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The Sabbath Breakers
Read the cited context and compare 8 documented textual points.
Comparison 31 of 34
The Sabbath Breakers
The two accounts at a glance
Bible
World English BibleNo direct Bible account
The Bible contains Sabbath laws and violations but no account of Sabbath violators transformed into apes.
Qur'an
Sahih InternationalA seaside town is tested by a recurring Sabbath fish pattern; after people transgress the Sabbath, they are told, “Be apes, despised.” The precise prohibited act is not stated.
These are concise account summaries with exact references. Open the complete texts at these passages →
8 documented comparison points
The comparison reads the Torah’s Sabbath commands and narrated violations alongside Q 2’s brief Sabbath-breaker punishment and Q 7’s seaside-town account. Labels use one standard: agreement means both texts state the point; additional detail means one adds a non-conflicting detail; omission means one is silent; ambiguity means an identity or meaning is not explicit; contradiction means both texts state mutually exclusive claims. Stylistic wording alone is not counted.
The setting of the violation
Numbers narrates a man gathering sticks in the wilderness; Nehemiah later confronts commerce at Jerusalem's gates.
A seaside town is tested when fish appear visibly on the Sabbath but not on other days; the town is unnamed.
The prohibited act
The narrated wilderness offender gathers sticks on the Sabbath. Other laws prohibit work, travel for manna, and commerce.
Fish appear visibly on the Sabbath and not on other days, and the people transgress the Sabbath; the precise prohibited act or trapping method is not stated.
Three responses within the town
The stick-gathering account distinguishes the offender, witnesses, Moses, Aaron, congregation, and God but not three moral factions debating admonition.
One group transgresses, one warns them, and another asks why the warners admonish people God will punish.
The warning dialogue
The Torah case is held in custody until God states the sentence; no debate about whether warning is useful is recorded.
The warners say they admonish as an excuse before God and in hope the offenders may fear Him.
The sentence for Sabbath violation
The stick-gatherer is stoned to death outside the camp by the congregation.
The transgressors are commanded to become despised apes; no communal stoning is narrated.
Transformation into apes
No Sabbath offender in the Bible is transformed into an ape.
The offenders become or are told to be apes, abject and rejected.
Who is saved from punishment
The Numbers offender alone is executed; the narrative does not describe a whole town or a saved admonishing faction.
Those who forbid evil are saved, while those who wrong are seized with punishment; the fate of the silent group is not explicitly resolved in Q 7.
How the punishment functions afterward
The Sabbath is a covenant sign and memorial of creation and exodus, but the offender's death is not called a cautionary example for neighboring generations.
The transformation is made an example to contemporaries and later generations and a lesson for the God-fearing.
What do both texts share?
No direct Bible account is identified for this topic. It is included so readers can distinguish a Qur'an-only narrative from a shared story.