Matthew Poole and continuators on Matthew 12:5

5 Or have ye not read in the Law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple prophane the sabbath, and are blameless.

Neither Mark nor Luke have this Argument of our Saviours. The meaning is: All Acts of Servile Labour, are not unlawful on the Sabbath day. The Priests according to the Law, Numb. 28.9. Offer Sacrifices, and do many other Acts, such as Circumcising, and many other things, which in your Sense would be a Prophanation of the Sabbath, yet you do not blame them, neither are they to be blamed, because God permitted. and directed them. If any say, but how doth this agree to what our Saviour is speaking to? An. the Disciples of Christ were imployed with, and by him in going about and Preaching the Gospel, and what they now did, was but in order to fit them for his Work, when they had not had such leisure as others, before hand to provide; and this Establisheth a second Rule, That Works of Piety, and tending to fit us for Acts of Piety, that cannot conveniently be done before, are lawful [illegible: 1 letter]n the Sabbath Day.

Marginal references: Joh. 7.22.