The Source for the 39 Melachos of Shabbos
Parsha Pages | March 21, 2025
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The Source for the 39 Melachos of Shabbos

Parsha Pages | June 27, 2025

Introduction: 39 Melachos – A Number set in Stone

Rabbinic literature takes it as a given that there are 39 forms of melacha (work) prohibited on Shabbos. The number 39—forty minus one in the Mishna’s parlance—appears set in stone. This is clear from even a cursory glance at all of the Rabbinic passages dealing with the forms of melacha forbidden on Shabbos, whether in the Mishna, the midrashei halacha, and the two Talmudim.[1] In many cases, the Rabbis force any accepted form of melacha into the rubric of 39 melachos. To keep the list to the proper number, they include some and exclude others, they cover more than one type of work under a single name[2] or in one overarching category,[3] or they separate similar forms into different categories.[4] In the end, the sum always ends up equaling the preexisting correct number, 39.

A passage in the Jerusalem Talmud (Shabbos 7:2) takes this to the next level. Rabbi Yochanan and R. Shimon ben Lakish spend three and a half years, according to this passage, studying the Mishna about the 39 melachos, and they end up deriving 39 subcategories (toladot) for each one of the 39 categories of melacha. Whenever they were able to associate a subcategory of melacha with one of the categories they did so; whenever they couldn’t, they would place it under the category of “striking with a hammer” (the rabbinic term for completing work, which functions as a catch-all in halacha).

Traditional Solutions

Counting the Appearances of the Term “Melacha”

R. Shimon b’ Rabbi Yossi ben Lakunya (b. Shabbos 49b) suggests that the number 39 can be derived from the number of times the various forms of the word “melacha” (מלאכה/מלאכתו/מלאכת) appear in the Torah.

This sounds like a good suggestion, until you actually count the appearances of this term. Abraham Heller, the son of the famous R. Yom Tov Lipman Heller (1578-1654), did just that, using a concordance, and questioned his father about this (see Tosafos Yom Tov on m. Shabbos 7:2).[5] In fact, this problem was noted more than a millennium ago by Rabbeinu Chananel (990-1053) and in his footsteps, Ra’avan, Ramban, and Rashba—this word appears 61 times in the Torah, not 39! (The number is actually 63, using these three terms. If we include מלאכתך, which appears twice in the Ten Commandments, we get 65.) Considering this, how are we to understand the continuation of this Talmudic passage:

Rabbah bar bar Chana said in the name of R. Yohanan: “They didn’t move from their places until someone brought in a Torah scroll and they counted the instances.”

Is it possible that they actually counted but didn’t realize that the correct number was 63 and not 39?! Could they have been that far off? Did they only count some of them? If so, which ones and why?

R. Chananel answered this question in his own way, by suggesting reasons to count some and not others and subtracting the extras. The approach feels very ad hoc, and is difficult to accept as the origin for a midrash. Other commentaries offered similar answers to this question. Each further answer, as nice and interesting as it may be, only strengthens the question: How did we get a set number about whose origin we have no idea, and whose exact breakdown (i.e. deciding which 39 forms of melacha are the 39) can be determined in a myriad of ways?

The Talmud’s Uncertainty about which Words to Count

Furthermore, the Talmudic passage expresses ambivalence about two examples in particular. The first verse describes Joseph (Gen. 39:11), “he came home to do his business (מלאכתו).” The Talmud is unsure whether to translate that literally as “his job” or figuratively as “fulfill his needs” (i.e. a liaison with Potiphar’s wife.) The second verse describes the building of the Tabernacle (Exod. 36:7), “and their materials (מלאכה ) was sufficient for all the work (מלאכה) they needed to do, and then some.” The first instance of the word refers to the materials they gathered, the materials with which they did the work.

After discussing the question, the Talmud decides that it is unsure which of the two usages counts as one of the 39. Now there are quite a number of uses of the word melacha in the Torah, which are not counted in the list of 39 for whatever reason, but which would have been much more reasonable to consider counting than either of these two examples. Why were these two chosen to be included in the count of the 39? Furthermore, if the Talmud decides to explain why one of these doesn’t count, what about explaining all the others that it doesn’t count?

Investigating further

Perhaps the original midrash only counted two forms of the word, but not the two in that variant. What do we get if we count only the forms מלאכה and מלאכתו but ignore “מלאכת”? (This makes sense, since this last form generally appears in the context of Yom Tov and not Shabbos anyway.) The number we get is 40!

