James Trimm’s Nazarene Commentary on Mark Chapter 2
2:27-28
27 And He said to them: The Sabbath was made for a son of man, and not a son of man for the Sabbath.
28 Thus also, the Son of Man is the Adonai of the Sabbath.
(Mark 2:27 HRV)
A similar saying is given in the Talmud by Rabbi Jonathan ben Joseph, citing the Scriptural basis:
R. Jonathan b. Joseph said: For it is holy unto you (Ex. 30:22; 31:14); I.e., it [the Sabbath] is committed to your hands, not you to its hands.
(b.Yoma 85b)
Since the Sabbath is holy to us (Ex. 30:22; 31:14), and not vice versa, the Sabbath was committed to our hands, and was made for us, not vice versa. Likewise we are told that the Jubilee year is “holy to you” (Lev. 25:12) and so we can make the generalization that the Torah is to be holy to us, and thus that the Torah in general was committed into our hands, and not we into its hands. We are not “under the Torah” but the Torah is prepositionally under us (See commentary to Rom. 6:14-15). This is the basis for Yeshua’s halacha on Sabbath based on Hosea 6:6. (See Commentary on Hosea 6:6 and Matthew 12:7)
The Sabbath was made for a son of man – The Sabbath was made for all sons of men, all mankind, not just for Israel, but for the Gentiles as well.
and not a son of man for the Sabbath. – This phrase is lacking in the Aramaic Old Syriac Siniatic manuscript, the only surviving witness to the Old Syriac version, but is found in the Aramaic Peshitta text.
Thus also, the Son of Man is the Adonai of the Sabbath. This passage may be understood in two different ways. The key is the definite article. If it is “the Son of Man” then it refers to the figure in Daniel 7:13 (see commentary on Daniel 7:13), i.e. the Messiah. However, if it is “a son of man” then it is a common Hebrew and Aramaic idiomatic expressions meaning “a human being, a mortal.” See commentary to Matthew 12:8 for a more detailed discussion of this issue.