Moses spoke of the Children of Israel keeping the Sabbath for a “perpetual covenant” (Exodus 31:16). This sounds permanent. But the term ‘perpetual’ is from the Hebrew olam, meaning an age, an indefinite time, and is the term used in Exodus 29:9, when the High Priest’s office is given to Aaron and his sons for a perpetual (olam) statute.

Under this statute, the High Priest was the one and only mediator, taking the blood of the sacrifice into the Mercy Seat in the Tabernacle, and later, in the Temple, on the Day of Atonement. But this office ceased with the death of Yahusha/Jesus and the rending of the Temple veil, and the establishment of the new and living way which Jesus "consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh" (Hebrew 10:20). The perpetual covenant of the weekly Sabbath finished at that moment.