There are still some problems with the derasha itself. First, the midrash ends up counting occurrences of the first two forms, even when the usage has nothing to do with Shabbos or the Tabernacle, but ends up ignoring instances of the third form, even when it occurs in the context of Shabbos or the Tabernacle. Second, it seems more than a little coincidental that there is ambivalence about the fortieth instance. Both of these problems suggest that this darshan may have been working with a preconceived number, and then fit his derasha to match it. If this is correct, then we still need to be looking for where this number came from and how the number 39 became set in stone.

An Alternative Approach: Using Gematria

The Jerusalem Talmud contains a pair of derashos that derive the number 39 from gematria. The first is the suggestion of R. Chanina of Sepphoris (j. Shabbos 7:2). He bases the derasha upon the gematria (numerical value) of the phrase (Shmos 35,1), “these are the things (אלה הדברים).” “Things” is plural, so that equals 2. “The things,” with the addition of the definite article, equals 3. The word “these (אלה)” has a numerical value of 36 (alef = 1, lamed = 30, hey = 5). 36 from “אלה”+ 3 from “הדברים” = 39 melachos.[6]

I can’t help but ask, does the use of the phrase “these are the things” at the opening of the Sinai Revelation account (Exod. 19:6) or in the opening of Deuteronomy (1:1) mean that there are 39 things there as well? That is what the gematria should imply! Rather it seems clear that the baraisa begins with the number and finds the gematria.

An even more forced interpretation than the above is that of the Rabbis of Caesaria that comes as a response to R. Chanina of Sepphoris. They say that there is no need to use the extra 3 from “the things.” Instead, they say that the word אלה itself can be given a gematria of 39 since, following the Galilean pronunciation, the hey can be considered a ches. (In the Galilee, during the Talmudic period, all the gutturals were pronounced in the same manner.) Since the gematria of chet is 8, the missing 3 is made up and the number 39 reached. The Talmud then states that, “Rabbis don’t avoid treating hey like ches in derashos.”

Original Approach by Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun

“These are the things” – Rabbi [Yehudah haNasi] says: “This comes to include 39 forms of melacha, about which Moses informed them by word of mouth.”

The meaning of this is as follows: The list of 39 items of service in the Tabernacle is introduced by the phrase “this is the thing G-d commanded” (35:4) and concludes with the phrase “and every person wise of heart shall come and do that which G-d commanded” (35:10). A similar phrase introduces the reference to Shabbos at the beginning of the chapter, “these are the things that G-d commanded to do...” (35:1), “anyone who does melacha on [Shabbos] shall be executed” (35:2). Rabbi [Yehudah haNasi] is saying that this similar phrasing in introductory comments hints to a corollary (oral) list, which would explain what exactly the Israelites were forbidden to do on Shabbos. This unwritten list deals with the forms of melacha on Shabbos.

In other words, just as Moshe listed 39 specific items of Tabernacle service for the Israelites, he listed 39 parallel forms of melacha that are forbidden on Shabbos. The former Moshe recorded in the Torah, while the latter he reported on orally.[7]

R. Yossi ben Chanina said: “The Torah does not say here ‘this is the thing’ [though this is the phrase used in 35:4] but rather ‘these are the things’ – ‘thing’ ‘things’ ‘the things,’ from here we learn there are categories (avos) and sub-categories (toldos).

This is what he means: There is a parallel between the 39 forms of service in the list following the words “this is the thing” in the command to build the Tabernacle, and there are 39 categories of forbidden labor on Shabbos, according to the derasha of Rabbi [Yehudah haNasi]. Taking these two assumptions as his point of departure, he believes we should make further deduction from the fact that the Torah used a singular phrase in one instance (“this is the thing”) and a plural phrase in the other (“these are the things”) that on Shabbos there are many more forms of labor than just 39. Thus, the 39 are just the categories (avos), under which there are many subcategories (toldos).

The Tabernacle and its Furnishings

Here are the two lists of Tabernacle items that were created as they appear in the Torah. Note that although the lists are similar and have the same number of components, their order is quite different and some of the individual components differ as well.

Vayakhel (35:11-19)

  • The Tabernacle
  • its tents
  • and its coverings
  • its clasps
  • and its planks
  • its bars
  • its posts
  • and its sockets
  • the ark
  • and its poles
  • the cover
  • and the curtain for the screen
  • the table
  • and its poles
  • and all its utensils
  • and the bread of display
  • the lampstand for lighting
  • its furnishings
  • and its lamps

Pekudei (29:33-41)

  • They brought the Tabernacle to Moses with the tent
  • and all its furnishings
  • its clasps
  • its planks
  • its bars
  • its posts
  • and its sockets
  • the covering of tanned ram skins
  • the covering of tachash skins
  • and the curtain for the screen
  • the Ark of the Pact
  • and its poles
  • and the cover
  • the table
  • and all its utensils
  • and the bread of display
  • the pure lampstand
  • its lamps—lamps in due order

