbath rest's complete inclusion, ox, donkey, the servant woman's son, the alien, is the Covenant Code's expansion of the Decalogue's Sabbath command (Exodus 20:10 which also lists "male servant, female servant, livestock, sojourner").

The four-fold inclusion of those who cannot independently rest (animals who must rest when their owners rest, servants who must rest when their masters rest, aliens who share the community's Sabbath) makes the Sabbath the covenant's most socially inclusive provision.

The animal-rest motivation, "that your ox and your donkey may have rest", is the covenant's animal-welfare component: the working animals that serve human productivity are included in the Sabbath's rest-provision. The animals do not need a theological understanding of the Sabbath; they simply need rest from labor, and the covenant provides it. The ox that plows all week and the donkey that carries loads all week share in the seventh-day relief from work. The animal-care dimension of the Sabbath is one of the covenant's most practically compassionate provisions: the covenant God cares for the work-animals as well as their owners.

The "alien may be refreshed" (yinnafesh hager, that the alien may take breath) is the Sabbath's most startling inclusion: even the foreigner living in Israel's community who does not participate in the covenant's religious obligations shares the Sabbath's rest-benefit. The Sabbath is Israel's gift to its community including the non-member: the entire community rests, regardless of covenant status. The "take breath" (nafash, to be refreshed/take a breath of relief) applied to the alien is the Sabbath's most humanizing expression: everyone who lives within the covenant community can breathe freely on the seventh day.