Introduction: 39 Melachos – A Number set in Stone

Rabbinic literature takes it as a given that there are 39 forms of melacha (work) prohibited on Shabbos. The number 39—forty minus one in the Mishna’s parlance—appears set in stone. This is clear from even a cursory glance at all of the Rabbinic passages dealing with the forms of melacha forbidden on Shabbos, whether in the Mishna, the midrashei halacha, and the two Talmudim.[1] In many cases, the Rabbis force any accepted form of melacha into the rubric of 39 melachos. To keep the list to the proper number, they include some and exclude others, they cover more than one type of work under a single name[2] or in one overarching category,[3] or they separate similar forms into different categories.[4] In the end, the sum always ends up equaling the preexisting correct number, 39.

A passage in the Jerusalem Talmud (Shabbos 7:2) takes this to the next level. Rabbi Yochanan and R. Shimon ben Lakish spend three and a half years, according to this passage, studying the Mishna about the 39 melachos, and they end up deriving 39 subcategories (toladot) for each one of the 39 categories of melacha. Whenever they were able to associate a subcategory of melacha with one of the categories they did so; whenever they couldn’t, they would place it under the category of “striking with a hammer” (the rabbinic term for completing work, which functions as a catch-all in halacha).

Traditional Solutions

Counting the Appearances of the Term “Melacha”

R. Shimon b’ Rabbi Yossi ben Lakunya (b. Shabbos 49b) suggests that the number 39 can be derived from the number of times the various forms of the word “melacha” (מלאכה/מלאכתו/מלאכת) appear in the Torah.

This sounds like a good suggestion, until you actually count the appearances of this term. Abraham Heller, the son of the famous R. Yom Tov Lipman Heller (1578-1654), did just that, using a concordance, and questioned his father about this (see Tosafos Yom Tov on m. Shabbos 7:2).[5] In fact, this problem was noted more than a millennium ago by Rabbeinu Chananel (990-1053) and in his footsteps, Ra’avan, Ramban, and Rashba—this word appears 61 times in the Torah, not 39! (The number is actually 63, using these three terms. If we include מלאכתך, which appears twice in the Ten Commandments, we get 65.) Considering this, how are we to understand the continuation of this Talmudic passage:

Rabbah bar bar Chana said in the name of R. Yohanan: “They didn’t move from their places until someone brought in a Torah scroll and they counted the instances.”

Is it possible that they actually counted but didn’t realize that the correct number was 63 and not 39?! Could they have been that far off? Did they only count some of them? If so, which ones and why?

R. Chananel answered this question in his own way, by suggesting reasons to count some and not others and subtracting the extras. The approach feels very ad hoc, and is difficult to accept as the origin for a midrash. Other commentaries offered similar answers to this question. Each further answer, as nice and interesting as it may be, only strengthens the question: How did we get a set number about whose origin we have no idea, and whose exact breakdown (i.e. deciding which 39 forms of melacha are the 39) can be determined in a myriad of ways?

The Talmud’s Uncertainty about which Words to Count

Furthermore, the Talmudic passage expresses ambivalence about two examples in particular. The first verse describes Joseph (Gen. 39:11), “he came home to do his business (מלאכתו).” The Talmud is unsure whether to translate that literally as “his job” or figuratively as “fulfill his needs” (i.e. a liaison with Potiphar’s wife.) The second verse describes the building of the Tabernacle (Exod. 36:7), “and their materials (מלאכה ) was sufficient for all the work (מלאכה) they needed to do, and then some.” The first instance of the word refers to the materials they gathered, the materials with which they did the work.

After discussing the question, the Talmud decides that it is unsure which of the two usages counts as one of the 39. Now there are quite a number of uses of the word melacha in the Torah, which are not counted in the list of 39 for whatever reason, but which would have been much more reasonable to consider counting than either of these two examples. Why were these two chosen to be included in the count of the 39? Furthermore, if the Talmud decides to explain why one of these doesn’t count, what about explaining all the others that it doesn’t count?

Investigating further

Perhaps the original midrash only counted two forms of the word, but not the two in that variant. What do we get if we count only the forms מלאכה and מלאכתו but ignore “מלאכת”? (This makes sense, since this last form generally appears in the context of Yom Tov and not Shabbos anyway.) The number we get is 40!

There are still some problems with the derasha itself. First, the midrash ends up counting occurrences of the first two forms, even when the usage has nothing to do with Shabbos or the Tabernacle, but ends up ignoring instances of the third form, even when it occurs in the context of Shabbos or the Tabernacle. Second, it seems more than a little coincidental that there is ambivalence about the fortieth instance. Both of these problems suggest that this darshan may have been working with a preconceived number, and then fit his derasha to match it. If this is correct, then we still need to be looking for where this number came from and how the number 39 became set in stone.

An Alternative Approach: Using Gematria

The Jerusalem Talmud contains a pair of derashos that derive the number 39 from gematria. The first is the suggestion of R. Chanina of Sepphoris (j. Shabbos 7:2). He bases the derasha upon the gematria (numerical value) of the phrase (Shmos 35,1), “these are the things (אלה הדברים).” “Things” is plural, so that equals 2. “The things,” with the addition of the definite article, equals 3. The word “these (אלה)” has a numerical value of 36 (alef = 1, lamed = 30, hey = 5). 36 from “אלה”+ 3 from “הדברים” = 39 melachos.[6]

I can’t help but ask, does the use of the phrase “these are the things” at the opening of the Sinai Revelation account (Exod. 19:6) or in the opening of Deuteronomy (1:1) mean that there are 39 things there as well? That is what the gematria should imply! Rather it seems clear that the baraisa begins with the number and finds the gematria.

An even more forced interpretation than the above is that of the Rabbis of Caesaria that comes as a response to R. Chanina of Sepphoris. They say that there is no need to use the extra 3 from “the things.” Instead, they say that the word אלה itself can be given a gematria of 39 since, following the Galilean pronunciation, the hey can be considered a ches. (In the Galilee, during the Talmudic period, all the gutturals were pronounced in the same manner.) Since the gematria of chet is 8, the missing 3 is made up and the number 39 reached. The Talmud then states that, “Rabbis don’t avoid treating hey like ches in derashos.”

Original Approach by Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun

“These are the things” – Rabbi [Yehudah haNasi] says: “This comes to include 39 forms of melacha, about which Moses informed them by word of mouth.”

The meaning of this is as follows: The list of 39 items of service in the Tabernacle is introduced by the phrase “this is the thing G-d commanded” (35:4) and concludes with the phrase “and every person wise of heart shall come and do that which G-d commanded” (35:10). A similar phrase introduces the reference to Shabbos at the beginning of the chapter, “these are the things that G-d commanded to do...” (35:1), “anyone who does melacha on [Shabbos] shall be executed” (35:2). Rabbi [Yehudah haNasi] is saying that this similar phrasing in introductory comments hints to a corollary (oral) list, which would explain what exactly the Israelites were forbidden to do on Shabbos. This unwritten list deals with the forms of melacha on Shabbos.

In other words, just as Moshe listed 39 specific items of Tabernacle service for the Israelites, he listed 39 parallel forms of melacha that are forbidden on Shabbos. The former Moshe recorded in the Torah, while the latter he reported on orally.[7]

R. Yossi ben Chanina said: “The Torah does not say here ‘this is the thing’ [though this is the phrase used in 35:4] but rather ‘these are the things’ – ‘thing’ ‘things’ ‘the things,’ from here we learn there are categories (avos) and sub-categories (toldos).

This is what he means: There is a parallel between the 39 forms of service in the list following the words “this is the thing” in the command to build the Tabernacle, and there are 39 categories of forbidden labor on Shabbos, according to the derasha of Rabbi [Yehudah haNasi]. Taking these two assumptions as his point of departure, he believes we should make further deduction from the fact that the Torah used a singular phrase in one instance (“this is the thing”) and a plural phrase in the other (“these are the things”) that on Shabbos there are many more forms of labor than just 39. Thus, the 39 are just the categories (avos), under which there are many subcategories (toldos).

The Tabernacle and its Furnishings

Here are the two lists of Tabernacle items that were created as they appear in the Torah. Note that although the lists are similar and have the same number of components, their order is quite different and some of the individual components differ as well.

Vayakhel (35:11-19)

  • The Tabernacle
  • its tents
  • and its coverings
  • its clasps
  • and its planks
  • its bars
  • its posts
  • and its sockets
  • the ark
  • and its poles
  • the cover
  • and the curtain for the screen
  • the table
  • and its poles
  • and all its utensils
  • and the bread of display
  • the lampstand for lighting
  • its furnishings
  • and its lamps

Pekudei (29:33-41)

  • They brought the Tabernacle to Moses with the tent
  • and all its furnishings
  • its clasps
  • its planks
  • its bars
  • its posts
  • and its sockets
  • the covering of tanned ram skins
  • the covering of tachash skins
  • and the curtain for the screen
  • the Ark of the Pact
  • and its poles
  • and the cover
  • the table
  • and all its utensils
  • and the bread of display
  • the pure lampstand
  • its lamps—lamps in due order
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Parsha Pages | March 21, 2025